Poor Mortimer Brewster. The man just wants to get married and go on his honeymoon! First, those reporters spot him at the marriage license office, and then when he finally gets home, there’s a body in the window seat! He tries to tell his aunts, but they put it there! Believe it or not, so starts Arsenic and Old Lace, and the ball keeps rolling. This is the yearly Halloween watching for my family, but it is good during any chill or drizzly month.
Cary Grant is the star here, but everyone in this movie kills their part – even the few not doing the murdering. It’s a screwball comedy with a dark edge, witty and fast like a streak of light. The movie’s from 1944, so not every joke will land perfectly in 2025, but I would - and do - recommend it to people who aren’t big fans of the silver screen. Need an entry point? Here’s an entry point! It’s a good laugh whenever I need one, and that’s gold.
Review by Cathlin
Arsenic and Old Lace
Frank Capra adapted a hit stage play for this marvelous screwball meeting of the madcap and the macabre. On Halloween, newly married drama critic Mortimer Brewster returns home to Brooklyn, where his adorably dotty aunts greet him with love, sweetness…and a grisly surprise: the corpses buried in their cellar. A bugle-playing brother who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, a crazed criminal who's a dead ringer for Boris Karloff, and a seriously slippery plastic surgeon are among the outré oddballs populating Arsenic and Old Lace, a diabolical delight that only gets funnier as the body count rises.