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Actors: Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, John Alexander, Priscilla Lane, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair
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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Arsenic and Old Lace |
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Cary Grant plays a world-renowned bachelor, who has even written a book on the subject. However, at the very beginning of the movie he makes the leap to quit the single life and tries to marry in secret at city hall. He brings his new bride home to meet his two elderly and eccentric aunts and is thrown into a world of hilarious disasters. He discovers that his aunts had been killing lonely strangers for years and having his delusional cousin burry the bodies in their cellar. Trying to prevent his aunts from any more murders and dealing with this newfound situation, he discovers that his serial killer brother has escaped the clutches of the police and is coming after him. Now Grant must attempt to straighten out the madhouse that is his family, while hiding this information from his new wife and hiding himself from his psychotic brother. This movie, although in black and white, is fun and hilarious.
--Jennifer Nieradka - Piperni, Resident Scholar
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This movie from 1944 is a recipe for hilarity. Take two aunts (Josephine Hull, & Jean Adair) who have developed a nasty habit of secretly bumping off elderly gentlemen with poisoned wine and burying them in their cellar, and throw in three nephews: One named Teddy who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt (Jack Carson), another named Jonathan(Raymond Massey), who is on the lam for committing homicide worldwide and is also the spitting image of Boris Karloff, and a third, Mortimer (Cary Grant), who just wants to honeymoon with his sweetheart(Priscilla Lane), keep the bodies out of the cellar, the Aunts out of jail,& escape becoming his brother's 13th victim.
--Daniel J. Dudych, Resident Scholar
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As the story opens, Mortimer Brewster (Grant), a newspaperman and author allergic to marriage, gets married at New York city hall to sweet and obliging Priscilla Lane (Harper). When he goes to inform his lovely maiden aunts, Abby and Martha (Hull and Adair, respectively), he discovers that their hobby is poisoning lonely old gentlemen and burying their bodies in the cellar. Or rather, cousin Theodore buries them, because he thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt digging the Panama Canal in the basement. While Mortimer is driven frantic trying to decide what to do, his murderous brother Jonathan (Massey) shows up with confederate Dr. Einstein (Lorre), intending to lie low while Einstein alters his facial features. Despite the gruesome aspects, this IS a mostly light and airy comedy, based on a hit broadway play by Joseph Kesselring. (Shot in 1941, it was withheld from release for 3 years until the play finished its smash run.) Edward Everett Horton, best known these days as the narrator of "Fractured Fairy Tales" on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, appears as Mr. Witherspoon, manager of the asylum. This is a delightful and classic farce.
--David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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Cary Grant is at his most charming here--but here he's faced with murder! Seems the pair of sisters who're running ths boarding house try to do the "decent" thing by poisoning their guests with their very special elderberry wine! Joseph Kesselring's play is transformed easily to the screen and while the subject is mighty serious, the lines are quite funny! Sporting a most amazing "collection" of characters, the play "Arsenic and Old Lace" moves along at a fast never-say-die clip. What fun this classic play is!
--Bill Hobbs, Resident Scholar
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Cary Grant plays the only sane member of a murderous family that includes his two sweet old aunties who poison old men and bury them in their basement and a brother who's a serial killer.
--A. Pearson, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of Arsenic and Old Lace |
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Comedy, primarily
Yes
Time/era of movie:
- 1930's-1950's
Kind of comedy
- bungling criminals
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- writer
Age:
- 20's-30's
Eccentric:
Yes
- deluded
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Body type
- (man) average
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor?
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 20's-30's
Profession/status:
- killer
- criminal
Eccentric:
Yes
- wild
- mentally ill
- emotionally unstable
- obsessed
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- 40%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
How sensitive is this character?
- hard edged
- mean, arrogant
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Setting
United States
Yes
The US:
- Northeast
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately detailed references to deaths
Movie makes you feel...
- full of laughter
Check here if B&W
Yes
Any profanity?
- None
Is this movie based on a
- play
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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