Category: Comedies - Comedy - Comedy Video - Feature Film-comedy - Movie
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DVD Arsenic and Old Lace
Frank Capra made this film in 1941 before he went off to make films for America's war effort, but it wasn't released until 1944. Adapted from the hit play by Joseph Kesselring, this frantic black comedy shows Capra at his best as a master of mood and timing. Actresses Josephine Hull and Jean Adair reprise their Broadway performances as two gentle old ladies who poison men with elderberry wine to put them out of their misery. Cary Grant plays one nephew, a normal guy who just gets wind of their little hobby and tries to get them to stop, while Raymond Massey plays another, a villain just escaped from jail. Capra encourages the cast, especially Grant, to give a somewhat more outsized performance than one might expect. But made during the war years as it was, this overstated comic approach to killing was probably cathartic. --Tom Keogh
The movie is great, but the sound quality wasn't the best. It is obviously a very old film which makes it hard to have the quality of current films. We enjoyed it and it is about as good as it gets, considering when the original was filmed.
THE funniest movie of all time!!
No matter how many times I see this, I laugh as if it were the first!
There is absolutely NOTHING that's a downside of this movie. The casting is inspired - Raymond Massey as the Boris Karloff lookalike, Jonathan, Peter Lorre as Dr. Einstein, and Cary Grant - just beyond perfect as Mortimer Brewster - the unseen Mr. Spinolzo, the "hot stiff in the rumbleseat."
I've always loved Cary Grant in a drama or comedy, but honestly, he is so freaking funny in this movie that no one can compare in any other vehicle.
Grant's conversation on the phone with the operator while he's trying to get the Happydale Sanitarium is priceless! (I often feel that same way when I'm on the phone with my HMO.) Meanwhile, Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha are trying to give some tainted elderberry wine to yet another unsuspecting old man they think is lonely and needs to be relieved of the burden of living.
When Grant gets off the phone, he's so frustrated he pours himself a glass of wine - elderberry wine, and Aunt Martha gives him an "uh uh UH!" and he drops the glass. But the potential border cum victim is about ready to drink his down, and Grant SCREAMS and chases him out of the house with, "Do you want to be poisoned? Do you want to be killed?" and trips over a chair.
Then there's the scene where he goes to the judge to get cousin Teddy (who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt) committed to Happydale. The judge is an old stiff himself, and he tells Mortimer, "Tell Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha I'll be over. I've been a little lonely," to which Mortimer shouts, 'No, no! Don't ever tell them you're lonely! Tell me, Judge, are you a drinking man?"
The judge says, "Certainly not!" but adds as a relieved Mortimer is leaving, "Of course, a little wine now and then...." Mortimer screams, "Not wine! No wine! Don't drink wine!" The judge then wonders, "Maybe I committed the wrong Brewster."
Then there's the inimitable Jack Carson as the cop on the beat who is playwrite on the sly. His expressions are second only to Grant, particularly when he reacts to Teddy.
Priscilla Lane is perfect as Mortimer's fiance, Elaine (a small part, but oh, she does it perfectly.)
As you can tell, I've seen this movie so many times I've inadvertently memorized whole sections of dialogue. Since I never, ever rewatch movies until I've forgotten them, there's no higher compliment I can pay to "Arsenic and Old Lace."
I just pray no one ever tries to remake this classic. There isn't an actor alive who could hope to compare to the original cast in this masterpiece.
This movie is perfect, and if you haven't seen it, you are in for the best time of your life. I'll dig a lock to that! :)
A Good Old-fashioned Bellylaugh
I just loved this movie. It was fun watching the usually suave Cary Grant become befuddled and half crazed when he discovers his two dear sweet old aunts have been very, very naughty. Between "Teddy Roosevelt" charging up the stairs blowing his bugle and digging the Panama Canal in the basement....his evil cousin (Raymond Massey) and his evil cousin's sidekick, Dr. Einstein (played by Peter Lorre) you almost overlook the elderberry wine - but take my word for it...you shouldn't. ;-)
Recreating the role she originated in Philip Barry's wickedly witty Broadway play, Katharine Hepburn stars as the spoiled and snobby socialite Tracy Lord in this sparkling 1940 screen adaptation of The Philadelphia Story, one of the great romantic comedies from the golden age of MGM studios. Applying her impossibly high ideals to everyone but herself, Tracy is about to marry a stuffy executive when her congenial ex-husband (Cary Grant), arrives to protect his former father-in-law from a potentially scandalous tabloid exposé. In an Oscar-winning role, James Stewart is the scandal reporter who falls for Tracy as her wedding day arrives, throwing her into a dizzying state of premarital jitters. Who will join Tracy at the altar? Snappy dialogue flows like sparkling wine under... More Info about this DVD Director(s): George Cukor DVD Release Date: Released the 02 May 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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It's always a small surprise to revisit this movie and realize what a subtly dark performance James Stewart gives as an alcoholic who claims he keeps company with a six-foot-tall, invisible rabbit. As Elwood P. Dowd, the actor emits a faint whiff of decay and spirits, yet Stewart also embraces Dowd's romanticism and grace with splendid ease. Based on a hit play and directed by Henry Koster, the film is terribly funny at times, especially whenever Elwood decides it's only polite to introduce Harvey to complete strangers. The supporting cast can't be beat. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Director(s): Henry Koster DVD Release Date: Released the 06 February 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"The love impulse in man," says a psychiatrist in Bringing Up Baby, "frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict." That's for sure. For a primer on the rules and regulations of the classic screwball comedy, which throws love and conflict into close proximity, look no further. A straight-laced paleontologist (Cary Grant) loses a dinosaur bone to a dog belonging to free-spirited heiress Katharine Hepburn. In trying to retrieve said bone, Grant is drawn into the vortex surrounding the delicious Hepburn, which becomes a flirtatious pas de deux that will transform both of them. Director Howard Hawks plays the complications as a breathless escalation of their "love impulse," yet the movie is nonetheless romantic for all its speed. (Hawks's His Girl Friday, also with Grant, goes... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Howard Hawks - Noel M. Smith - Robert Trachtenberg DVD Release Date: Released the 01 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This minor 1955 work by Alfred Hitchcock, one of the lighter entries of his creative peak in the 1950s, is still imbued with the master's stock themes of shared guilt and romantic ambivalence. It is also hardly lacking in Hitchcockian cinematic inventiveness, such as a famous, often-imitated sequence in which some smooching between stars Cary Grant and Grace Kelly is intercut with a fireworks show that just happens to be going on outside in a Riviera setting. Grant plays a reformed cat burglar who is suspected of reviving his trade, though he knows someone else is using his old methods. A very enjoyable experience, but don't get this confused with Hitchcock's other Cary Grant film of that decade, which was a masterpiece: North by Northwest.--Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Grace Kelly DVD Release Date: Released the 05 November 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A classic screwball comedy with a supernatural twist, Topper stars the incomparable Cary Grant and sparkling Constance Bennett as George and Marion Kirby, a fun-loving couple who cap an evening of jazz and champagne by running their car into a tree. They return as ghosts with a mandate to liven up the straight-laced hen-pecked life of bank president Cosmo Topper (Roland Young), who's hungry for just such a shake-up. Before long he's boozing, dancing, and getting into fights, all of which gives him a rakish reputation--much to the consternation of his wife (Billie Burke, best known as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz). The sequel replaces Grant and Bennett with Joan Blondell, who can't quite compare, but she's charming in her own way. Topper Returns... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Constance Bennett - Cary Grant - Roland Young Director(s): Norman Z. McLeod DVD Release Date: Released the 17 June 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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