Turnabout

Turnabout
May 17, 1940
United Artists
Comedy, Fantasy
VHS
C+

Unlike most later body-switch comedies, this one also involves a gender swap, between a bickering married couple, the Willowses (John Hubbard and Carole Landis), with the assistance of their talking genie statue, Mr. Ram.  There's also a lumbering Great Dane, a bear cub, an advertising agency that uses surfboards, and the toughest-to-kill radio since Duck Soup.  Among the confused servants, business partners, and potential clients are Donald Meek, Marjorie Main, Adolphe Menjou (top billing), Mary Astor as his wife, and Franklin Pangborn as Mr. Pingboom.  Director Hal Roach's daughter plays a southern belle secretary with the biggest hat bow since probably 1910.

Unfortunately, in a different way than My Little Chickadee, the movie is never as much fun as it could be.  It is interesting though and, yes, there are moments of queer subtext, as when the wife is in the husband's body (still with her own voice) and befriends Mr. Pingboom.  As with the '50s sitcom plots of the husband and wife swapping chores for a day, the message is that the sexes are and should remain very different, although since the Willowses are upper-middle-class, Sally Willows and her friends are more like the women in The Women than like Lucy and Ethel.  But then, just when you think that order is restored, the movie delivers a surprisingly daring ending.  Pity the rest of the script wasn't that sharp.  It's based on a 1931 book by Thorne Smith (of Topper fame), which became a 1979 sitcom, with Sharon Gless!  She obviously went on to better things, but sadly Carole Landis committed suicide in 1948, due to boyfriend Rex Harrison refusing to divorce his wife.

Jack Rice was in Flying Down to Rio.  Carl M. Leviness was in At the Circus.  Jack Egan and William H. O'Brien would go on to Citizen Kane, George[s] Renavent (Mr. Ram) to Road to Zanzibar, and Kenner G. Kemp to Singin' in the Rain.  Buddy Messinger, who's an elevator boy here, would be one in Andy Hardy Meets Debutante and The Big Store, along with a bunch of movies I don't own.  (Talk about typecasting!)