Arsenic and Old Lace

MOVIE #1,246 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 11.22.23 I often scoff at the genre designations on Wikipedia, especially when they have a plethora listed. For example, they describe this middle-period Frank Capra as a “screwball mystery black comedy film,” which gives me a headache just reading it. But this feels like the rare case where that mouthful is accurate, because this plot — based on a hit Broadway play — is INSANE. In short: Newlywed Cary Grant has to deal with a pair of serial killer duos (his loveable old lady aunties and his deranged, long lost, Frankenstein-face-ass brother + his lackey assistant played by Peter Lorre). It definitely hits classic black comedy notes in a way that I wasn’t expecting. The way its layers of crazy shit are piled on top of crazy shit is quite something that I, frankly, wasn’t prepared for (in a good way!).

There are some great shots but it does feel like a stage play, essentially isolated to one set, a house in Brooklyn. And in the end it really leans into the screwball side of the screwball / black comedy. There was never going to be a neat way to tie this unhinged plot together but the conclusion is spectacularly nuts (not so much in a good way).

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Arsenic and Old Lace is a 1944 American screwball mystery black comedy 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. 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 '44. It was released on September 1, 1944.