Rating: 
Summary: In Response to, "Disgusted Hal Roach Fan"
Review: The "Disgusted Hal Roach Fan" seems to be in his own tormented little world! I read his review prior to buying the Topper/Topper Returns video because I love this movie and had not seen it in a very long time. I thought, oh well, even if it is as bad as the "DHRF" said it was, at least I would get to see this movie again. My only explanation for the "DHRF" is that his sight isn't very good, he needs a new DVD player, or he just has an ax to grind against Artisan Video. The Topper video is crystal clear and the sound is great. If you like Cary Grant and want to see one of his earlier screwball comedies, this is a great DVD.
Rating:
Summary: In Response to, "Disgusted Hal Roach Fan"
Review: The "Disgusted Hal Roach Fan" seems to be in his own tormented little world! I read his review prior to buying the Topper/Topper Returns video because I love this movie and had not seen it in a very long time. I thought, oh well, even if it is as bad as the "DHRF" said it was, at least I would get to see this movie again. My only explanation for the "DHRF" is that his sight isn't very good, he needs a new DVD player, or he just has an ax to grind against Artisan Video. The Topper video is crystal clear and the sound is great. If you like Cary Grant and want to see one of his earlier screwball comedies, this is a great DVD.
Rating:
Summary: And Lo, the Worm turns....
Review: The ghosts of a carefree and madcap couple redeem themselves by "liberating" a stuffy, hen-pecked banker. Doesn't sound like much, does it? But with Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as the ghosts and Roland Young and Billie Burke as the banker and his wife, plus some of MGM's best stock character actors in support, you get a light and breezy comedy classic. For deft comedic touch you can't beat Grant and Bennett, for propriety coming undone and deadpan delivery that will surprise you, Roland Young is a master. Young is like John Cleese in that he can be funny even delivering straight lines, straight-faced. The film builds on its comedic premise expertly right up to a series of sequences in a hotel, with Eugene Pallete as the "house dick" and Arthur Lake as a befuddled bellboy that are hilarious. Alan Mowbray, as the butler, deserves special mention as well. Top flight comedy done by pros. This gets the five stars.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Topper Returns. An undistinguished typical 40's Old Dark House-style murder mystery with a lot of mugging by Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Dennis O'Keefe, Patsy Kelly and Joan Blondell as the ghost this time out. It benefits by having Roland Young and Billie Burke from the first film, but it has none of the efervescent fun of the first film, and the comedy is mostly tired comedy relief admidst the lame mystery. Reminded me of Red Skelton's "The Fox" films.
So you get a classic and a dud. Worth buying for the first film alone, and you may get something out of the second that I didn't. It's thrown in for free, so what the heck.
Rating: 
Summary: A ghost of a chance
Review: This crystal-clear Artisan translation brings to life the 1937 film about a repressed banker Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) who gets to live out his midlife crisis thanks to two fun-loving socialite ghosts (Cary Grant and Constance Bennett). The pacing is slow, but the film makes up for it in Young's delightfully droll performance as the banker, the quaint retro special effects and the delightfully depraved indifference to death. Billie Burke is hilarious as Topper's wife. The companion sequel, "Topper Returns," is a racist, insipid murder mystery featuring the bug-eyed Joan Blondell and Young.
Rating:
Summary: clear DVD from Artisan
Review: This is a good transfer indeed. I know Artisan is hit and miss. This DVD title is clear. The 1st Topper is always my favorite. Why? Cary Grant and Constance Bennett are in it. Wow she has a figure no man today would turn away. And I am a woman saying that. The second movie has the couple that play the Toppers. But Not the Kirbys. (No Grant and Bennett). he Kirby's haven't been re cast, they aren't in it. It is still an interresting movie though. A comedy/murder movie. At the price this DVD can be bought at it is a steal. A must get for your collection.
Rating:
Summary: tops for topper
Review: this is in my words is one of the best and funniest movies from the clasics, i first saw this movie when i was 10yrs old and am so glad they finnaly relesed it i owne it and laugh my butt off every time i watch it, now iam 37 i still enjoy it all you clasic buffs this is a must have
Rating: 
Summary: SAME OLD RECYCLED GARBAGE
Review: This quickie DVD release shows the contempt its current owners have for the brilliant output of the glory days of Hal Roach Studios. Did you expect a brand-new, sparkling digital transfer from the original nitrate materials?? Then don't bother--these are the old, original one-inch ANALOGUE transfers done in 1984 to be used for the first attempts at Colorization (check your old Nostalgia Merchant VHS tapes. It's the same transfer). Which means they're totally "flat", seriously visually decayed by age, and the soundtracks are as flat as the picture (soundtracks lose their dynamic range as they age in the vaults as the tape is wrapped against itself for years. This is caused by the diminishing "signal-to-noise ratio" as the analogue signal slowly fades away and its level becomes "closer" to the inherant noise of the process, which noise becomes ever more obvious). In fact, TOPPER may well be simply a copy of the original one-inch Colorized version of the film with the Color turned off. It's that bad. (Colorization by design was transferred totally "flat" with no highlights or real density variations--you'll see what I mean if you watch these epics in these black and white versions.) TOPPER RETURNS even has the old "Hal Roach Studios" logo at the top created in 1986 for the "new" Laurel and Hardy TV Show and has been unseen since. These source tapes have likely been beaten to death at VHS duplication labs for two decades and, when Artisan suddenly realized "Gee--we oughta throw this stuff out there at a cheap price. Someone will be stupid enough to buy it", they grabbed the first tape they fell over in the vaults and rushed it to market. And, they were right--I was stupid enough to buy it. ("Get me once, shame on you. Get me twice..." well, you know.) If these people have such nauseating contempt for the material and for the audience to do this to two minor classics which were made AFTER 1937 (on which multiple copies of excellent material still exists), one only cringes at the prospect of their releasing early 1930's Laurel and Hardy material in the near future (probably the same 1986 analogue masters they've been Colorizing and recycling for 17 years). Of course, if the other stuff looks this bad, it won't have to be released--it will escape on its own. What a horrid--if fully expected--disappointment.
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