Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) was based upon the smash Broadway play from 1941. The play was written by Joseph Kesselring and massaged into a hit by producers Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. Ostensibly staring Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane, the film belongs to the two actresses reprising their roles from the stage: Josephine Hull as Aunt Abby and Jean Adair as Aunt Martha.
The two sisters are charity and kindness personified, still living in the big, old house of their childhood in a genteel neighborhood of Brooklyn. In addition to their charitable works, they take care of their grown nephew, Teddy (John Alexander), who believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt. And, they dote upon Teddy’s other brother, their nephew, Mortimer (Cary Grant). Mortimer’s a successful drama critic who’s written a popular book, Marriage, A Fraud and a Failure. Yet, on this Halloween, much to his own embarrassment, he’s just gotten married to Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane), literally, the girl next door. As Mortimer tells his beloved aunts that he’s now married and plans to leave on his honeymoon, he discovers something that no one would have ever suspected…
“There’s a body in the window seat!”
It seems Aunts Abby and Martha’s charity work extends to poisoning poor, old, lonely men unlucky enough to have answered their ‘Room to Rent’ ad. A few sips of the sister’s homemade elderberry wine, ‘laced’ with poison, and the men are off to a far, far better place – following a quick and proper burial in their cellar, of course.
To add to the mayhem, Teddy and Mortimer’s older brother, Jonathan (Raymond Massey), the black sheep of the family, suddenly shows up. Jonathan, now a murderer and running from the law, is horribly scarred thanks to his friend Dr. Einstein’s (Peter Lorre) drunken attempts at plastic surgery. Jonathan now resembles none-other-than…Boris Karloff!
Director Frank Capra began his career during the silent era, working as a gagman for, among others, Hal Roach and Mack Sennett. And, in all of Capra’s films you can spot his gagman instinct. It pops-up between the messages and the celebrations of the common man. It’s one of the ingredients baked into his “CapraCorn” films that he became so deservedly famous for.
But, here? Here, Capra goes all in! He’s making a comedy. No messages. No tenderness. Just plenty of fun!
Capra encouraged, cajoled and demanded stunned-faces with double, sometimes triple, takes from his leading man. It’s said that Capra told Grant he agreed with him. His reactions did look a little over-the-top in the rushes. But, when they had finished filming everything, they’d reshoot all of Grant’s reaction shots. Capra may have said it. But, I doubt he ever meant it. He knew the gold he was capturing on film. Cary Grant is on record as having said he hated his performance in Arsenic and Old Lace. But, the rest of the world is on record as having loved it!
The screenplay was written by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein, identical twin brothers, who parlayed their Brooklyn-born-wise-guy-ness into lucrative screenwriting careers. But, what’s often overlooked is how intelligent these two Columbia University graduates really were. Their research revealed that Amy Archer-Gilligan, the real-life killer who inspired playwright Kesselring, was actually born on Halloween. Thus, the Epsteins set the film on Halloween night, allowing the mayhem to occasionally morph into the macabre.
The cinematography of Sol Polito could be hard and unglamorous. A chiaroscuro of light and dark; good and evil. It became the signature look for Warner Brother’s films. And here, it’s the perfect visual counterweight to the film’s comic chaos. Though, even Polito seems to be having a little fun. In one scene, inspired by Peter Lorre’s performance as Dr. Einstein, he has the hapless, tiny doctor being bullied by Jonathon’s enormous, German-Expressionistic-like shadow.
But, no one could take the pixillated spotlight away from actresses Hull and Adair. Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha are just a delight to watch in all of their innocence, lunacy and lethalness. Scary to say, but, you just can’t help but fall in love with these two murderers!
And I think you’ll agree, Cary Grant is a scream to watch! Judge for yourself in this compilation of his over-the-top reactions as Mortimer Brewster:
