“So far so good. Give me a chance to rest. Well… Not the good.”

Arsenic and Old Lace ( 1944).

Dir. Frank Capra

Underrated Halloween Classic

I feel the 1944 Frank Capra film ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ doesn’t get as much attention as other great Halloween movies. Sure we know about the classic Universal Monsters, but this movie has three serial killers with a two dozen body count, great atmosphere, tension, fantastic characters and sensational humor. Seriously the jokes are so witty and fast paced you have to watch it a few times to catch all the jokes. Cary Grant especially is hilarious as his character Mortimer struggles to answer the question Is insanity heredity or a product of the environment?

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

I really, really wanna know who drew THIS??? 😭😭😭

When they could've and actually do looked like this:

i love arsenic and old lace it’s just an hour and 58 minutes of cary grant slowly going insane with a subplot about how jack carson wrote a terrible play about himself.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

ARSENIC & OLD LACE (1944, dir. Frank Capra)

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

I love (!) this movie 💕💕

An Arsenic and Old Lace Retrospective

Frank Capra directed the now-classic then-flop, It’s a Wonderful Life, and through repeat airing it’s come to be appreciated as one of the best Christmas movies ever made. I wish the same would happen with Capra’s other, lesser-known holiday movie, Arsenic and Old Lace.

Last year I asked you guys what I should do a spooky meta on, and Arsenic and Old Lace lost to Eerie, Indiana. But I’ve had this old gem on my mind ever since. It’s not exactly obscure, but a lot of people haven’t heard of it and that’s a shame.

I’ve talked about this movie before, but it’s one of my favorite movies of all time, thanks to the material, the cast, the director, and of course, the setting.

Halloween!

** SPOILERS**

FOR ARSENIC AND OLD LACE ** SPOILERS **

While we’re warning people, this movie is from the 1940s. It not only plays violence and murder for laughs, but it also psychopathy and alcoholism, so if any of that bothers you, this is not the movie for you.

Based on a really good, really popular broadway play, Arsenic and Old Lace was a safe picture Frank Capra made to make sure his family would have money during the breaking Second World War.  

There are a few problems with the adaption. For one thing, the main character in the play was a dramatic critic and his knowledge of the tropes and cliches of suspense plays was used to turn a suspense plot into a meta-comedy. But moving mediums makes it less meta than just mocking.

Also, the play had a piece of delicious stunt casting the movie couldn't get. Boris Karloff – then renowned for playing Frankenstein in one of the most influential horror films, period – played a character who’d had his face mangled by a drunken plastic surgeon and everyone in the play remarks on his resemblance to… Boris Karloff.

Unfortunately, when the play’s producers wouldn’t let it’s star be in it, the joke just wasn’t the same. They also added a pointless framing device with a cabby and censored the best jokes in the story. Other people have complained about Cary Grant’s over-the-top performance, including Grant, but I could give a damn. He’s funny and he’s lookin’ fine as hell in this movie. I’m good.

That being said, and without giving everything away, here’s the plot.

Mortimer Brewster (Grant) is a cynical dramatic critic, reluctant to marry his sweetheart, Elaine (Priscilla Lane). It turns out he’s nervous about starting a new family because his own has a history of madness and murder that stretches back to the Mayflower, and he’s afraid any children he had with Elaine would keep that tradition alive.

But when he finally decides to tie the knot, he returns to his childhood home in Brooklyn to tell his spinster aunts, Abby and Martha, (played adorably by Josephine Hull and Jean Adair) the good news. They insist on celebrating so Mortimer puts his honeymoon on hold.

Mortimer’s brother, Teddy, (John Alexander) still lives at home, needing to be cared for by his aunties. You see, he’s convinced he’s Theodore Roosevelt. He feels the need to charge the stairs like they’re San Juan Hill. The cops are over frequently because Teddy’s been disturbing the peace by blowing his bugle.

Everybody knows Teddy’s a loon, but he’s obviously harmless so no one takes him seriously when he casually mentions digging new locks for the Panama Canal or “Yellow Fever” victims in the cellar…

Mortimer’s other brother, Jonathan, (Raymond Massey) who’s been away for twenty years, chooses that night of all nights to come home. Escaped from a prison for the criminally insane, he’s spent the last few years running from the law. When he comes home, it’s with a fresh corpse in tow, a guy he calls Mr. Spenalzo, who he killed for trying to blackmail him, and for saying he looked like Boris Karloff, something that absolutely sets Jonathan off. 

