Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Charles Herold (cherold) Director Frank Capra is most famous for movies that combine humor with human drama and sweet morals, but in his adaption of Arsenic and Old Lace he just goes for the laughs, and winds up with one of the funniest and most frenetic movies of the 40s.The film's linchpin is Cary Grant as a panicked writer who discovers his sweet aunts have a very, very bad secret. It's a manic, expressive performance full of double takes, bemused looks, hysterical shouting, and stunned, quizzical silence. It is the funniest he has ever been.The rest of the cast is excellent as well, although the great tragedy of Arsenic and Old Lace is the absence of Boris Karloff, who appeared in the Broadway production as a criminal who became furious whenever people told him his latest plastic surgery made him look like ... Boris Karloff. It's a brilliant in-joke the movie loses. Apparently Karloff did reprise the role in several TV adaptations, but alas, they seem to have all vanished from the face of the earth.Anyway, watch this movie. It's amazing.

mark.waltz If I was going to be poisoned, I couldn't think of a lovelier way to go than to die drunk on the elderberry wine made by sweet sisters Josephine Hull and Jean Adair. But I'm not one of the types of lonely old men that the sisters go after, and while I might rent a room from them, I would be sure to let them know that I had a life. The sad thing is that the men they poison and bury in their basement did not, and when the rest of the family discovers that, it's motive for blackmail, a chance to panic, and if you are a nervous Nancy like Cary Grant, you will be frantic of being tied in with these hysterical but brutal murders. He's engaged to Priscilla Lane, a lovely girl who doesn't realize the family of macadamia's she marrying into, and while the old lace on the curtains and homey feel of their large house seems genuine, there's something sinister. The other nuts in the family includes a brother who insists that he's Teddy Roosevelt and a psychopathic killer they refuse to talk about anymore. John Alexander screams "Charge!" every time he runs down the stairs, and insists that he's off to Africa on a safari. All of a sudden, sinister gloom arrives in the form of Raymond Massey, the long forgotten Brewster brother who quickly discovers, along with his strange little friend Peter Lorre, that there is more going on in his old home than elderberry wine making and pie cooking.A huge cast of familiar and funny characters players helps move this comedy right along, held for two years from release due to the success of the Broadway play. Hull and Adair get to repeat their roles, but most of the cast is new to the material. Massey takes on the role of Jonathan Brewster, the psycho brother originated on stage by Boris Karloff. But as much as he was missed in the movie, it wasn't the end of Jonathan for Karloff who would appear in a TV version a decade later. Grant seems a bit too sophisticated at times for the role of the nervous brother, but is so funny being cast against type, and of course Hull and Adair are delightfully lovable with only the best intentions of dispatching of the men they poison.Massey and Lorre are wonderfully malevolent and sinister, while Edward Everett Horton, Jack Carson, James Gleason and Grant Mitchell offer very funny performances as well. The stage origins of the film are obvious, but it is directed extremely well by the legendary Frank Capra who isn't striving for anything but hysterics in perhaps his only non topical feature. The sets and photography defy description in their excellence, and the pacing never lets down. It wasn't that much edited from the original play, and really stands the test of time.

DaxBeach2.0 AAOL is based off the play by the same name. It centers around the comic life of two, young newly-weds who are getting ready to go on their honeymoon! The gentleman, played by Cary Grant, was reared and has been living with his two eccentric aunties and relative Ted for some time now. Soon to leave for his honeymoon, he is aghast to learn that there is a corpse of a dead man in the dais of their sun-window in the front parlor. Assuming that his demented (but sweet) relative Ted did the dastardly deed himself (after all, Ted thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt!), Grant learns that his aunties did this murder, and have been doing it for many years. All is Okay though, because the sweet ladies are killing these aged old men off for charity, so that they don't live too long in aged agony! Add to the farce, there are eleven more bodies buried in the basement, and Ted buries them thinking they are simply victims of Yellow Fever from digging the Panama Canal.

jacobs-greenwood Though you may tire of Cary Grant's frenetic behavior and exasperated exclamations ("ow"'s and "oh dear"'s) while watching it, this is a very funny Frank Capra (produced and directed) film starring Grant as famous writer-critic Mortimer Brewster, formerly a confirmed bachelor, and his newlywed wife Priscilla Lane.It features an excellent supporting cast that includes Raymond Massey (playing the 'inside-joke' role that Boris Karloff originated on Broadway) and Peter Lorre, and Josephine Hull (known best for her Oscar winning role in Harvey (1950)) and Jean Adair. Additionally, Jack Carson, John Ridgely, Edward McNamara and James Gleason play police officers; Grant Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton and Charles Lane also appear.Just after Grant marries Lane, he discovers that his sweet ole Aunts (Hull and Adair) have been bumping off unsuspecting lonely old gentlemen with elderberry wine and burying them in their basement (!), to which he later remarks: "Insanity runs in my family ... it practically gallops."John Alexander plays another Brewster residing in the otherwise quiet (next to a cemetery) residence; convinced that he's President Teddy Roosevelt, he runs up the stairs (e.g. San Juan Hill) yelling "Charge!" every 15 minutes or so throughout the movie.Massey plays Mortimer's long lost crazed and murderous brother Jonathan; Lorre is "Johnny's" accomplice and plastic surgeon, Dr. Einstein.Scripted by Julius J. & Philip G. Epstein, from the successful (and long-running) stage play written by Joseph Kesselring, this comedy was completely ignored by the Academy (in part because it was released in theaters almost 3 years after it was filmed, per contract until the play had closed), though it's 30th on AFI's 100 Funniest Movies list.