Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Arsenic and Old Lace
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein from the play by Joseph Kesselring
1944/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Abby Brewster: Now, Mortimer, you know all about it and just forget about it. I do think that Aunt Martha and I have the right to our own little secrets.[/box]

I hate to say it but Cary Grant is way too frenetic for my tastes in this wacky comedy.  The supporting players are superb, however, and all in all its a good time.

Mortimer Brewster (Grant) is a drama critic and has also written a couple of books ranting against marriage.  So it’s slightly embarrassing when he falls in love with the girl (Priscilla Lane) who lives next door to the two maiden aunts who raised him, Martha (Jean Adair) and Abby (Josephine Hull).  His Uncle Teddy (John Alexander) lives with the sisters and believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt, frequently charging up “San Juan Hill” (the stairs), trumpet in hand, yelling “Charge!”  It’s a kooky family, but harmless, except for the insane psychopath Jonathan who left home years before.  Martha and Abby are sweet old ladies, known for their good works, and the favorites of the cops who walk the beat in their neighborhood.

Mortimer gets married on Halloween and returns home for a brief celebration.  Then all hell breaks loose.  He discovers a body in the window seat and learns that his aunts have been providing a service to elderly lonely hearts, a sort of mercy killing without any premonitions of death to mar the proceedings.  While Mortimer is coping with this new information, brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) suddenly reappears with a body of his own to dispose of.  He also plans to use the basement for some repair work by drunken plastic surgeon Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre), who botched his previous effort at disguising Jonathan’s face by making him look quite a lot like Frankenstein’s monster.  It gets zanier and zanier after that.  With Jack Carson as a policeman who writes bad plays on the side and Edward Everett Horton as the owner of an asylum.

Many in the cast were veterans of the long-running Broadway play and have their parts down cold.  I particularly like Massey and Lorre.  Lorre should have done more comedy.  His timing is great.  Grant overdoes it quite a lot I think, to an almost hysterical level.  I wonder that Capra didn’t calm him down but maybe this was what the director was looking for.

The movie was actually shot in late 1941 and early 1942 before Capra started his work with the Signal Corps.  Warners was contractually obligated to withhold release until the Broadway plan ended its run.  The producers of the play also refused to release Boris Karloff, who played Jonathan on stage, to work on the film.  I would have given anything to see Karloff in the part.

Trailer