Movie 18 - "Arsenic and Old Lace"

Oh my goodness!!!  I had forgotten how hilarious this movie is.  Frank Capra directed this comedy about serial killers.  Yes...serial killer comedy.  Cary Grant stars as Mortimer Brewster who married Priscilla Lane's Elaine Howard that day.  However, the supporting actors in this film hold their own.  Josephine Hull and Jean Adair play the Brewster sisters, Mortimer's elderly aunts that have unwittingly become serial killers.  Rounding out the cast are John Alexander, who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt and Raymond Massey as Jonathan Brewster, a truly evil killer.  There are other players, but these are the major characters.

We begin with Mortimer and Elaine getting married.  They go to Brooklyn to tell Elaine's father and Mortimer's aunts, who are next door neighbors.  While there, Mortimer discovers his aunts' secret.  They have murdered a man with poisoned elderberry wine, and it isn't there first time.  It is their twelfth.  All the bodies are buried in the cellar.  The hilarious part is that the aunts have no idea they have done anything wrong.  They think they are doing the men a favor because the gentlemen are lonely.  They discuss the murders like they were discussing an afternoon of knitting.  Mortimer comes up with a plan to keep his aunts from being implicated.  Unfortunately, his psychotic brother Jonathan shows up after years away trying to get rid of a body of his own.  This throws the whole house into upheaval!  Chaos ensues and Mortimer ends up bound and gagged.  The incompetent police officers are on the scene, but still are clueless to the goings on in the house.  A brawl follows where Jonathan finally gets knocked out and the police finally realize that he is an escaped fugitive.  After an extremely entertaining scene with the police lieutenant, played by James Gleason, Mortimer, and Mr. Witherspoon, played by Edward Everett Horton, it is decided that Teddy and the Brewster sisters will all be committed to Happy Dales Sanitarium.  Jonathan is arrested and the police never find out that there REALLY ARE 13 dead bodies in the cellar!  Before leaving for the sanitarium, the aunts tell Mortimer he isn't really a Brewster.  He could not have been more thrilled, seeing as how insanity "galloped" in his family.  Mortimer leaves happily carrying his new bride off into the night.

This movie is screwball comedy at its best.  It was said on TCM that although Cary Grant doubted some of his scenes, etc., he let Frank Capra direct him and the results were outstanding!  The aunts and Teddy were some of the funniest characters I have ever watched.  Their acting was perfection.  Crazy definitely worked for them.  And Cary Grant gave his funniest performances ever!  He let go of all his doubts and gave brilliant comedic acting.  I absolutely think everybody should see this crazy, chaotic film.