Arsenic And Old Lace

USA, 1944. Directed by Frank Capra. Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair.

Mortimer (Grant) is a theatre critic and previously confirmed bachelor who’s just got married to Priscilla Lane. En route to their honeymoon he stops off to see his sweet old aunts (Hull and Adair), only to discover they’ve been poisoning a succession of lonely elderly men and burying them in their cellar. Also in the house is Mortimer’s brother Teddy (John Alexander), who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt and runs up the staircase blowing a bugle and yelling “Chaaaaarge!” every half hour or so. As the evening draws on his other brother Jonathan (Massey), a murderer newly escaped from prison, turns up with his accomplice, mad Doctor Einstein (superb Peter Lorre). They have a body of their own they’re trying to dispose of. Other characters drift in and out of the action, including a wannabe playwright cop (Jack Carson), so concerned to interest Mortimer in the play he’s written he completely misses the chaos going on around him. And there’s stalwart support from Edward Everett Horton and James Gleason. There's also an amusing running in-joke about Jonathan looking like Boris Karloff, the actor who had played the role on stage. Adapted from the successful play by Joseph Kesselring, Arsenic And Old Lace is a wonderful farce which delights from start to finish and has been a personal favourite of mine for many years. Everyone plays their part well, director Capra keeps the action moving fast and furiously and there’s a laugh in almost every line. Just about perfect.