Reel Classics: Arsenic and Old Lace

Described by some as a “macabre com­e­dy,” this Reel Classic intro­duces us to an array of inter­est­ing and unusu­al char­ac­ters.  First off we have Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant), an author who has writ­ten books on the top­ic of mar­riage, describ­ing it as “an old-fash­ioned super­sti­tion” and denounc­ing the institution. 

Living in the home in Brooklyn in which he was raised are Mortimer’s two elder­ly, spin­ster aunts who raised him, Abby Brewster (Josephine Hull) and Martha Brewster (Jean Adair), as well as his broth­er Theodore (John Alexander) who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt and yells “Charge!” as he runs up the stairs.  He also has anoth­er broth­er, Jonathan (Raymond Massey) who hap­pens to be a ser­i­al killer and is in hid­ing from the law, assist­ed by his part­ner Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre), a not-very adept plas­tic sur­geon who also hap­pens to be alco­holic.  He has unfor­tu­nate­ly made a mess of Jonathan’s face—making him look like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. 

Rounding out this cast of char­ac­ters are Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane), the daugh­ter of the min­is­ter who lives across the street from the fam­i­ly, and police offi­cers Lt. Rooney (James Gleason) and Officer O’Hara (Jack Carson).  Lastly, we find Mr Witherspoon (Edward Everett Horton) for whom the spin­ster aunts have concerns. 

There is the cast of char­ac­ters, now what is the story? 

In the begin­ning of the film we learn that Mortimer has fall­en in love with the love­ly min­is­ter’s daugh­ter and they are get­ting mar­ried (what will his read­ers think of that?) He rush­es home to pre­pare to leave for his hon­ey­moon and while search­ing for his notes for his lat­est book, dis­cov­ers a dead body in the win­dow seat.  He learns that his mild-man­nered and car­ing aunts are poi­son­ing elder­ly gen­tle­men and bury­ing them in the base­ment.  They tell him they are doing so out of kind­ness as the gen­tle­men were elder­ly and lone­ly, thus they relieve these gen­tle­men of their suf­fer­ing.  They explain that they offer a “room to let” to attract the poor souls and then end their mis­ery with a glass of their elder­ber­ry wine (with a bit of arsenic). 

Mortimer is mor­ti­fied!  As he is try­ing to get a han­dle on this rev­e­la­tion about his aunts, who sud­den­ly appears but his ser­i­al killer broth­er Jonathan and his plas­tic sur­geon friend  Dr. Einstein.  Mortimer learns that Jonathan’s dis­fig­ured face came about when Dr. Einstein per­formed surgery while intoxicated. 

Meanwhile, the new bride, Elaine, is ready to leave on the hon­ey­moon but Mortimer has to keep putting her off as he tries to deal with the insan­i­ty in his home.  He has become con­cerned that the insan­i­ty is genet­ic and is with­in him as well and tries to explain to her that he can’t stay mar­ried to her.  Mortimer states “look, I prob­a­bly should have told you this before, but you see ... well ... insan­i­ty runs in my fam­i­ly... It prac­ti­cal­ly gallops.”

The film details Mortimer’s efforts to deal with the crazi­ness in his home and fam­i­ly and at the same time try to pro­tect the aunts who have raised him.

Arsenic and Old Lace was adapt­ed from a Broadway play of the same name and released in 1944.  The play opened in January 1941 and ran until June 1944.  The film was made in 1941 but due to a con­trac­tu­al agree­ment was not allowed to be released until the final run of the play.  It was first shown in the­aters in September 1944.

The film stu­dio “bor­rowed” (for a price) the spin­ster aunts from the Broadway pro­duc­tion but was unable to get the actor who played Jonathan—Boris Karloff.  Reportedly Karloff want­ed very much to be in the movie but was unable to get the part as the pro­duc­ers of the play did not want to give him up.  He had top billing for the play, and they were con­cerned los­ing him for the weeks it took to make the film would hurt them at the box office.  Reportedly Karloff was upset that he could­n’t be in the film. 

