Arsenic and Old Lace (film)
- Julius J. Epstein
- Philip G. Epstein
by Joseph Kesselring
- Frank Capra
- Jack L. Warner
- Cary Grant
- Raymond Massey
- Jack Carson
- Priscilla Lane
- Peter Lorre
- Edward Everett Horton
- James Gleason
- Josephine Hull
- Jean Adair
- John Alexander
- September 1, 1944 (1944-09-01) (New York City)[1]
- September 23, 1944 (1944-09-23) (United States)
Arsenic and Old Lace is a 1944 American screwball black comedy crime film directed by Frank Capra and starring Cary Grant. The screenplay by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein is based on Joseph Kesselring's 1941 play of the same name.[3] The contract with the play's producers stipulated that the film would not be released until the Broadway run ended. The original planned release date was September 30, 1942. The play was hugely successful, running for three and a half years, so the film was not released until 1944.
The lead role of Mortimer Brewster was originally intended for Bob Hope, but he could not be released from his contract with Paramount Pictures. Capra had also approached Jack Benny and Richard Travis before learning that Grant would accept the role. On the Broadway stage, Boris Karloff played Jonathan Brewster, who is said to "look like Boris Karloff". According to Turner Classic Movies, Karloff, who gave permission for the use of his name in the film, remained in the play to appease the producers, who were afraid of what stripping the play of all its primary cast would do to ticket sales.[4] Raymond Massey took Karloff's place on screen.[5][Note 1] The film's supporting cast also features Jack Carson, Priscilla Lane, Peter Lorre, and Edward Everett Horton.
Josephine Hull and Jean Adair portray the Brewster sisters, Abby and Martha, respectively. Hull and Adair, as well as John Alexander (who played Teddy Brewster), reprised their roles from the 1941 stage production.[4] Hull and Adair both received an eight-week leave of absence from the stage production, which was still running, but Karloff did not, as he was an investor in the stage production and its main draw. The entire film was shot within those eight weeks. The film cost just over $1.2 million of a $2 million budget to produce.[7]
Plot
The Brewster family of Brooklyn, New York City, is descended from Mayflower settlers. Several illustrious forebears' portraits line the walls of the ancestral home.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Priscilla_Lane_and_Cary_Grant_in_%27Arsenic_and_Old_Lace%27%2C_1943.jpg/220px-Priscilla_Lane_and_Cary_Grant_in_%27Arsenic_and_Old_Lace%27%2C_1943.jpg)
Mortimer Brewster, a theater critic and author who has repeatedly denounced marriage as "an old-fashioned superstition", falls in love with Elaine Harper, his neighbor and a minister's daughter. On Halloween day, Mortimer and Elaine get married. Elaine goes to her father's house to share the news of her marriage with him and pack for the honeymoon, while Mortimer visits his aunts, Abby and Martha, who raised him in the old family home. Mortimer's disturbed uncle, Teddy, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt, resides with them. Each time Teddy goes upstairs, he yells "Charge!" and runs up the stairs, imitating Roosevelt's famous 1898 charge up San Juan Hill.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Jean_Adair_Josephine_Hull_Cary_Grant_Arsenic_and_Old_Lace_1944.jpg/220px-Jean_Adair_Josephine_Hull_Cary_Grant_Arsenic_and_Old_Lace_1944.jpg)
Searching for the notes for his next book, Mortimer finds a corpse hidden in the window seat. He assumes in horror that Teddy's delusions have led him to murder. Abby and Martha cheerfully confess to murdering Mr. Hoskins and explain that they minister to lonely old bachelors by ending their "suffering". They post a "Room for Rent" sign to attract a victim, then serve a glass of elderberry wine spiked with arsenic, strychnine, and cyanide while getting acquainted with them. In addition to Mr. Hoskins, the aunts have murdered eleven other men; the bodies are buried in the cellar by Teddy, who believes they are yellow fever victims who perished in the building of the Panama Canal.
