ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944)

You think your family is crazy? Try walking a mile in the shoes of Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant). He has an uncle who believes himself to be Theodore Roosevelt. His estranged, criminal brother has undergone facial reconstructive surgery three times. And perhaps strangest of all, his sweet, doddering old aunts murder lonely, elderly men—as an act of charity.

Insanity doesn’t just run in Mortimer’s family—“It practically gallops!” And on this Halloween, he discovers sides to his family he had no idea existed. Though he’s written thousands of words against the institution of marriage, he’s finally tied the knot with his new wife, Elaine (Priscilla Lane). But as Mortimer reveals the news to his family, a few other surprising revelations come to light…

There’s an immediately irreverent tone in Frank Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace. Based on Joseph Kesselring’s play of the same name, murder, death, and mental illness are treated with whimsy. Newly-weds prance about graveyards, a would-be Roosevelt buries geriatrics whom he believes have succumbed to Yellow Fever, and premeditated homicides are nonchalantly dismissed as the considerate behaviour of compassionate altruists.

That’s because everyone within this small, Brooklyn abode is clinically insane. It’s something that Mortimer was never aware of (somehow), but when his beloved aunts confess to their enforced euthanasia in such a blasé manner, it becomes starkly apparent. “Now, Mortimer, you just forget about it. Forget you ever saw the gentleman,” Abby Brewster (Josephine Hull) reassures, as though Mortimer had seen a monster under the bed and not a corpse in a box.

It’s this sense of absurdity that defines Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace. Much of the comedy is rooted in fatal misunderstandings, with Mortimer struggling to convey to his sweet, certifiable aunts that murder is, in fact, wrong. The right words are difficult to find: “What I mean is… well… this is developing into a very bad habit!”

Sometimes, family is a farce. How else can one convey the feeling of talking with a deranged relative? Grant stares down the camera lens on a couple of occasions, as though to remark to the audience: “Ever feel like this?” The fourth-wall-breaking meta-humour has its roots in theatrical pantomime. When Mortimer finds a second body in the window seat, he looks right into the camera and cries: “Ye, Gods! There’s another one!”

It’s like a daft Shakespearean soliloquy, but it’s precisely the kind of humour that made screwball comedies such a prominent subgenre in the 1930s. Arsenic and Old Lace is just one of many terrific screwball comedies Capra made throughout his career, with his first foray into such ludicrous territory being It Happened One Night (1934). 10 years later, there’s less of a preoccupation with romance and a greater emphasis on dark, morbid humour. Characters bicker over how many people they have slain, often falling into a game of disturbing semantics: “He wouldn’t have died of pneumonia if I hadn’t shot him!”

Classic slapstick involves people falling over chairs, windows being slammed on fingers, and a man vehemently smooching his disgruntled wife to stop her revealing the presence of 13 corpses in the basement. The worst cops in the world swarm the house, yet narrowly avoid ever uncovering the truth of the madhouse that’s ensnared them.

In this respect, Arsenic and Old Lace makes great effect of menacing objects; a bomb lies underneath the table, and we anxiously await calamity as the fuse burns ever closer to the dynamite. A glass of poisoned elderberry wine not only becomes comical, but threatening – will he take a sip, or will this assassination be thwarted? Situations are predicated on the precarious use of objects. With the window seat serving as a makeshift coffin, space and props become a moving part of the narrative. As two characters rush to conceal the same secret, it eliminates the need for clunky exposition; it’s the expert writing of a theatrical farce.

The film is also augmented by Kesselring’s superlative wordplay. As Elaine is desperate to leave on their honeymoon, she protests to the distressed Mortimer: “But, darling! Niagara Falls!” Bemused, he responds: “It does? Well, let it.” It’s difficult to gauge how much Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein’s screenplay contributed to these witty puns, but suffice it to say there are a few lines here that will have you cackling.

The quality of Capra’s comedy is largely rooted in the fantastic structure of the story. The film succeeds due to a diverse set of narrative interests, which means we don’t solely focus on Grant’s character. Jonathan Brewster (Raymond Massey), a spectral Prodigal Son returning home after a life of criminal insanity, provides the story with a well-needed antagonist and injects the movie with malicious tension.