The direc­tor was the well-known and admired direc­tor Frank Capra.  He became very pop­u­lar in the 1930s with sev­er­al well-received films includ­ing You Can’t Take It With You (Jean Arthur and James Stewart), Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (Jean Arthur and James Stewart), and Meet John Doe (Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck).  These films dealt with more seri­ous social issues and were described as “mes­sage” movies.  Reportedly Capra was excit­ed to do a film in the “screw­ball com­e­dy” genre.  He had pre­vi­ous­ly worked with that genre with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night.

Many may not know that Frank Capra’s career actu­al­ly began in the realm of com­e­dy.  He worked with Hal Roach and Mack Sennett on their come­dies and direct­ed and wrote sev­er­al fea­ture films for Harry Langdon.  During the days of silent come­dies, Langdon was a star in the com­pa­ny of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd.

Cary Grant’s per­for­mance was much laud­ed, but he was not very hap­py with it.  He report­ed­ly said that it was too “over the top” and felt it was not one of his bet­ter per­for­mances.  He report­ed­ly was sur­prised to hear that many of his fans thought it was his best performance.

Other actors were offered the role of Mortimer before Cary Grant.  Ronald Reagan and Jack Benny were approached but declined the role.  It was also offered to Bob Hope, and he want­ed to do it but his stu­dio, Paramount Pictures, refused to loan him to Warner Bros.  Back then most actors were under con­tract to the studio. 

Reviews of the film were very pos­i­tive.  The New York Times wrote, “As a whole, Arsenic and Old Lace, the Warner pic­ture which came to the Strand yes­ter­day, is good macabre fun.”  Harrison’s Reports described it as “...hilar­i­ous enter­tain­ment, it should turn out to be one of the year’s top box-office attrac­tions.”  A review in The New Yorker described it as “prac­ti­cal­ly as fun­ny in pic­ture form as it did on the stage, and that is very fun­ny indeed.”

Arsenic and Old Lace was remade for tele­vi­sion on four occa­sions.  The first was a CBS pro­duc­tion in 1945 which starred Boris Karloff.  The sec­ond was in 1955, again for CBS, which again starred Boris Karloff along with Helen Hayes, Orson Bean, and Billie Burke.  The third ver­sion was in 1962 on NBC and once again had Boris Karloff along with Tony Randall and Mildred Natwick.  ABC got in on the run with the fourth ver­sion star­ring Helen Hayes, Lillian Gish, Fred Gwynne, and Bob Crane.

In addi­tion, there were two radio adap­ta­tions.  The first was in November 1946 on The Screen Guild Theater star­ring Boris Karloff and Eddie Albert Jr.  The sec­ond was in January 1948 on the Ford Theatre with Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, and John Alexander repris­ing their roles. 

I guess we could say that Boris Karloff tried to make up for miss­ing out on the film by appear­ing in one radio and three TV adaptations. 

After the bomb­ing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and just before com­plet­ing the film­ing of Arsenic and Old Lace Frank Capra enlist­ed in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a major.  He was giv­en an exten­sion on his report date to February 1942 to com­plete the film.  He would not make anoth­er Hollywood film until 1946 when he direct­ed It’s A Wonderful Life with James Stewart.

Arsenic and Old Lace is includ­ed in the American Film Institute’s list of Top 100 Funniest American Films.  The play occa­sion­al­ly shows up in com­mu­ni­ty the­aters and is still pop­u­lar.  I was for­tu­nate enough to see a pro­duc­tion a few years ago at a com­mu­ni­ty the­ater in Berea.  Just as the film has been described, I found it to be a “macabre comedy.” 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates the film at 7.9 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes has a crit­ics’ rat­ing of 86% and an audi­ence rat­ing of 92%. 

In look­ing for free stream­ing sites I was not able to locate any.  However, the Clark County Library does have copies of the DVD available.

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and Wikipedia. 

In clos­ing, I urge you to check out Arsenic and Old Lace for a pleas­ant comedic escape.  You will find a cast of famil­iar faces pro­vid­ing enter­tain­ment and laughs, and we all need a bit of that, don’t you think? 

Until our next Reel Classic, I leave you with the trail­er below.  Enjoy!