Review of Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) by Steve G — 05 Jan 2009

If "Sweeney Todd" were a Frank Capra screwball comedy, it would be "Arsenic and Old Lace", a wonderfully wacky film about charity, insanity, and murder.

While some films age poorly, this one is like a fine red wine -- better now than when it was released 65 years ago. The comedy stands on its own, but there was for me an added, extra thrill in "rediscovering" performers such as Cary Grant, Peter Lorre, and Edward Everett Horton (the voice of "Fractured Fairy Tales") in their prime. Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and Ronald Reagan were considered to play the lead (Mortimer Brewster), but thankfully, the role went to Grant, who seems perfectly suited for it. Josephine Hull and Jean Adair are delightfully kooky as the criminally insane Brewster sisters, as is John Alexander in the role of Teddy "Roosevelt" Brewster.

While watching, I assumed that the surgically altered brother Jonathan was played by Boris Karloff (as he was in the play); the jokes about him looking like Karloff would have been that much funnier if it had actually been him. Alas, it was "perpetual Lincoln" Raymond Massey.