Arsenic and Old Lace (film)

{{Infobox film

| name = Arsenic and Old Lace

| image = Arsenic_And_Old_Lace_Poster.jpg

| caption = Theatrical release poster

| director = Frank Capra

| screenplay = {{Plainlist|

}}

| based_on = {{based on|Arsenic and Old Lace|Joseph Kesselring}}

| producer = {{Plainlist|

Frank Capra
Jack L. Warner

}}

| starring = {{Plainlist|

}}

| cinematography = Sol Polito

| editing = Daniel Mandell

| music = Max Steiner

| distributor = Warner Bros.

| released = {{Film date|1944|09|1|New York City|ref1={{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1944/09/02/archives/arsenic-and-old-lace-with-cary-grant-in-premiere-at-strand-youth.html |title='Arsenic and Old Lace,' With Cary Grant, in Premiere at Strand – 'Youth Runs Wild' Is New Palace Theatre Feature |newspaper=The New York Times |date=September 2, 1944 |access-date=July 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190408070643/https://www.nytimes.com/1944/09/02/archives/arsenic-and-old-lace-with-cary-grant-in-premiere-at-strand-youth.html |archive-date=April 8, 2019 |url-status=live}}

|1944|09|23|United States}}

| runtime = 118 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget = $1.2 millionWarner 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

| gross = $4.8 million

}}

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.{{sfn|McGilligan|1986|p=170}} 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.{{cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/577/arsenic-and-old-lace#notes|title=Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) – Notes|publisher=Turner Classic Movies|access-date=December 24, 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160118000219/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/577/arsenic-and-old-lace/notes.html|archive-date=January 18, 2016}} Raymond Massey took Karloff's place on screen.{{cite news |last=Atkinson |first=Brooks |author-link=Brooks Atkinson |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1941/01/11/archives/the-play-joseph-kesselrings-arsenic-and-old-lace-turns-murder-into.html |title=The Play; Joseph Kesselring's 'Arsenic and Old Lace' Turns Murder Into Fantastic Comedy |newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 11, 1941 |access-date=December 24, 2022 |url-access=subscription}}{{refn|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.{{cite web |last=Nixon |first=Rob |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/577/arsenic-and-old-lace#articles-reviews |title=The big idea behind Arsenic and Old Lace |publisher=Turner Classic Movies |access-date=June 25, 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130426105732/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/577/Arsenic-And-Old-Lace/articles.html |archive-date=April 26, 2013}}|group=Note}} 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. 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."Special feature section." Arsenic and Old Lace, DVD release: 65025.1B. The cost of the filming rights was $175,000."Film Rights $ Up and Up; Hollywood Gets Taken But Presitige Pix Pay." Billboard 55:49 (4 December 1943), 4.

Plot

The Brewster family of Brooklyn, New York City, is descended from Mayflower settlers who reportedly “scalped the natives instead of the other way around”, according to scion Mortimer Brewster.

File:Priscilla Lane and Cary Grant in 'Arsenic and Old Lace', 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 younger brother, Teddy, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt, resides with them. Each time Teddy goes upstairs, he blows a trumpet, yells "Charge!" and runs up the stairs, imitating Roosevelt's famous 1898 charge up San Juan Hill.

File: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 suitable subject for their “charity”, then serve a glass of elderberry wine spiked with arsenic, strychnine, and cyanide. 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 died in the building of the Panama Canal.

While Mortimer digests this information, the police arrive to pick up toys to be donated by the aunts for a charity drive; Mortimer frantically distracts them from Mr. Hoskins and the bodies in the cellar; and they leave unaware. To draw attention away from his aunts, Mortimer goes off to file paperwork to have Teddy legally committed to the Happy Dale mental asylum.

While Mortimer is away, his older brother, Jonathan, arrives with his alcoholic accomplice, plastic surgeon Dr. Herman Einstein. Altered by Einstein while drunk, Jonathan's face resembles Boris Karloff's Frankenstein monster makeup.{{refn|The self-referential joke highlights Karloff's portrayal of the character in the Broadway production.|group=Note}} Jonathan is a serial murderer with a body count of twelve, fleeing from the police and intending to dispose of his latest victim, Mr. Spenalzo, in the cellar. Abby and Martha object vehemently because their victims were "nice" gentlemen while Jonathan's victim is a stranger and a "foreigner". Learning his aunts' secret and mocked by Einstein for having his body count matched by his amateur elderly aunts, Jonathan intends to increase his body count by killing Mortimer.

Meanwhile Mortimer returns, and Einstein distracts him with theater talk while Jonathan takes Mr. Spinalzo to the cellar. An oblivious Mortimer decries how unrealistically dim characters are written in the plays he reviews, giving an example of a protagonist who is aware that he is in a house with killers, yet neglects to look around him to see he is about to be strangled—while Jonathan is behind Mortimer cutting a cord from the curtains that he uses to tie up Mortimer. While Jonathan and Einstein argue about whether and how to kill Mortimer, Officer O’Hara arrives in response to a noise complaint from the neighbors about Teddy’s trumpet blasts. O’Hara’s superiors arrive, recognizing and arresting Jonathan, who tells them about the aunts having bodies buried in the cellar. With great difficulty, Mortimer convinces the police that the claims of bodies are a delusion. Mr. Witherspoon arrives to take Teddy to Happy Dale, and the aunts insist on joining him. Dr. Einstein flees after signing the aunts' commitment papers.

