"Turnabout" is a moderately amusing comedy whose central premise a husband and wife are supernaturally put inside each other's bodies and she has to negotiate his work world while he has to endure the boredom of stay-at-home wifehood could have been the basis for a much better movie than we have. Producer-director Hal Roach had previously used the gimmick in a much funnier two-reeler starring Charley Chase, "Okay, Toots!," in 1935, and he got the plot of "Turnabout" from a novel by Thorne Smith, whose "Topper" stories had previously made him a lot of money. Though hampered by a low-voltage cast (the actors playing the couple, Carole Landis and John Hubbard, meant so little in 1940 Adolphe Menjou, in the supporting role of the husband's business partner, got top billing) and the fact that the movie is already almost half over before the actual turnabout occurs, it's still a nicely amusing comedy from a bunch of professionals who knew how to make people laugh but imagine how good it could have been with the "Topper" stars, Constance Bennett and Cary Grant, in the leads!
Review of Turnabout