While Mortimer digests this information, his brother Jonathan arrives with his alcoholic accomplice, plastic surgeon Dr. Herman Einstein. Jonathan is a serial murderer trying to escape from the police and dispose of his latest victim, Mr. Spenalzo. Jonathan's face, altered by Einstein while drunk, resembles Boris Karloff's Frankenstein monster makeup.[Note 2] Jonathan learns his aunts' secret and proposes to bury his victim in the cellar. Abby and Martha object vehemently because their victims were "nice" gentlemen while Jonathan's victim is a stranger and a "foreigner". Jonathan also declares his intention to kill Mortimer.
Elaine is impatient to leave on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls but is concerned about Mortimer's increasingly odd behavior as he frantically attempts to control the situation. He unsuccessfully tries to alert the bumbling police to Jonathan's presence. To draw attention away from his aunts and deprive them of their willing but uncomprehending accomplice, Mortimer tries to file paperwork to have Teddy legally committed to a mental asylum. Worrying that the genetic predisposition for mental illness resides within him, Mortimer explains to Elaine that he cannot remain married to her.
Eventually, Jonathan is arrested, Einstein flees after signing Teddy's commitment papers, Teddy is safely consigned to an institution, and his aunts insist on joining him. Upon hearing that Mortimer signed the commitment papers as next of kin, Abby and Martha are concerned they may be null and void; they inform Mortimer that he is not a Brewster after all: his mother was the family cook and his father was a chef on a steamship. Relieved, he kisses Elaine and whisks her off to their honeymoon.
Cast
- Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster
- Priscilla Lane as Elaine Brewster
- Raymond Massey as Jonathan Brewster
- Jack Carson as Officer Patrick O'Hara
- Edward Everett Horton as Mr. Witherspoon
- Peter Lorre as Dr. Herman Einstein
- James Gleason as Police Lt. Rooney
- Josephine Hull as Abby Brewster
- Jean Adair as Martha Brewster
- John Alexander as "Teddy Roosevelt" Brewster
- Grant Mitchell as Reverend Harper
- Edward McNamara as Police Sgt. Brophy
- Garry Owen as taxi cab driver
- John Ridgely as Officer Sanders
- Vaughan Glaser as Judge Cullman
- Chester Clute as Dr. Gilchrist
- Charles Lane as reporter
- Edward McWade as Mr. Gibbs, the old man
- Hank Mann as photographer at marriage license office (uncredited)
- Spencer Charters as marriage license clerk (uncredited)
Background
The play Arsenic and Old Lace was written by Joseph Kesselring, son of German immigrants and a former professor at Bethel College, a pacifist Mennonite college. It was written in the anti-war atmosphere of the late 1930s.[8] Capra scholar Matthew C. Gunter argues that the deep theme of both the play and film is the United States' difficulty in coming to grips with both the positive and negative consequences of the liberty it professes to uphold, and which the Brewsters demand. Although their house is the nicest in the street, there are 12 bodies in the basement. That inconsistency is a metaphor for the country's struggle to reconcile the violence of much of its past with the pervasive myths about its role as a beacon of freedom.[9]
The set used for the Brewster home in Arsenic and Old Lace was reused in the 1942 film George Washington Slept Here. To ensure it looked the part of a dilapidated farmhouse in the latter film, Warner Bros. crews knocked out bannisters, rafters and floors on the set.[10]
Reception
Box office
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Grant_Lane_Still.jpg/220px-Grant_Lane_Still.jpg)
According to Warner Bros. records, the film grossed $2,836,000 domestically and $1,948,000 internationally.[2]
Critical response
The contemporary critical reviews were uniformly positive. The New York Times critic summed up the majority view, "As a whole, Arsenic and Old Lace, the Warner picture which came to the Strand yesterday, is good macabre fun."[1] Variety declared, "Capra's production, not elaborate, captures the color and spirit of the play, while the able writing team of Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein has turned in a very workable, tightly-compressed script. Capra's own intelligent direction rounds out."[11] Harrison's Reports wrote: "An hilarious entertainment, it should turn out to be one of the year's top box-office attractions."[12] John Lardner of The New Yorker called the film "practically as funny in picture form as it did on the stage, and that is very funny indeed."[13]
Assessing the film in 1968, Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg state in Hollywood in the Forties that "Frank Capra provided a rather overstated and strained version of Arsenic and Old Lace".[14]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10.[15]