The unaware Elaine returns and is impatient to leave on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls. Worrying that the genetic predisposition for mental illness resides within him, Mortimer explains to Elaine that he cannot remain married to her.

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 biological father was a chef on a steamship. Relieved, he kisses Elaine and whisks her off to their honeymoon.

Cast

{{Cast listing|

Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster
Priscilla Lane as Elaine Harper
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.{{cite web |last=Sprunger |first=Keith L. |url=http://mennonitelife.bethelks.edu/2013/05/another-look-joseph-kesselring-bethel-college-and-the-origins-of-arsenic-and-old-lace/ |title=Another Look: Joseph Kesselring, Bethel College, and the Origins of Arsenic and Old Lace |website=Mennonite Life |date=May 29, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224134601/http://mennonitelife.bethelks.edu/2013/05/another-look-joseph-kesselring-bethel-college-and-the-origins-of-arsenic-and-old-lace/ |archive-date=February 24, 2014}} 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.{{sfn|Gunter|2012|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XLD--w2GHrkC&pg=PA49 49–51]}}

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.{{cite web |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/168/george-washington-slept-here#notes |title=George Washington Slept Here (1942) – Notes |publisher=Turner Classic Movies |access-date=December 24, 2022 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816184447/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/168/George-Washington-Slept-Here/notes.html |archive-date=August 16, 2016}}

Reception

=Box office=

File:Arsenic and Old Lace trailer (1944).webm

File:Grant Lane Still.jpg

According to Warner Bros. records, the film grossed $2,836,000 domestically and $1,948,000 internationally.

=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." 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."{{cite magazine |url=https://archive.org/details/variety155-1944-09/page/n9/mode/2up?view=theater |title=Film Reviews |magazine=Variety |volume=155 |issue=13 |date=September 6, 1944 |page=10}} Harrison's Reports wrote: "An hilarious entertainment, it should turn out to be one of the year's top box-office attractions."{{cite magazine |date=September 2, 1944 |title='Arsenic and Old Lace' with Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre and Priscilla Lane |magazine=Harrison's Reports |page=143}} 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."{{cite magazine |last=Lardner |first=John |author-link=John Lardner (sportswriter) |date=September 9, 1944 |title=The Current Cinema |magazine=The New Yorker |page=51}}

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".{{sfn|Higham|Greenberg|1968|p=161}}

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.{{cite web |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/arsenic_and_old_lace |title=Arsenic and Old Lace |website=Rotten Tomatoes |access-date=31 August 2023}}

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs ({{Abbr|No.|Number}} 30) in 2000.{{cite web |title=AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs |url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/laughs100.pdf |publisher=American Film Institute |access-date=2016-08-05 |archive-date=2016-06-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624052741/http://afi.com/Docs/100Years/laughs100.pdf}}

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.{{cite news |title=Boris Karloff to Repeat 'Arsenic' Role Monday, WHP |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3217330/harrisburg_telegraph/ |newspaper=Harrisburg Telegraph |date=November 23, 1946 |page=19 |via=Newspapers.com}} {{open access}} A one-hour adaptation was broadcast on January 25, 1948, on Ford Theatre, with Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, and John Alexander reprising their roles.{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=oHpIAAAAIBAJ&pg=4106%2C3341477&q=Arsenic+Lace |title=Horace Heidt's Talent Search Will Bring District Artists to Network Tonight |page=C-12 |newspaper=Youngstown Vindicator |date=January 25, 1948 |via=Google News Archive}}

Notes

References

=Bibliography=

{{cite book| last=Capra| first=Frank| author-link=Frank Capra| title=The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography| location=New York| publisher=Macmillan| year=1971| url=https://archive.org/details/nameabovetitleau00capr| url-access=registration}}
{{cite book| last=Gunter| first=Matthew C.| title=The Capra Touch: A Study of the Director's Hollywood Classics and War Documentaries, 1934–1945| location=Jefferson, North Carolina| publisher=McFarland & Company| year=2012| isbn=978-0-7864-6402-9}}
{{cite book| last1=Higham| first1=Charles| author-link1=Charles Higham (biographer)| last2=Greenberg | first2=Joel | title=Hollywood in the Forties| location=New York| publisher=A. S. Barnes| year=1968| url=https://archive.org/details/hollywoodinforti00high| url-access=registration}}
{{cite book| editor-last=McGilligan| editor-first=Pat| title=Backstory: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age| location=Berkeley| publisher=University of California Press| year=1986| url=https://archive.org/details/backstoryintervi0000unse| url-access=registration| isbn=978-0-520-05666-4}}
{{cite book| last1=Stout| first1=Kathryn| last2=Stout| first2=Richard| chapter=Arsenic and Old Lace| chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M4b7qsTt8HAC&pg=PA41| title=Movies as Literature| location=Wilmington, Delaware| publisher=Design-A-Study| year=2002| pages=41–46| isbn=978-1-891975-09-7}}