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Frank Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace

Cary Grant plays Mortimer Brewster, an author and proclaimed famous bachelor who tries to secretly marry and he halfway succeeds. But when he goes home to tell his aunts (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair) he discovers a secret of his aunts: They poison and kill lonely old men.

Brewster wants to leave for his honeymoon, but needs to do something about his aunts’ hobby and the dead body(ies?). But what? He cannot give them to the police. On top of this, he needs to find a place for his cousin Teddy (John Alexander) in Happy Dale, an asylum, because Teddy believes he is President Theodore Roosevelt. In fact, he buries his aunts’ victims in the Panama Canal in their basement.

Then Mortimer’s brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) pays a visit. Jonathan frightens everyone; he is a wanted, face-changing murderer. While Mortimer deals with his family issues, his newly-wedded wife, the girl next door, tries to hurry him for their honeymoon. What’s a man surrounded by lunatics to do?

Cleverly written and played. All the actors fit their parts perfectly. A must-see for Cary Grant fans. It is a different kind of funny, but I think it is hysterical just not necessarily in the laugh out loud way.

Written by: Marie J. Pellegrino

Reviewers Rating: 9
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