Tuesday's Forgotten (or Overlooked) Film: ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944) starring Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre.

I've saved the best for last on this my final October Forgotten Film Post:

(This is a repeat of a review originally posted (by me) on 2011, newly edited (by me) and re-posted since, really, this is my favorite Halloween movie and it's kind of a ritual around these parts. Far as I'm concerned, you can't say too much about ARSENIC AND OLD LACE or for that matter, say it often enough. 

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE directed by Frank Capra, screenplay adapted by Julius and Peter Epstein from the stage play by Joseph Kesserling, and with an utterly delightful musical score by Max Steiner (arranged by Hugo Friedhofer), is, to my own mind at least, one of the greatest screwball comedies ever conceived in any mind, man or woman. There, I said it and I'm glad. I LOVE THIS MOVIE!

Cary Grant was not, I understand, the first choice to play Mortimer Brewster but really, I can't imagine anyone else in the part. Grant himself thought he was not the best choice. (I've read he said that Jimmy Stewart would have been better.) He was wrong. Grant is superb as the crazed (and reluctant) newlywed who suddenly finds his whole life upended by hilarious madness and murder. Well, hilarious to us, at any rate.

Grant's facial expressions and over-the-top physicality alone are worth the price of admission. He threw himself into the part and steals the picture away from a whole host of seasoned scene stealers. He is simply magnificent. I have to say that ARSENIC AND OLD LACE and BRINGING UP BABY are my two very favorite Cary Grant movies of all time. (In my book, two Oscar worthy performances, if the vaunted Academy had valued comedy as much as drama.)

Yeah, I liked Grant's serious stuff too, but I just fell in love with Mortimer Brewster as I did earlier, with Dr. David Huxley. I love when an actor plays against type so successfully. Despite (or maybe because of) his physical beauty, Grant was not afraid to mix it up, to play a nerdy, hapless anthropologist or a hysterical, anti-marriage newspaper columnist on the eve of his honeymoon: a man who has suddenly discovered that his doddering, adorable aunts have been busy poisoning lonely old men who happen to drop by their house in Brooklyn. (No spoilers here, this is made evident very early in the movie.)

So, grab a bag of popcorn, sit back and get ready for the screwiest Halloween movie of all.

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Here's the complete cast, just so you get an idea of the wonderfulness of it all:

Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper columnist and author of a best selling book quaintly termed, The Bachelor's Bible: "Marriage, A Fraud and A Failure."

Priscilla Lane as the adorable Elaine Harper who has managed to rope in Mortimer, to his chagrin. Not to mention, his readers.

Raymond Massey as Jonathan Brewster, Mortimer's sinister brother and Boris Karloff look-alike (Karloff, who played the part on Broadway, was unavailable).

Peter Lorre as Dr. Einstein, Jonathan's ultra creepy plastic surgeon and cohort in crime.

Josephine Hull as Abby Brewster one half of the murderous duo of sweet doting aunts. She's the plump one.

Jean Adair as Martha Brewster, the other half. She's the skinnier one.

John Alexander as 'Teddy Roosevelt' Brewster, the loony-toony brother who lives with the aunts and thinks he's President Theodore Roosevelt.

Edward Everett Horton as Mr. Witherspoon, head of the local lunatic asylum: Happydale Sanatorium.

Jack Carson as O'Hara, the local cop on duty, a simpleton who can't spot a crime happening under his very nose. Literally.

James Gleason as Lieutenant Rooney, the local detective and O'Hara's exasperated boss.

...and to top it all off, our favorite character actor of them all, the ubiquitous and long-lived Charles Lane (1905 - 2007) who would outlive most everyone in this film, shows up at the beginning playing a news reporter.

See what I mean? Scene stealers all. But this time out, Grant does the stealing.

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...and, finally, here's the story:

Opening scene at Ebbits Field: the Brooklyn Dodgers, a baseball game which ends in bedlam. Bliss. Brooklyn. The Bums. Already I'm happy.

Then we see the bridge and we switch to Manhattan, the marriage license bureau at city hall where Mortimer and Elaine are getting a license to wed. They're standing on line while Mortimer tries to hide his face from the other couples and two nosy reporters looking for a story, any story.

And this being Frank Capra's show, we get a room full of mixed ethnicities which is very nice for a 1944 flick.

