Rating: 
Summary: The last (and among the best) of the great screwball cycle!
Review: Cary Grant (and certain critics) have referred to this as his worst performance, (actually, try "Destination Tokyo") but I firmly believe it to have been brilliantly successful and perfectly appropriate for this wild brew of horror and hilarity. The craziness of his portrayal superbly augments the intended two-headed counterpoint of the original play. Firstly, that here you have a perfectly normal man who was raised by two perfectly typical aunts (and count only one weirdo--Teddy--in the family); who then finds out that his aunts are perfectly atypical--in fact, crazy--and he starts behaving abnormally; and then add another insanity case appearing--his other brother--and this originally normal man ends up acting crazier than all of them! Here this comedic device of escalation is used to counterpoint the outright insanity exhibited by the rest of his family! Secondly, a running joke is that insanity runs in the Brewster family ("...and practically gallops!"), so we have to believe--until the final revelation--that Mortimer too has inherited the family genes! Hey, the experts can be wrong. (Heck, Bette Davis didn't think much of her performance in "The Little Foxes"!!!) Notwithstanding, this is a hilariously classic send-off of the great Hollywood screwball comedies of the '30s (not to mention satirical jibes at another '30s Hollywood genre, horror flicks). Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, and John Alexander recreate their stage roles brilliantly; Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre proving that they could indeed do it all; a plethora of comic masters (Gleason, Carson, Horton, etc.) to provide laugh-a-minute support; Frank Capra, using his cinematic skill to the utmost to build up fittingly dizzying moments of frenetic hilarity, and handling the wild mood changes from horror to comedy seamlessly; Sol Polito, recreating both the brightly lit screwball atmosphere, and the sinisterly shadowy look of the old horror movies marvelously; and the Epstein brothers at their brilliant best, with enough comic twists and witty lines for three comedies! A must for those who like their laughs served poisonously funny!
Rating:
Summary: Carey Grant at his comedic best.
Review: Take a confirmed bachelor who is about to marry. Add a set of "do-good" aunts, an uncle who thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt, a psychotic brother and his sidekick. Mix well and laugh for the entire movie. Grant does the befuddled guy routine very well. A must see for everyone. Children will love it.
Rating:
Summary: The best slapstick comedy in history!
Review: "Arsenic and Old Lace" is one of my all-time favorite comedies. Anyone who has watched it with me has immediately declared it to be one of their favorites also. Cary Grant is simply delicious as Mortimer Brewster, who is driven to the brink of insanity as he tries to get his aunts to curb their little "hobby." Josephine Hull and Jean Adair are superb as Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha, who are seen by many as the kindest people they ever knew, and find nothing at all wrong with their "charity." Add criminal brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) coming home to hide from the police with his accomplice and plastic surgeon, Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre, in one of his best roles ever), another brother, Teddy, who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt, a fed-up and confused wife (Priscilla Lane), a cop who wants nothing more than to read his new play to Mortimer, and trying to get Teddy commited to a "rest home," and Mortimer is driven to the brink of a nervous breakdown. In the funniest way imaginable!! Go watch it today!
Rating:
Summary: Absoloutly haliourous!
Review: A mix of old fasionend terror and comedy, this is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen! The whole family should see this! It is really, really funny! (And it gives me an all new respect for my aunts!)
Rating:
Summary: Slapstick at its finest - you'll watch it again and again!
Review: Cary Grant steals the show! A real classic comedy. From start to finish, this is a madcap, non-stop roller coaster ride!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best screwball comedies ever made...
Review: A brilliant film with a great cast. What better cast can one get? Cary Grant! Peter Lorre! Raymond Massey! Perhaps, after Bringing Up Baby, this is the best exemple of Cary Grant's whimsical comic timing and one of the best screwball comedies ever made. Peter Lorre was never more funny before or after he did this film. And Raymond Massey was BORIS KARLOFF. And the film was superbly directed by the great Frank Capra. If you haven't seen the film, it's about time you did. I promise you won't be disappointed. Truly a film not to be missed.
Rating: 
Summary: "Insanity runs in my family . . . it practically gallops!"
