Arsenic And Old Lace (DVD)

A cinematic gem, directed by Frank Capra in 1944 and adapted from the play by Joseph Kesselring, 'Arsenic & Old Lace' should undoubtedly be on the 'must see' list for anyone vaguely interested in films. The main character is a mysoginistic theatre critic by the name of Mortimer Brewster, played to absolute perfection by Cary Grant, who marries the priest's daughter and goes back to tell his two maiden aunts that he has done the deed and got married. The two aunts are a pair of delightfully batty old ladies who invite homeless men into their house on the pretext that they have a room to let. Out of a kind of mercy they proceed to ...  Read the complete review

This film is a classic. Black and white with quite a young Cary Crant it must surely rate as one of the funniest films ever made. A young man and his new bride travel home to tell her father and his two dear aunts of their betrothal. While she is at her father's home he discovers a body in the window seat at his aunts house and, worse, that more have been buried in the cellar. The sweet dithery old ladies have been finishing off lonely old men for their own good. The aunts have a brother who thinks he is Teddy Rousevelt and keeps blowing a trumpet whilst dressed in safari gear and a pith helmet, a brother of Grant's ...  Read the complete review

This has to be my favourite film of all time! Starring Cary Grant as a hapless drama critic, who discovers a streak of insanity in his family the day he gets engaged, everyone should watch this classic farce at least once, so they can die laughing. Imagine trying to impress your new fiancé, whilst finding out those two sweet wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly aunts you so adore have taken to murdering lonely gentlemen and hiding their corpses in the cellar. What’s more, they think it is a perfectly normal way to behave and can’t see what all the fuss is about. At the same time, your murderous brother is on the loose, hunted by the police, and is prowling ...  Read the complete review

Film only review. I have watched Arsenic and Old Lace many times since my childhood. It is one of those films that I just never tire of watching, despite its age and the fact that it is in black and white. The plot is just so amusing and the characters incongruous and comical. Arsenic and Old lace was a Frank Capra production produced in 1944. Now, although I'm getting on a bit now, that's still eight years before I was born!. Obviously a film that is 64 years old will seem very dated but the humour is still good and really the film is a classic. I suppose that I first saw this film on the television back in the early sixties. Films then took years ...  Read the complete review

Having made a very large number of exceptionally sentimental movies (one of his next movies would be 'It's a Wonderful Life'), Frank Capra's one really black movie is a five star treat. Based on a hilarious stage farce, it sees Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant in his archetypal comic role) giving up his eternal bachelorhood and marrying the gorgeous girl next door, only to have his life unravel. Raised by his two aunts, he discovers that they are in fact serial murderers, aided by his mad cousin. Worse yet, a psychopathic relative (Raymond Massey) turns up with his plastic surgeon (Peter Lorre), and all hell breaks loose. It's a farce, with ...  Read the complete review