Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) [Re-UP]

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Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) [Re-UP]

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Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) [Re-UP]

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The screwball comedy was an art form perfected in the 1930s in films like Frank Capra's "It Happened One Night" and Howard Hawks' "Bringing Up Baby." No one was better at it than Capra, who practically invented it, so it's no wonder his adaptation of Joseph Kesselring's black-comedy stage hit, "Arsenic and Old Lace," turned into the madcap charmer it is.

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Made in 1941, the film wasn't released until 1944 because the play was still running, which gives you some idea of the story's popularity. It is manic and sometimes frenzied in Capra's hands, but it never fails to entertain. With a cast headed by Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, and Josephine Hull, it's hard not to like.

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Owing to its stage origins, the story takes place during just one evening–appropriately, Halloween. Drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Grant), formerly a confirmed bachelor, has just gotten married and is popping into his aunts' house in a quiet Brooklyn neighborhood (next to a cemetery) to tell them the good news. The bad news for him is his discovery at that very moment that his dear, sweet, old maiden aunts are murderers! They've been poisoning lonely old men for years, a dozen of them now, who come to their house looking for an advertised room for rent. The ladies are doing the geezers a service, they say, by putting them out of their sad, solitary misery.

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What's more, their brother, who lives with them and thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, has been called upon to bury each of them in the cellar, convinced he's digging the Panama Canal and the bodies are yellow fever victims. If this weren't enough, Mortimer's older brother, Jonathan, chooses this night of all nights to return to the family home. Jonathan is nuttier than the lot, a homicidal maniac recently escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane. He, too, has a dozen murders to his credit and becomes outraged when he learns that his aunts have done just as well as he has without ever leaving the house. He brings with him his accomplice, Dr. Einstein, a plastic surgeon who operated on Jonathan's face while intoxicated and having seen the movie "Frankenstein." Jonathan now looks like Boris Karloff.

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All of this comes as a shock to Mortimer when he finds out. "Insanity runs in my family," he declares to his new bride. "It practically gallops!" Capra encourages Grant to gallop, too, which is undoubtedly the most controversial aspect of the film. As Mortimer, Grant mugs incessantly at the camera, does pratfalls and double-takes galore, and generally runs amuck like a chicken with its head cut off. Some of it will make you laugh; some of it will make you feel relieved when Grant is occasionally off the screen and the pace slows down.

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Priscilla Lane is Mortimer's long-suffering bride, Elaine Harper, daughter of the minister next door. She does her best with a throwaway part. The two old ladies, Abby and Martha Brewster, are played by Josephine Hull and Jean Adair, both on loan from the Broadway production. Ms. Hull would turn up in the similar role of a sweet old dear several years later in the movie "Harvey."

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Jonathan is played by Raymond Massey, a substitute for the real Boris Karloff who was starring in the stage play at the time and would not be released to do the film. The two ladies were expendable; Karloff wasn't. It's a shame not to see Karloff in the role that was created for him, but Massey is an acceptable replacement, dark, sinister, and menacing. Peter Lorre is a hoot as the weaselly Dr. Einstein, as are the rest of the fine supporting cast members: Jack Carson as Officer O'Hara; Edward Everett Horton as Dr. Witherspoon; James Gleason as Lt. Rooney; and John Alexander as the dotty Uncle Teddy, forever charging up the staircase thinking it's San Juan Hill and blowing his trumpet in the middle of the night.

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"Arsenic and Old Lace" is one of the staples of black comedy for stage and screen. Its movie adaptation under Capra is quite frenetic and may take some getting used to, though. If the director had let us breathe for longer stretches instead of maintaining a constantly feverish pace, it might have improved things. Still and all, it's funny as it is and qualifies as a genuine classic in spite of itself.

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Special Features:
- Theatrical trailer
- Cast & Crew