Honolulu

Honolulu

MGM

February 3, 1939

Comedy, Musical, Romance

DVD
C+

A big old WTF of a movie, at times hilarious and charming but also racist and nonsensical, like one minute where we're watching Gracie Allen dressed as Mae West singing with men dressed as four Marx Brothers (with two Grouchos), and then the next Eleanor Powell is tap-dancing in blackface.  George & Gracie are in separate plot threads, with Robert Young as lookalikes, so they don't meet up until three minutes before the end.  And then Gracie has a twin sister!  Oh, and did I mention the straitjacket and Sig Ruman as a psychiatrist?  Edward Buzzell directed.

Topper Returns

Topper Returns
United Artists
March 21, 1941
Comedy, Fantasy
DVD
C-

While this has quite the early '40s cast, and the sets and costumes are impressive, I found it hard to care about the characters or the story.  And finding out that, after the obligatory first quarter-hour, the Joan Blondell character, the annoying, wisecracking but unfunny, gal-pal would be the ghost du jour, I'm glad I quit before getting in deeper.  This is loosely based on the Topper novel by then already "late" Thorne Smith.  Roy Del Ruth directed.