"...insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.”
Cary Grant lives with his two elderly aunts in a historic district of Brooklyn.
He's a dramatic critic and self-proclaimed lifelong bachelor, that is until he
secretly marries his beautiful neighbor
Priscilla Lane in the opening scene. Cary and Priscilla make a brief stop by
home to pack their bags for their honeymoon, when Cary accidentally discovers
a dead body! Cary instantly believes this is the doing of his mentally unwell brother
Teddy (who believes that he's Theodore Roosevelt), but when he breaks the news to his two dear old aunts they just laugh and tell
him no
they killed the man he
found!!!
At this point Cary is understandably freaking the fuck out and desperately
trying to figure out how to fix this situation when out of nowhere his
truly psychotic brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) comes home after being
on the run from the law for the last 20 years...for mass murder!!! Add on Grant's problem is a nosy neighborhood policeman (Jack Carson), a drunk
underworld surgeon (Peter Lorre), a horny new wife, a pissed off
taxi cab driver, a confused sanitarium doctor and
twelve more dead bodies!!!
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE is one of the funniest dark comedies of all time. I cannot say enough good things or recommend it enough.
Eighty years later and the script is still just as fresh and funny as ever. Pretty
much everything about this film is
perfect and even after countless viewings I
still grin every time I watch it.
Fun fact: even though the movie was filmed in late 1941 it wasn't released until
September 1, 1944! This was due to Warner Brothers being contractually required
to wait until the play finished it's run. It ran for 1,444 performances.
Leo White. According to IMDb he starred in 439 films (most
uncredited, kinda like here) but according to his own personal journal
he appeared in over 2,000 films!!!!!!!!!!!!
An Royal Air Force bomber is shot down deep in Nazi territory and now the
surviving crew, lead by Errol Flynn, must make their way back to England, but
not without making a few detours to cause some chaos and crack a bunch of jokes.
I was a little bit taken back by the light-hearted nature of the film, but once
I understood that the film was probably meant to cheer up Americans back home I
got into and enjoyed the film for what it was. The chemistry between the leads
is good and I was pleasantly surprised to see Raymond Massey as Nazi Major hot
on their trail.
