TURNABOUT (1940)
Article #1091 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-10-2004
Posting Date: 8-7-2004
Directed by Hal Roach
Featuring Adolphe Menjou, Carole Landis, John Hubbard

A constantly bickering married couple agree on only one thing, and that is that they wished they could switch places with each other. A mystical statue grants them their wish.

The Switcheroo theme is a fairly standard comic plot, even if it isn’t used that often. The basic plot is simple; two people switch places and live each other’s lives for twenty-four hours. They both discover how hard it is to be the other person and switch back, their lives changed by this very important lesson. That’s pretty much the plot of this one in a nutshell, but since the story is based on a novel by Thorne Smith (the man who gave us the stories for TOPPER, NIGHT LIFE OF THE GODS and I MARRIED A WITCH, among others), things are a hair more outrageous than the usual take on the theme. The movie gets a lot of comic mileage from the simple ruse that when they switch bodies, they do not switch voices (or wardrobes, for that matter), and must find excuses for the sounds of their voices. The movie is peopled with eccentric characters, bizarre situations (when the husband buys a Pekingese dog for his wife, it accidentally gets switched with a little bear), and some risque situations that must have worried the Hays office (this may be the first movie to feature a pregnant man). Even though the various Thorne Smith novels have been directed by different people, there are definite qualities of his that consistently shine through that I quite like. Though he stops short of anarchic comedy, you never really know how outrageous he is going to be from moment to moment, and there’s always a surprise around the corner. Other fun things in the movie include performances by Donald Meek as a butler who must deal with the changes in his employers, and Marjorie Main, whose commentaries on the action alternately remind me of ones you’d expect to hear from W. C. Fields or Groucho Marx. There’s also a relaxed but hilarious scene where Adolphe Menjou and William Gargan try to destroy a radio so they won’t have to hear the advertisements of the sponsor whose account they have lost.