Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Topper out of print?

TCM is showing Topper tonight at 11:15 PM, followed by Topper Takes a Trip at 1:00 AM, both in honor of Star of the Month Constance Bennett. (Bennett wasn't in the third movie, Topper Returns.) TCM's schedule page doesn't say anything about Topper or the sequel being available for purchase on DVD. Amazon, however, does have DVDs available, although none of them seem to be at the original list price.

The fact that there's a several years old DVD on sale at Amazon, with a selling price lower than the list price, is something that always leads me to believe that a movie got a DVD release at one time, but that the DVD is now out of print. That may or may not be the case for Topper, however. There are three or four different two-movie DVD sets, all of which have Topper and Topper Returns, but not Topper Takes a Trip. The reviews of them also suggest that the video quality is bad. Those are two signs that the two movies fell into the public domain at some point, which I suppose shouldn't be too surprising since they were made at Hal Roach Studios. But you'd think that if something fell into the public domain, it would still be in print.

Just a heads up for those of you who are interested in the Topper movies, especially Topper Takes a Trip.

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