Classic film blends comedy and the macabre
“Arsenic and Old Lace” is an unusual film from director Frank Capra, who made his name with socially conscious message films about the corrupting influence of money, how corruption makes its way into politics, and how politicians and the media sway the American people in a dangerous direction. Based on the successful play by Joseph Kesselring, “Arsenic and Old Lace” is pure entertainment, one of Hollywood’s best screwball comedies.<br /><br />Drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) marries Elaine (Priscilla Lane), literally the girl next door to his childhood home. On the way to their honeymoon, they stop to tell their families about the marriage. Mortimer soon gets sidetracked by the discovery that his sweet old spinster aunts, Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair), have been exercising their charitable natures in rather an unusual way. Taking pity on sad, old, poor, solitary men, they comfort each one with sympathy and elderberry wine containing something special, then bury the bodies in the basement with proper funeral services. Mortimer discovers their latest victim in the window seat. At first, Mortimer believes his delusional brother Teddy (John Alexander) is to blame until his aunts calmly tell him it was their way of easing the loneliness and pain of their victims.<br /><br />Later, Mortimer’s other brother, Jonathan (Raymond Massey), who has escaped from an institution and gone on a killing spree, arrives home with his sidekick, Dr. Herman Einstein (Peter Lorre). Juggling his family’s insanity, the police, and a new cop on the beat (Jack Carson) who dreams of becoming a playwright, Mortimer considers ending his brief marriage because he fears that he, too, may carry the “crazy” gene and should spare Elaine the heartache.<br /><br />Cary Grant does lots of double takes as bits of his aunts’ well-meaning activities become evident. These over-the-top reactions are initially funny but wear thin after a while. Much of his performance consists of pop-eyed astonishment, flailing panic, and wild histrionics in response to each new plot development. The audience is discovering the house’s secrets through Mortimer’s eyes and Grant’s reactions are intended to mirror those of the viewer, but Capra should have restrained him. Grant himself agreed, and thought his performance was far too broad. Re-takes were scheduled but never took place because Capra joined the war effort.<br /><br />Hull and Adair originated their roles on Broadway and bring exactly the right combination of gentleness, conviction that they have performed a kind service, and dismissal of Mortimer’s concern as they fuss about in the kitchen, bake a cake, and tsk-tsk anyone who would tell a lie. Alexander, also from the original Broadway cast, gives Teddy’s lunacy a comic turn. Believing he is Theodore Roosevelt, Teddy pulls out an imaginary sword and yells “Charge!” every time he runs upstairs, the staircase becoming his personal San Juan Hill.<br /><br />In the play, Boris Karloff played Jonathan Brewster. With the benefit of extensive make-up, Raymond Massey looks quite a bit like Karloff as the Frankenstein monster, a result of Dr. Einstein’s botched plastic surgery. Massey is the villain and adds a degree of danger to the comedy. Though we never regard the aunts as serial killers, Jonathan is truly a menace to society and to his family. Massey plays the role with intense grimness and an icy stare that suggests he wouldn’t think twice about snuffing out whomever gets in his way. Lorre adds some comedy of his own as the inept, perennially drunk Dr. Einstein.<br /><br />Edward Everett Horton plays Mr. Witherspoon, the director of Happy Dale Sanitarium. Grant could have taken a note from Horton who knew how to underplay with a withering manner, pursed lips, and a condescending glare. His trademark comic fussiness is as sharp as it was in the Astaire-Rogers musicals a decade earlier. Grant Mitchell as Reverend Harper, James Gleason as Police Lt. Rooney, and Garry Owen as a frustrated cab driver round out the cast.<br /><br />Capra opens up the play with an extraneous prologue shot at Brooklyn’s Ebbetts Field as fans wildly cheer for the Dodgers. A second sequence was added of Mortimer and Elaine at City Hall trying to get a marriage license while ducking reporters. But most of the film takes place in the Brewster home. An elaborate interior set duplicates the outside of the home with a small graveyard, Manhattan skyscrapers in the distance, autumn leaves on the ground, miniature moving streetcars, and the Brooklyn Bridge looming in the background.<br /><br />At close to two hours, the film flies by. The script balances the comedy with Jonathan’s unpredictable behavior, creating suspense. It manages to treat calculated murder as the cornerstone of the movie with Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha the two sweetest women imaginable… except for the fact that they poison people.<br /><br />Bonus materials on the unrated Blu-ray release from The Criterion Collection include the following:<br />Audio Commentary with Charles Dennis, author of There’s a Body in the Window Seat: The History of Arsenic and Old Lace.<br />Radio Adaptation of “Arsenic and Old Lace”<br />Trailer<br />Booklet containing a critical essay<br /><br />“Arsenic and Old Lace” is clever in the way it takes a morbid idea and mixes it with slapstick, romance, and Cary Grant’s befuddlement. The underplayed, excellent performances of Hull and Adair balance Grant’s madcap histrionics, resulting in a highly entertaining excursion into dark, often hilarious comedy.
The movie title "Arsenic and Old Lace (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]," available on Movies & TV, has received an average rating of 4.8 from 423 reviewers. 
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 {"Aspect Ratio": "1.37:1", "MPAA rating": "NR (Not Rated)", "Product Dimensions": "6.73 x 5.31 x 0.55 inches; 5.92 Ounces", "Director": "Frank Capra", "Media Format": "Blu-ray", "Release date": "October 11, 2022", "Actors": "Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Jack Carson, Edward Everett Horton", "Producers": "Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse, Frank Capra", "Studio": "The Criterion Collection", "Country of Origin": "USA", "Number of discs": "1"}

Here is a brief synopsis of the title : Frank Capra adapted a hit stage play for this marvelous screwball meeting of the madcap and the macabre. On Halloween, newly married drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant, cutting loose in a hilariously harried performance) returns home to Brooklyn, where his adorably dotty aunts (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair, who both starred in the Broadway production) greet him with love, sweetness . . . and a grisly surprise: the corpses buried in their cellar. A bugle-playing brother (John Alexander) who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, a crazed criminal (Raymond Massey) who’s a dead ringer for Boris Karloff, and a seriously slippery plastic surgeon (Peter Lorre) are among the outré oddballs populating.