Review of Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) by Devon B — 18 Jul 2010

Cary Grant allegedly never cared for his performance in Arsenic and Old Lace. It's perhaps his broadest performance in a screwball comedy, but I can't imagine him playing it differently or worse, playing it more straight.

The film is based on the play of the same name, and Frank Capra keeps the feeling of live performance intact with only a few noticeable cinematic flairs. Grant plays Mortimer Brewster, newly wed to Elaine (Priscilla Lane) and on his way to the honeymoon.

All he has to do is make a quick stop off at home and he's all set. He even leaves a taxi waiting in the driveway. He lives with his two elderly aunts and a brother who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt (he doesn't walk up the staircase, he dashes up it yelling "CHARGE!" like he's taking San Juan Hill).

Everyone, including Mortimer, thinks the old ladies are very sweet and kindly. That is, until he finds a dead body stuffed into the window seat. It seems his aunts have been murdering lonely old men who come to rent their spare room by giving them poisoned elderberry wine.

They're doing what they feel to be good deeds, performing a mercy killing, making sad old men feel peaceful and happy. Grant is thrown into a mad panic as he attempts to keep the dead body from being discovered.

Things only get worse when his longlost brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) returns from the mental asylum with a face that resembles Frankenstein's (thanks to his partner, the plastic surgeon Dr. Einstein, aka, Peter Lorre).

The brother has a body of his own to hide, and he's not planning on letting anyone get in his way, least of all his annoying brother. The story takes place on halloween and it seems wholly apropos: there are few screwball comedies this morbid and macabre.