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Arsenic and Old Lace
Theatrical release poster.
Directed by	Frank Capra
Produced by	Frank Capra Jack L. Warner
Written by	Joseph Kesselring (play) Julius J. Epstein Philip G. Epstein
Starring	Cary Grant Josephine Hull Jean Adair Raymond Massey
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	September 23, 1944 (USA)
Running time	118 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,120,175 US (est.)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Arsenic and Old Lace is a film directed by Frank Capra based on a play by the same name by Joseph Kesselring. The script was adapted by Julius J. Epstein. Capra actually filmed the movie in 1941 but it was not released until 1944 while the studio waited for the stage version to finish its run on Broadway. The lead role of Mortimer Brewster was originally intended for Bob Hope, but he couldn't be released from his contract with Paramount. Capra had also approached Jack Benny and Ronald Reagan before settling on Cary Grant. Boris Karloff played Jonathan Brewster on the stage, while in the movie Raymond Massey plays Jonathan, who "looks like Karloff". If not for the stage play, Karloff would have played the same role in the film.

In addition to Grant as Mortimer Brewster, the film also starred Josephine Hull and Jean Adair as the Brewster sisters, Abby and Martha, respectively. Hull and Adair as well as John Alexander (who played Teddy) reprised their roles from the original 1941 stage production.

A drama critic and confirmed bachelor, Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant), has written a number of books describing marriage as just an old-fashioned superstition. Nevertheless, he falls in love with and marries Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane), who grew up next door to his old family home in Brooklyn.

Immediately after the marriage, he visits the bizarre relatives who still live there, two elderly aunts (Josephine Hull, Jean Adair) and his brother Teddy (John Alexander). Teddy thinks he's Theodore Roosevelt; each time he goes upstairs he blows a bugle, yells "Charge!", and takes the stairs at a run (in imitation of Roosevelt's famous charge up San Juan Hill). Mortimer finds a corpse hidden in a window seat, and tells his aunts that Teddy must be sent to an asylum, as he has killed someone.

At this point, Mortimer's sweet, if misguided, aunts explain that they are responsible ("It's one of our charities"). They have developed what Mortimer calls the "very bad habit" of ending the presumed suffering of lonely old bachelors by serving them elderberry wine spiked with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch of cyanide". The bodies are buried in the basement by Teddy, who thinks he is digging locks for the Panama Canal and burying yellow fever victims.

To complicate matters further, Mortimer's other brother, Jonathan (Raymond Massey), arrives with his alcoholic accomplice, plastic surgeon Dr. Herman Einstein (played by Peter Lorre, and loosely based on gangland surgeon Joseph Moran), in tow. Jonathan is a vicious multiple murderer trying to escape police and find a place to dispose of his latest victim's corpse. His face, as altered by Einstein while drunk, resembles that of Boris Karloff in his makeup as Frankenstein's monster. This comparison is frequently noted in the film, much to Jonathan's annoyance. (This was originally a self-referential joke, as Karloff himself had played the character in the stage production). Jonathan, upon finding out his aunts' secret, decides to bury his own murder victim in the cellar (to which Abby and Martha object vehemently, because their victims were all nice gentlemen) and soon declares his intention to kill Mortimer.

Mortimer makes increasingly frantic attempts to stay on top of the situation as his bride waits for him next door, including multiple efforts to alert the bumbling local cops to the threat Jonathan poses to society. He worries whether he will go insane like the rest of his family. But eventually Jonathan is arrested, while Teddy and the two aunts are safely consigned to an asylum. In the end, Mortimer is overjoyed to learn that he was adopted and is not biologically related to the Brewsters after all. He is actually the son of a sea cook (in the original play, he happily exclaims, "Elaine! Did you hear? Do you understand? I'm a bastard!").

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." 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."

• Capra, Frank. Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971. ISBN 0-30680-771-8.

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Arsenic and Old Lace

• Arsenic and Old Lace at the Internet Movie Database
• Arsenic and Old Lace at the TCM Movie Database