I'm way out of order in my coverage of Topper movies, but that's because I never even knew this one existed until a couple of months ago. Once I knew, I set my lovely TiVo to automatically record it if it should happen to air, and it was a pleasant surprise to see it pop up on my screen when it finally did record.

This Topper movie stars Roland Young as Cosmo Topper, as usual, and his wife is played by Billie Burke, as usual. Constance Bennett reprises her role as Marion Kerby, the woman whose ghost (along with her husband) got Mr. Topper into a lot of trouble in the first Topper movie when their company caused him to have such odd behavior that his wife almost left him. In this movie, Topper's wife is convinced by a female lawyer that she should get that divorce after all, so the only way they can get it is in France (those crazy 1930s!). She and the lawyer set off to France to get the divorce and a leech of a man who wants her money immediately starts courting her before the divorce proceedings have even gone through. Marion Kerby's ghost, which was supposed to be free to go to heaven at the end of the first movie, gets sent back to Mr. Topper because her work with him isn't done yet - she has to help save his marriage, and the two follow along to France, where they wreak havoc on the hotel where all of the action takes place.

I know it sounds nutty, but I like these Topper movies. The first movie was so focused on the "awe" of ghostly special effects that it could have better. This one did have a few problems with that (by the third movie, the special effects are just a bonus and not a main feature of the movie), and it also had a few looong flashbacks to the first movie. I would rate the first two Topper movies on about the same level, and the third takes the cake for me.

As usual, Roland Young and Billie Burke steal the show. Young's physical timing is perfect as he's jerked around by an invisible woman, and Burke is the epitome of being pleasantly oblivious and naive. Their performances are hilarious and very fun to watch. I'm glad I finally completed the Topper series, even if it took me a long time and I went out of order. I love the old fashioned comedies, so this was right up my alley.

With the war in Iraq escalating into a complex mix of insurgency, civil war, and sectarian fighting, I find myself increasingly confused about all the various groups involved. Fortunately, NPR has come to the rescue.

They are featuring a series of stories titled The Partisans of Ali, which attempts to explain the initial split between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and how the fighting between the groups has come to a head in Iraq today.

The most helpful segment I've heard so far is this one, which was also featured on NPR's World Story of the Day yesterday. It summarizes the major conflicts Iran and Iraq were involved in from 1979 to the present day.