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs (No. 30) in 2000.[16]
Radio adaptations
Arsenic and Old Lace was adapted as a half-hour radio play for the November 25, 1946, broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater with Boris Karloff and Eddie Albert.[17] A one-hour adaptation was broadcast on January 25, 1948, on Ford Theatre, with Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, and John Alexander reprising their roles.[18]
See also
- List of American films of 1944
- List of films set around Halloween
- Amy Archer-Gilligan – a nursing home owner accused of murdering elderly men in her care 1910–1917
- Black Widow murders – a real murder case whose events were compared to the fictional murders in the film
Notes
- ^ As stated in an episode of This Is Your Life, Karloff was actually an investor and a producer of the stage play who received royalties whenever it was performed.[6]
- ^ The self-referential joke highlights Karloff's portrayal of the character in the Broadway production.[6]
References
- ^ a b "'Arsenic and Old Lace,' With Cary Grant, in Premiere at Strand – 'Youth Runs Wild' Is New Palace Theatre Feature". The New York Times. September 2, 1944. Archived from the original on April 8, 2019. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
- ^ a b c Warner Bros financial information in The William Schaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 25 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551
- ^ McGilligan 1986, p. 170.
- ^ a b "Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) – Notes". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on January 18, 2016. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
- ^ Atkinson, Brooks (January 11, 1941). "The Play; Joseph Kesselring's 'Arsenic and Old Lace' Turns Murder Into Fantastic Comedy". The New York Times. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
- ^ a b Nixon, Rob. "The big idea behind Arsenic and Old Lace". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on April 26, 2013. Retrieved June 25, 2012.
- ^ "Special feature section." Arsenic and Old Lace, DVD release: 65025.1B.
- ^ Sprunger, Keith L. (May 29, 2013). "Another Look: Joseph Kesselring, Bethel College, and the Origins of Arsenic and Old Lace". Mennonite Life. Archived from the original on February 24, 2014.
- ^ Gunter 2012, pp. 49–51.
- ^ "George Washington Slept Here (1942) – Notes". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on August 16, 2016. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
- ^ "Film Reviews". Variety. Vol. 155, no. 13. September 6, 1944. p. 10.
- ^ "'Arsenic and Old Lace' with Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre and Priscilla Lane". Harrison's Reports. September 2, 1944. p. 143.
- ^ Lardner, John (September 9, 1944). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker. p. 51.
- ^ Higham & Greenberg 1968, p. 161.
- ^ "Arsenic and Old Lace". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 31, 2023.
- ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs" (PDF). American Film Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 24, 2016. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
- ^ "Boris Karloff to Repeat 'Arsenic' Role Monday, WHP". Harrisburg Telegraph. November 23, 1946. p. 19 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Horace Heidt's Talent Search Will Bring District Artists to Network Tonight". Youngstown Vindicator. January 25, 1948. p. C-12 – via Google News Archive.
Bibliography
- Capra, Frank (1971). The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. New York: Macmillan.
- Gunter, Matthew C. (2012). The Capra Touch: A Study of the Director's Hollywood Classics and War Documentaries, 1934–1945. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-6402-9.
- Higham, Charles; Greenberg, Joel (1968). Hollywood in the Forties. New York: A. S. Barnes.
- McGilligan, Pat, ed. (1986). Backstory: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05666-4.
- Stout, Kathryn; Stout, Richard (2002). "Arsenic and Old Lace". Movies as Literature. Wilmington, Delaware: Design-A-Study. pp. 41–46. ISBN 978-1-891975-09-7.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg/34px-Wikiquote-logo.svg.png)
- Arsenic and Old Lace at IMDb
- Arsenic and Old Lace at AllMovie
- Arsenic and Old Lace at Rotten Tomatoes
- Arsenic and Old Lace at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
- Arsenic and Old Lace at the TCM Movie Database
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- Arsenic and Old Lace (1944 film)
- Arsenic & Old Lace (1962 TV film)
- Arsenic and Old Lace (1969 TV film)