2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Tetrady not as good as all the hype

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

BA_Harrison Two seemingly sweet little old ladies bump off their lonely male lodgers much to the horror and surprise of their newlywed nephew Mortimer (Cary Grant).What I had hoped would be a charming American comedy classic turns out to be amongst the most tortuous two hours of cinema I have ever sat through. Directed by Frank Capra, the film stars Cary Grant as Mortimer, a writer renowned for his anti-marriage diatribes, who has just done the unthinkable and got hitched to beautiful blonde Elaine (Priscilla Lane). But before Mortimer can leave with his wife for their honeymoon, his discovery of a dead body at his aunts' Brooklyn home throws him into disarray.With zero concern for subtlety from either Capra or his star, Arsenic and Old Lace is a loud, repetitive, drawn-out exercise in absolute tedium, the plot going round and round in circles until the viewer is finally put out of their misery with a really dumb ending. Grant over-acts like his life depends upon it, mugging and doing double takes whenever possible, as though this is all that is needed to drum up laughs; it isn't. The majority of the supporting cast are just as insufferable: the guy who thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt really grates, the old ladies are far from endearing, Raymond Massey (as Mortimer's escaped criminal brother Jonathan) glares a lot, and Peter Lorre merely plays a caricature of himself.Somehow this movie has earned itself a solid reputation and a high IMDb rating (8.0), which confuses me just as much as It's a Wonderful Life's place at #25 in IMDb's Top Rated Movies. What is it that others see in Capra's films that I don't?

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.

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.

Prismark10 Arsenic and Old Lace is a farce directed by Frank Capra with an underlying dark comedy. It does feature a tad too much mugging to the camera and its theatrical roots are hard to hide.Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) is a famous drama critic known for his anti marriage stance. Which explains why he is trying to get a marriage licence incognito. He is getting married to the girl next door, Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane.)Before he goes off to Niagara Falls for his honeymoon he brings her to her family home to announce his nuptials only to discover that his two kindly understated elderly aunts have been putting arsenic in their homemade wine and knocked off lonely old men and buried them in the cellar with the help of a delusional uncle who thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt and keeps blowing the bugle.It gets worse, this is the night that his long lost older brother has returned, preferably escaped or on the run from somewhere. Jonathan Brewster (Raymond Massey) has turned up with a Dr Einstein (Peter Lorre.) Jonathan has had plastic surgery which has made him look like Boris Karloff and it seems he has also brought a corpse with him.Mortimer fears for his new bride's safety and in the ensuing mayhem a flatfoot calls to look into the madcap Brewsters.The film is fun, at times frenetic but is really too long for this type of comedy. Cary Grant just about gets away with the mugging to the camera, Lorre and Massey are sinister and funny together. Lane is sidelined too much. The film just feels a little too sloppy and out of control. An honourable failure.