Review: Frank Capra and Cary Grant are clearly two of the brightest shining stars of the golden era of film, but their collaboration in "Arsenic and Old Lace" leaves something to be desired. The premise of the film is certainly more outrageous than the other comedies that came out during the Forties. Yet, outrageousness alone does not make for a good film.Mortimer Brewster (Grant) comes home to visit his aunts with his new wife, Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane), in tow. Mortimer is soon in for a shock when he discovers what his aunts - Abby Brewster (Josephine Hull) and Martha Brewster (Jean Adair) - have been doing to pass the time. It turns out that they've been taking in elderly men as boarders and murdering them in order to end their loneliness. Trying to find a way to explain away what happened to their latest victim, Mortimer concocts a plan to blame the death on his younger brother Theodore (John Alexander). However, the ill-timed return home of older brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) complicates matters even further. All of the performers turn in admirable efforts, but "Arsenic and Old Lace" just does not have as sharp or as witty a script as the screwball comedies that populated the preceding decade. While the subject matter of the film certainly isn't the stuff of comedy, the more fatal aspect that prevents it from being entertaining is the manner in which its characters are employed. Characters just seem to appear out of left field to keep the story moving along instead of springing forth from the story organically. There's Theodore running down the stairs to offer a way out of the predicament. There's brother Jonathan returning home in order to create another level of chaos. There's Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre) making a cameo so that Peter Lorre can be squeezed into the film. In the end, "Arsenic and Old Lace" just feels like a structurally-staged production rather than an effort to tell a legitimate story.
Rating:
Summary: A fun Halloween story
Review: I have seen this movie dozens of times on TV. The problem is they always cut out a lot of the little nuances that make the movie fun; sometimes it is curtail to the story. Now you can see the whole story in its entirety. Lots of sight gags and relies on many expressions to convey what they are thinking. If this looks like a play, that is because it is a play. It was written by Joseph Kesserling and opened in New York City 10 JAN 41. It ran for 1,444 performances. Boris Karloff was an investor and the star attraction so he could not be released for the movie. The story takes place all on Halloween night in Brooklyn. Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) a critic, that wrote a scathing book about the negatives of marriage, gets married. He soon finds out about his families past and where the bodies are buried. Soon he is to be visited by his estranged or just strange brother (Raymond Massey). Seems that his brother and his brother's friend, Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre), has some secrets of their own. Keep your eye on the elderberry wine.
Rating:
Summary: Totally off-the-wall
Review: Cary Grant plays the nephew of two elderly aunts, who have an interesting hobby: they poison men. In every other way, the aunts are two sweet old ladies who wouldn't harm a fly. Grant tries to convince them to stop putting people out of their misery, but they are baffled by his objections. He tries to protect them, by hiding the bodies, but those darn bodies don't stay put! Then, the other nephew (Raymond Massey), who is a genuine bad guy and who was just released from jail, enters the scene, and things really get out of control.
This is a somewhat frenetic black comedy, that keeps making you, "No, they didn't do that!" Grant's portrayal reminds me of his role in "Bringing Up Baby" where he is well-intentioned, chronically flustered, and comically overwhelmed. Massey does "sinister" well, and the actresses portraying the aunts are superb (and very comfortable with their roles, as they had played the characters on stage for a long time before the movie).
This movie is just downright fun to watch.
Rating:
Summary: "What we've been doing is a mercy."
Review: Cary Grant is at his comic best in this off-the-wall Frank Capra film in which Grant plays Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic with a bizarre family. His brother Teddy (John Alexander) thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt and spends his time digging "locks for the Panama Canal" in the basement of the family home. His brother Jonathan (wonderfully played by Raymond Massey) has returned home with a dozen murders to his credit, looking like Frankenstein, thanks to the sinister plastic surgeon who accompanies him (Peter Lorre). His batty, elderly aunts (Jean Adair and Josephine Hull) put Teddy's "locks" to good use for their own "merciful" activities.
The frantic action, ironies, and the dramatic surprises all center around two bodies, hidden at various times in the window seat of the living room, and the reactions to them by the various people within the household. The local police, friends of Aunts Abby and Martha, stop by to chat, have coffee, and protect these "sweet" old ladies, often at the worst possible moments, while Mortimer tries to decide what to do about his strange family and the bodies in the house. Complicating the action is the fact that Mortimer has just that day married Elaine (Priscilla Lane), who lives next door. She keeps showing up at the house at the wrong moment, having no idea why Mortimer keeps kicking her out.
Sight gags, mistaken identity, contretemps, high-speed action, and split second timing make this one of the most outrageous, and hilarious black comedies ever filmed. The cast is perfect, and the acting is over-the-top, with a great deal of yelling, mugging, wide-eyed looks of surprise, feigned innocence, and even satire of the film industry as people repeatedly tell Jonathan he looks like Boris Karloff. Perfectly timed entrances and exits keep the action moving at a frantic pace, and the conclusion is delightful. Released in 1944, when World War II had taken a terrible toll on the country emotionally, the film must have provided a much-needed comic lift at a time when it was especially needed. Mary Whipple
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