Arsenic and Old Lace
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Movie Reviews of Arsenic and Old Lace
Movie Review: A Dark and Delightful Comedy
Summary: 5 Stars
This is probably Grant's finest comedic role. He plays a New York drama critic who has just gotten married. He is about to take his bride to Niagara Falls and stops by home to get his things and let her get her own. (She's the girl next door). His two delightful aunts wish him well on his way but he finds a dead body hidden in the window seat. It turns out that his aunts have a bad habit of poisoning lonely old men to bring them peace. You would think that the bodies would pile up after a while but that's where Grant's brother comes in handy. His is crazy and thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt. The old dears just tell him that there has been another yellow fever victim and he heads down to Panama (the basement) to dig another lock (grave). These revelation are not what Grant needed to hear on his wedding day and he begins to scheme on how to conduct damage control.
Things get more complicated when his long lost brother shows up. He is an escaped murderer and needs a place to hide. He also has an extra dead body to dispose of. Things get more and more complicated and Grant, the only sane member of the family, just about goes crazy trying to protect his aunts from his brother, everyone from the police and himself from everyone else.
Raymond Massey plays the villain and is ably assisted by Peter Lorre as his assistant. Massey is a dark and brooding character right out of the horror films and Lorre is not really too bad deep down, only frightened. The aunts are a delight to watch. All do a fine job but it is Cary Grant who steals the show. He plays it over the top and is a delight to watch both in terms of physical comedy and muttered, running commentary.
Movie Review: This is Cary Grant at his best!
Summary: 5 Stars
Wanted: two elderly ladies suspected of the murders of more than a dozen gentlemen. Abby and Martha Brewster, also known as the Barbaric Brewster Sisters, are armed with tasty elderberry wine laced with arsenic, and are extremely dangerous.Sound like an April Fool's joke? The deadly killers who appear to be gentle old ladies are two of the stars of "Arsenic and Old Lace," a film based on the classic slapstick mystery-comedy play by Joseph Kesselring.
The story revolves around Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant), a drama critic who has just eloped with the lovely Elaine Harper, who happens to live next door to Mortimer's kind but eccentric spinster aunts. However, Mortimer is forced to put his marriage celebration on hold when he discovers his aunts' dirty little secret: they've been putting lonely old men out of their misery by killing them and moving them, PERMANENTLY, into the cellar. Add to that Mortimer's crazed brother Jonathan (who was modeled after Boris Karloff) and his shady assistant (played by Peter Lorre), as well as Mortimer's other brother, Teddy, who can't let go of the notion that he is President Theodore Roosevelt, and you have all the makings for the quintessential slapstick comedy.
"Arsenic and Old Lace" makes no attempt to be serious, and everyone who watches it will be delighted with it. Cary Grant gives what was probably the performance of his career, transforming from a happy newlywed to a neurotic mess as he desperately tries to figure out a way to get his aunts off the hook. This is a fabulous adaptation of an amazing play, and it was one of the first DVDs I ever bought. Add it to your collection today.
Movie Review: Non-stop dark comedy--for everyone
Summary: 5 Stars
Arsenic and Old Lace has been a family Halloween tradition for years. In some ways it might be called the original horror spoof: Two sweet old ladies poison lonely old men as a "charity" and bury them in the cellar, and no sooner does their stable nephew find out about this (while preparing to leave for his honeymoon) than his long-lost homicidal brother returns with a face like Frankenstein's monster.Cary Grant knew his way around a comedy, so it's easy to believe when his character Mortimer grows more and more frazzled throughout the night, jumping from one problem to the next so quickly that he can't even remember he's just been married that day. In his place, juggling four insane relatives (three of them killers), a handful of cops, and two dead bodies, we'd all feel the worse for wear. The pace is quick, almost frantic at times; complications and plot twists come faster than anyone in the movie can handle them. The only characters who aren't perturbed and thrown completely out of their elements by the affair are the rest of the Brewster family, who are all crazy anyway.
The dark comedy genre is full of films that are a little too graphic or disturbing for kids (and even some adults), but this one's not quite so dark, and wildly funny enough to entertain all ages. And no matter how young or old you are, no matter how normal a family you have, you won't be able to help but chuckle when the harried Mortimer takes a breather to explain to his new wife: "Insanity runs in my family.... It practically gallops."
The DVD transfer is flawless; the clarity is wonderful. Pop some popcorn and watch it with the whole family.
Movie Review: One of the Best
Summary: 5 Stars
For those of you only familiar with Frank Capra's more famous works such as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", this movie will come as a pleasant surprise. Dispensing with most of his usual sentimentality, this movie is a pure dark comic romp about murder and insanity. It still is a great family movie and portrays an old-fashioned love of "small-town values" (in quotes because I grew up in a small town and know better), and the jokes aren't dependent upon references to sex or bodily functions. And unlike modern dark comedies, there isn't a single bit of gore. It is refreshing to watch a tightly plotted comedy where the situation itself is funny.The basic premise is that Cary Grant is an author famous for writing books denouncing the institution of marriage who has just gotten married and is now introducing his new bride to his family. We soon learn, however, that the reason why he was originally against marriage is that insanity runs deeply in his family and he is afraid of passing it on to a new generation. Much of the rest of the movie involves him trying to conceal this insanity from his new wife and the authorities, and to avoid having himself or anyone else killed in the process. It starts out a bit slow, but once the premise is set up, the pacing is absolutely relentless, and you'll be rolling around in your seat and crying with laughter until the end. And as other reviewers note, the performances and casting is superb. This is one of my all-time favourite movies and it should become one of yours as well. And, yes, despite the subject matter, it still has the old Frank Capra charm.
Movie Review: "CHARGE!"
Summary: 5 Stars
Cary Grant gives a sparkling performance as Mortimer Brewster, a dramatic critic, who has just gotten married to Elaine (Priscilla Lane). On their way to Niagara Falls for a honeymoon, Mortimer stops by his Aunt Martha (Jean Adair) and Aunt Abby's (Josephine Hull) home in Brooklyn. While searching for papers, he finds a dead man in the window seat! Thinking that his crazy brother, who believes he's President Teddy Roosevelt, murdered the man, Mortimer tells his aunts about his discovery and that he thinks Teddy should be put in a sanitarium immediately. But Martha and Abby aren't shocked about the dead body at all. In fact, they are the ones who killed him and the eleven other men in the cellar! Of course, they don't think what they do is murder -- they think they're doing a charity for lonely, old men by poisoning them with elderberry wine with arsenic in it and giving them a proper burial in their cellar. Stunned that his aunts could do such a thing and not think it's wrong, Mortimer goes on a quest to get Martha, Abby and Teddy all put away at the Happydale Sanitarium. But when Jonathan (Raymond Massey), his cruel and evil brother who nobody has seen in years, shows up with a dead body of his own to get rid of, hilarity ensues!Arsenic and Old Lace is definitely one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. All of the performances are top-notch, especially Cary Grant's, as the bewildered nephew of two sweet, but crazy ladies. Interestingly, he once said that out of all his movies, this one was his least favorite, due to the overacting. Well, it's my favorite of his!
Do not miss this gem! It is absolutely fabulous.