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| Genre: | Comedy |
| Year: | 1944 |
| Rating: | NR |
| Length: | 1h 58mins |
| Cast: | Frank Capra, Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey |
Arsenic and Old Lace is director Frank Capra's lunatic spin on the classic Joseph Kesselring stage comedy, which concerns the sweet old Brewster sisters (Josephine Hull, Jean Adair), beloved in their genteel Brooklyn neighborhood for their many charitable acts. One charity which the ladies don't advertise is their ongoing effort to permit lonely bachelors to die with smiles on their faces--by serving said bachelors elderberry wine spiked with arsenic! When the sisters' drama-critic nephew Mortimer (Cary Grant) stumbles onto their secret, he is understandably put out--especially since he has just married the lovely Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane). Given the homicidal tendencies of his aunts, the sinister activities of his escaped-convict older brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) and the disruptive behavior of younger brother Teddy (John Alexander)--who is convinced that he's really Theodore Roosevelt, and runs around the house yelling "CHAAAAARGGGE"--Mortimer isn't keen on starting a family with his new bride. "Insanity runs in my family," he explains. "It practically gallops." Further complications ensue when the murderous Jonathan Brewster arrives home, with his snivelling accomplice Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre) in tow. When Jonathan learns that his darling aunts have killed twelve men, he is incensed--they're challenging his own record of murders. Though the movie rights for Arsenic and Old Lace were set up so that the film could not be released until 1944, director Capra shot the film quickly and inexpensively in 1941, so that his family could subsist on his $100,000 salary while he was serving in World War II. Arsenic is one of Capra's most energetic pictures, its hectic pace due in part to the efforts of screenwriters Philip Epstein and Julius J. Epstein to bypass Hollywood censorship. By moving everything across the screen in a hurry and flurry, the film was allowed to get away with a few censorial no-nos, such as allowing the relatively sympathetic Dr. Einstein to escape prosecution for his many crimes. Still, some compromises had to be made: Mortimer's famous curtain line "Darling, I'm a bastard!" (uttered when he discovers to his delight that he isn't a Brewster) was changed to "I'm the son of a sea cook!", while the play's final gag--administering the fatal elderberry wine to asylum official Witherspoon (Edward Everett Horton)--is eliminated entirely. Many of the cast members were recruited from the original Broadway production (one notable exception is Boris Karloff, who was obligated by his theatrical contract to remain with the play while the film was being made), and they're uniformly terrific. This is more than can be said, alas, for leading man Cary Grant. With so many eccentric characters scurrying about, Arsenic requires a voice-of-reason central character to balance the insanity. Unfortunately, Grant mugs and capers so much that he seems at times to be as off-balance as the rest of his brood. This shortcoming aside, Arsenic and Old Lace still delivers the laughs after five decades, and has deservedly retained its long popularity. Hal Erickson
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