The reason for this, as mentioned above, was that the doctor who changed his face was hammered… and watched Frankenstein just before he operated.

This doctor is Herman Einstein, (Peter Lorre) a gangland surgeon and Jonathan’s accomplice. He’s the one who broke Jonathan out and changes his face for him whenever it’s necessary. The Brewster house has a laboratory upstairs (remember, these people are historically bonkers) and Jonathan wants to start a business there, changing criminals’ faces for cash and using his sweet innocent aunties as a front.

There’s only one problem: sweet though they may be, the Brewster sisters are far from innocent.

* * *

This is a truly screwy plot with a lovely cast and it’s very Halloweeny and funny. 

As sad as it is that Karloff couldn’t be in it, Massey plays Jonathan very well and unless someone brings up his resemblance to Karloff, it’s easy to forget and just enjoy his performance. He makes Jonathan feel more like a gangster than a movie monster, and while there are times when he’s clearly doing a Karloff impression, the rest of the time he’s just being a dick.

The actors all have really great chemistry with each other. Teddy is the absolute cutest, I’m not sure how, and the Brewster sisters are fantastic. The lovebirds are likable, it’s fun to watch Grant and Massey face off like sworn enemies, and anytime these guys get to improv, it’s delightful. Grant is just goofy and you get to see him talk to himself a lot in this movie.

Every once in a while, the tone goes dark, but only for a laugh.

As anyone who’s followed me on any social media platform will tell you, Peter Lorre is my favorite actor, but this movie is the reason why. Despite the fact that he’s basically just playing the role he’d been typecast as for years (a creepy, vaguely German criminal who’s not not-crazy) he plays him with depth and pathos and somehow manages to make a murderer’s accomplice in a spoof comedy into a terribly tragic figure. It may not be Lorre’s best movie or best performance, but it will always be my personal favorite.

I know it’s not even September yet, but Happy Halloween anyway!

Yes!!! To all of this!! Especially the Peter Lorre part😊

The movie is so underrated (tho it's IMO quite hilarious and one can definitely watch it more than once without it losing it's suspense)

Shapes reduction assignment from my favorite Cary Grant film, Arsenic and Old Lace.

Best lighting direction in any comedy, or any film in general.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

“For a gallon of elderberry wine, I take one teaspoon full of arsenic, then add half a teaspoon full of strychnine, and then just a pinch of cyanide!”

Favourite Films | Arsenic and Old Lace(1944)

The gentleman died because he drank some wine with poison in it.

But how get the poison in the wine???

Well, we put it in wine because it’s less noticeable.

Not-lead characters that I adore beyond reason: An Advent Calendar

Day 1: Dr Einstein (Peter Lorre) - Arsenic and Old Lace [1944]

Here’s the thing: I could probably do this whole advent calendar just with Peter Lorre. But I’m going to restrain myself, for once, and of all Peter’s supporting roles this is my absolute fave (Joel Cairo, to me, will always be an equal-lead role).

So, an alcoholic, fraudulent doctor, a psychopath’s sidekick, a pathetic spineless fellow who is alternatively squeamish and amused: how could he be adorable? This is just part of the genius of Peter Lorre. The streak of pathos that runs through all his best performances makes Einstein likeable - he may be a weasel but he’s somehow an honorable weasel. He does, after all, try to warn Mortimer, and he draws the line at harming Teddy. (Who wouldn’t? Teddy is my other fave not-lead).

Peter Lorre is a fabulous physical actor - not in a falling-over-the-furniture way, but in an aware-of-his-own-body way: we all know the mobility of his face, the roll of his eyes, but he uses every inch of himself to portray his character, something Capra loved about his work in this film. His puckish quality comes through strongly here, in comedic counterpoint to the glowering, looming Jonathan. And because this is a black comedy, well it’s alright to find him adorable, just as the aunts and Teddy are adorable. And it’s alright to cheer when he slips out of the door. But here’s the other thing: if it wasn’t Peter Lorre doing it, Einstein wouldn’t be half as marvellous.