“Arsenic and Old Lace” is a little like a pumpkin spice latte. It will give you more energy and has a distinctly autumnal taste. This movie is a hilarious black comedy that manages to be a little scary and plenty spooky. Its mixture of laughs and creepiness makes it a perfect movie for the start of October.
“Arsenic and Old Lace” takes place on Halloween in early 1940s Brooklyn, New York. Drama critic Mortimer Brewster has just gotten married, and he visits the aunts who raised him to tell them the good news. He then discovers that these kindly old women poison lonely older men and bury them in their cellar. Brewster begins a frantic quest to make everything right.
One of my favorite things about this movie’s humor is its mixture of wackiness and restraint. Many of its characters, such as Brewster’s brother who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt, are gloriously ridiculous. But this movie knows just when to take its characters seriously.
That is why the sequences where Brewster’s aunts Abby and Martha cheerfully and calmly talk about murdering people are so funny. They see it as just another extension of their charitable work. This attitude leads to a lot of great dry humor, which wouldn’t work as well if they were caricatures and not well-thought out characters.
While this movie is a comedy, it does have its share of scarier moments. Most of these come through the character of Jonathan, Brewster’s criminal brother. The sequence where he returns home and menaces his aunts is lit more darkly than the other sequences, which emphasizes his frightening nature.
The film’s darker moments lead to some good cinematography. There is an eerie shot of a pitch-black room, lit only by bright white light coming from the cellar, that would feel right at home in a David Lynch movie. The filmmakers use shadows and shots of leaves blowing in the wind to create a great Halloween atmosphere.
The cast is excellent. Cary Grant gives an exuberantly over-the-top performance as Brewster. Josephine Hull and Jean Adair strike a perfect tone as Brewster’s aunts. Horror icon Peter Lorre is hilarious as Dr. Einstein, Jonathan’s accomplice.
This movie proves that Frank Capra had a knack for directing holiday classics.
Later in his career, he would make “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which is shown almost every year on NBC around Christmas. It would be nice if “Arsenic and Old Lace” was shown every year around Halloween. That would be a good way to ensure that it justly becomes as associated with October as pumpkins and trick-or-treating.
Until then, however, you should grab a pumpkin spice latte and watch “Arsenic and Old Lace” as soon as you can. You won’t be disappointed.
jpastern@indiana.edu
@jessepasternack
