Dusty but gentle entertainment.
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
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Reviews Counted:21
Fresh:19
Rotten:2
Average Rating:7.6/10
Runtime: 2 hrs
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: A couple leaving on their honeymoon must put aside their plans when the groom finds that his spinster aunts are killing people in their pleasant little house and burying the bodies in the cellar.... A couple leaving on their honeymoon must put aside their plans when the groom finds that his spinster aunts are killing people in their pleasant little house and burying the bodies in the cellar. To their credit, the aunts believe they are just being kind and they hold touching funeral services for all of their victims. The plot is complicated by a somewhat dotty elderly relative who is convinced that he is Teddy Roosevelt. [More]
Starring: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre
Starring: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, John Alexander, James Gleason, Jack Carson, Edward Everett Horton, Grant Mitchell, Charles Lane
Director: Frank Capra
Director: Frank Capra
Producer: Frank Capra
Screenwriter: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein
Composer: Max Steiner
Reviews for Arsenic and Old Lace
Despite the fact that picture runs 118 minutes, Frank Capra has expanded on the original play [by Joseph Kesselring] to a sufficient extent to maintain a steady, consistent pace.
The timing is abysmal throughout, turning fast pace into numbing frenzy.
Unable to conceal the film's theatrical origins, Capra misfires as a director and misguides Cary Garnt, who's too mannered, but the time, the combo of horror and comedy was new and the old ladies' gruseome hobby was shocking to audiences.
has stood the test of time to remain as funny today as anything Hollywood is producing now.
Not one of Capra's best. Grant is too hammy and out of control, and without Boris Karloff as Jonathan Brewster, the joke is lost.
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