Frothy!

Yesterday I watched the movie "Topper." It's a Cary Grant number about two mischievous ghosts who feel the "good deed" they must do to get into Heaven is to wreak havoc upon a man's life. But it's OK, the man never really objects to it, and even though there's kind of a creepy quality to the whole thing, especially when Cary Grant's ghostie wife Constance Bennett goes off to a hotel alone with the very alive Mr Topper, it was a fair little watch and throwaway movie.

But Cary and Constance were the kind of duo that lived in the movies in the 1930s. I don't know if this movie came before or after "The Thin Man," but I kept thinking they were a knockoff Nick and Nora Charles without the snappy repartee. You know, seriously rich, with no visible means of support, big cars, wear evening clothes nonstop, go to club after club dancing the night away. In other words, these people weren't friends of the Joads.

But I digress. I bought "Topper" during my VHS buying spree at some of the video stores around B'burg. So it came in its plastic case decorated with art from the movie on the front. And it's a cheery little cover, cartoon drawings of Cary and Constance, and art deco lettering, and it has the title and a few stars listed. Then in the bottom left hand corner is a little bonus, if you will. A little endorsement.

It says simply, "Frothy With Fun!"

Well, I don't know that this movie is actually Frothy With Fun. It's an OK little movie, but I didn't ever find myself thinking, "Man this film just froths with fun."

I can tell you what it was frothy with. It was Frothy With Drunk Driving is what it was frothy with! I mean for a movie about two young rich socialites killed in a car accident, this movie opened up with a completely bombed Cary Grant driving a car - with his feet. It doesn't get any better from there. I know in the 30s there wasn't much of an outcry against this, but it was a little telling that the time Cary chose to drive that eventually killed them both, he was probably least drunk of all. "See, folks? Had he been a little drunker, this tragic accident would never have happened."

I can tell you one other thing this movie was frothy with. It was Frothy With Hoagy Charmichael! The opening credits mentioned the movie would be featuring a brand new Hoagy song, "Old Man Moon," but what it didn't tell us is that when C & C enter a nightclub and hear the song for the first time, it's being playing by the Hoagmeister himself, sitting right there at the piano. Now that's frothy.

Actually, I'm thinking of stealing away "Frothy With Fun!" as the motto for Betland.