Then we switch back to Brooklyn. To a cemetery, wind blowing leaves among the headstones. It's Fall, it's chilly, in fact it's Halloween and here come Mortimer and Elaine, freshly married. She lives next door to Mortimer's aunts' house, right next door to the cemetery. All very cozy and comfy in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Mortimer has the cab driver wait for them. (The bemused cab driver spends the entire movie waiting outside the house.) Elaine goes next door to get her luggage and Mortimer drops in on his aunts to tell them the happy news.

Uh-oh.

The delightfully roly-poly Aunt Abby and the thinner, more spinsterish Aunt Martha are thrilled with the news. Mortimer is their favorite nephew and they've been match-making for a while. Grant plays his scenes with them so sweetly. It is just a pleasure to watch.

So, while Elaine is off gathering her trousseau Mortimer spends happy time with his aunts. But a few minutes later, he (very) inadvertently discovers the sweet old ladies' secret. And what a hideous secret it is, too.

While his aunts are in the kitchen getting refreshments, Mortimer decides to search for the notes to his new book, "Mind Over Matrimony". He lifts the cover on the window seat and - though he can hardly believe his eyes - discovers a dead body.

When he reacts as anyone would under those circumstances, he is utterly hilarious. Then when he tries to tell his Aunt Abby, she doesn't react as anyone would under those circumstances. She is perfectly calm and tells Mortimer to forget about it. Turns out that the body belongs to an itinerant old man who had come by earlier in the day and been given a glass of the aunts'  'special' wine.

Aunt Abby hid the body in the window seat because sister Martha hadn't been there to give her a hand lugging it down to the basement and brother Teddy hadn't had a chance yet to dig another lock for the canal, (to inter this latest body). Oh yes, there are many more in the basement. Teddy thinks they're all yellow fever victims.

Never one to think slowly on his feet, Mortimer realizes that his aunts have no clue they're doing anything wrong. According to them, they're saving these old men from their lonely lives. They're doing a good deed.

Mortimer decides that he can't/won't call the cops, instead he will call Happydale Sanatorium where Teddy (alias President Roosevelt) was scheduled to go anyway, in future, once the elderly aunts passed on. A most obliging coincidence.

Mortimer wants a rush job. He must have Teddy AND his aunts put away for their own good and the public safety - immediately, if not sooner. The way he sees it, he has no choice. What else is a sane man to do?

Meanwhile, newly-wed Elaine returns wondering what's keeping the new hubby. Mortimer pleads with her to go back to her house on some pretense or other and wait for him. Actually, he carries her out of his aunts' house and locks the door. She is befuddled. They were all set to go to Niagara Falls.

With Elaine temporarily disposed of, Mortimer rushes back inside his house and tries to get through on the phone to Mr. Witherspoon (Edward Everett Horton), the head of Happydale Sanatorium.
Then - his hysteria mounting - he runs out to see a judge to get an order for his relatives' incarceration. Let's face it, very few can do sympathetic hysteria like Cary Grant.

Later that same night, once the aunts are upstairs and the house dark and quiet, the front door opens and in creep two very strange men. Jonathan Brewster (Raymond Massey who looks remarkably like the Frankenstein monster as played by Karloff in the films) and his henchman and plastic surgeon, Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre).

A scary duo.

They've escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and have come home to Jonathan's aunts to hide out. Oh, and they're carting their own dead body, a Mr. Spinoza. A dead body that needs to be hidden. They too discover the old man in the window seat.

The aunts come downstairs but are frightened by Jonathan into going back to their rooms where they've been preparing for funeral services. They worry that their particular body won't have a proper burial down the basement, what with scary Jonathan in the house.

When Mortimer returns, he is not happy to be reunited with his brother. But when he tries to get Jonathan and Einstein to leave, they tie him up and gag him.

For what happens next, you'll have to see the film. It's all fast-paced screwball madness, nonsense, black humor and tons of physical comedy.

Since this was based on a stage play, there's people coming and going, plenty of opening and closing of doors, plenty of interruptions to Jonathan's plans, not to mention Mortimer's.

The cops eventually show up.

The scenes with Mr. Witherspoon (who thinks perhaps Mortimer too should be included in the sanatorium family package) are especially funny.

In the end, Mortimer works it all out after fearing that he too will go nutso since he is, after all, a Brewster. But the aunts have a further surprise in store for him.

See the movie, and if you've already seen it - see it again.

Link here to see the original trailer at TCM.

I didn't remove the original comments when I had the chance (didn't know I had to), so please remember that this is a re-do and I'm not the sharpest blade in the tool shed. Just pretend they're not there. Or add to your original comments if you feel like it. It's all good.