Topper Returns (1941): watch the full film free, legally

Cosmo Topper enters the Carrington mansion

Topper Returns is a 1941 American supernatural comedy thriller directed by Roy Del Ruth. Joan Blondell, Roland Young, Carole Landis and Billie Burke star. It is the third and final film in the initial supernatural-comedy series inspired by the novels of Thorne Smith, following Topper (1937) and Topper Takes a Trip (1938).

Young again plays Cosmo Topper, a mousy banker whose ability to see and speak with ghosts repeatedly brings trouble. Burke plays his wife, Clara, who is baffled by his strange behavior. Blondell is Gail Richards, a murdered woman who turns to the reluctant Topper for help, while Landis plays Gail's friend Ann Carrington. Their investigation unfolds largely in a cliff-top mansion with eccentric residents, trapdoors and concealed passages.

A journey interrupted by danger

Wealthy heiress Ann and Gail begin the story in a speeding taxi on a coastal road. A black-clad, masked figure shoots out a rear tire, leaving the cab overturned near a cliff. The driver, Bob, goes for help, while the two women try to find a ride. After one car passes them and another driver crashes into a tree, they stop Cosmo Topper and his chauffeur, Eddie, by sitting on their suitcases in the road.

The pair take over Topper's sports car and demand a lift to the Carrington mansion next door to the Toppers' home. Gail ends up sitting on Cosmo's lap because the rear seat is crowded with luggage and Ann. Clara sees the car pass and is distressed by the sight. At the mansion, Ann and Gail are met by the butler Rama, housekeeper Lillian, another staff member, and the unsettling Dr. Jeris.

Ann learns that her father, Henry Carrington, is ill. She has been raised in the East and has no memory of him, having been separated from him after her mother and Carrington's business partner died in a mine cave. The following day is Ann's birthday, when her mother's will is meant to give her full control of the family fortune. A falling chandelier narrowly misses Ann, who then exchanges bedrooms with Gail after Gail admires the room assigned to her friend.

During the night, a secret panel opens and the black-clad figure enters Gail's room. Mistaken for Ann, Gail is killed. Her ghost leaves the mansion and seeks out Topper, threatening to create a scandal with Clara unless he accompanies her back to the house. Eddie drives them there without knowing that a ghost is present, but unexplained doors, voices, footprints and moving cushions soon terrify him.

With Ghost-Gail's guidance, Topper finds Gail's body and tries to call the police. The phone does not work. Dr. Jeris and the household staff corner Topper, and when he attempts to show them the body, it has vanished. A note apparently written by Gail says that she has gone away. Ann later sees the masked intruder reflected in a mirror, and Bob arrives in time to see the figure escape through a window.

Ghosts, locked rooms and confused police

Clara, her maid Emily and Eddie come to the mansion looking for Topper. Bob also returns to collect his unpaid taxi fare. Clara calls the police and mentions both her missing husband and a murder, bringing detective Roberts and a squad of officers into a house already crowded with suspects, servants and visitors. Roberts is confused by conflicting accounts and by Ghost-Gail's tricks.

Concealed stairways and rotating wall panels allow people to disappear and reappear throughout the mansion. Ghost-Gail presses Topper into hiding in the kitchen's walk-in refrigerator, then takes a pistol from detective Roberts and makes Topper lock the gathered group inside. She wants to find her body and establish that she was murdered. Bob eventually breaks the refrigerator door's window to free those inside, while danger continues to surround Ann.

Special-effects nominations and contemporary response

The film received Academy Award nominations for Best Special Effects, for Roy Seawright and Elmer Raguse, and Best Sound Recording, for Raguse. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 89% fresh rating from 9 reviews, with an average of 7/10. Variety said the film “begins to miss out when the story veers from its own premise to the level of a conventional mystery farce”.

The Topper television series premiered in 1953 and ran for two seasons. A pilot titled Topper Returns was made in 1973 for a proposed television series, and a made-for-television remake, Topper, followed in 1979.

Film details from the Wikipedia article “Topper Returns”. Text adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0.