And while we’re splitting our sides and slapping our knees, we’re forced to hold our breath by the stunning visuals cinematographer Sol Polito achieved. Ominous shadows appearing behind opaque glass, and a body being carried down a dimly lit flight of stairs, become transfixing images. A chiaroscuro effect is utilised to amplify Jonathan’s demented gaze, and the hard source lighting works to separate characters from the background. As silhouettes are cast and baleful visages illuminated, the whole film has the spooky atmosphere of a classic Halloween picture.

It would seem that Polito’s fantastic work was being keenly observed. Robert Burks, who would frequently collaborate with Alfred Hitchcock in years to come on films such as Dial M for Murder (1954) and Marnie (1964), served as a special effects photographer on Capra’s set. 10 years before his stunning cinematography efforts in Rear Window (1954), Burks was hard at work crafting eye-popping imagery. A sequence on a dark, foreboding staircase resembles one he would shoot almost 20 years later in The Birds (1963), as unfortunate characters unwittingly move towards their doom.

Though the film is formally admirable, there are pacing issues that burden Capra’s screwball comedy. A random, unnecessary baseball sequence opens the film, but it has zero connection to the rest of the story. It’s peculiar they decided to include it; it adds nothing of value to the film. Capra wanted to keep the story enclosed into a single set, but couldn’t due to extraneous sequences such as this one.

Rather tellingly, the scenes that feel superfluous and guilty of slowing the film down are those that don’t take place inside the Brewster’s living room. As such, despite the modest runtime of 118 minutes, Capra’s film is uncommonly bloated. It Happened One Night doesn’t have an iota of fat on it, with the Italian-American director’s work often characterised by a brisk pace and meticulous discipline in shedding redundant scenes. Perhaps due to our pre-established trust in the director, Arsenic and Old Lace feels a little overlong.

This could in part be due to how the film relies a little too heavily on Grant’s shenanigans–though few performers could have been relied on more to carry a protracted feature. He’s familiarly dismissive and supercilious, but his distressed demeanour and frightened facial expressions become a tad overdone in his attempt to save a film in the process of lulling. Reportedly, Grant hated his performance and refused to watch the film for years, citing Capra’s insistence he overdo the comedy as a reason for his distaste for the role.

Fortunately, it’s by no means a bad performance—just a little too exaggerated. He’s also aided in his performance by the terrific Jean Adair and Josephine Hull, both of whom play the murderous aunties with a hilarious detachment. It’s not that they keep their sang-froid as police snoop about their kitchen, it’s that they’re charmingly disconnected from the extent of their own criminality. Though based on the psychotic Amy Archer-Gilligan, we never once scrutinise them as we would a malevolent antagonist. If anything, we grow to love them.

It’s Raymond Massey’s turn as the scarred, demented psychopath that earns our ire. Serving as a Karloff stand-in (who was furious he was not allowed out of his contract for the Broadway play to do the film himself), Massey becomes an appalling ghoul, a walking cadaver. I don’t think Massey blinks throughout the entire film. In addition to these incredible performers, Peter Lorre provides another stellar supporting role in a career full of them.

The film’s pitch-black humour has informed many films and TV shows since being released 80 years ago. Jonathan’s disturbing history and obsession with his brother, Mortimer, appears to have influenced the genuinely unsettling Simpson’s Halloween Special “The Thing and I” (1996). Rogelio A. González’s The Skeleton of Mrs Morales (1960), which has a similarly dark tone, features an identical motif of poisoned wine served in adorably delicate sherry glasses and is filmed with stark lighting and black-and-white photography, feels like Mexico’s answer to Capra’s screwball comedy.

It’s unsurprising that artists far and wide have taken inspiration from this movie. Comedy and horror walk along a tightrope with total balance, making it a truly perfect film for the Halloween season. Much like Parenthood (1989) released almost half a century later, it’s the kind of film that lets you reflect upon how normal your family truly is (in the grand scheme of things, of course). For this reason alone, it’s an artwork to be treasured—if I thought Christmas dinner was a riot in my house, I can only imagine what it would be like with the Brewsters.

USA | 1944 | 118 MINUTES | 1.37:1 | BLACK & WHITE | ENGLISH • GERMAN

Cast & Crew

director: Frank Capra.
writers: Julius J. Epstein & Philip G. Epstein (based on the play by Joseph Kesselring).
starring: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Jack Carson, Edward Everett Horton, Peter Lorre, James Gleason, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, John Alexander, Grant Mitchell, Edward McNamara & Garry Owen.