Posted on 02/08/2020 3:12:14 PM PST by simpson96
Arsenic and Old Lace is director Frank Capra's spin on the classic Joseph Kesselring stage comedy, which concerns the sweet old Brewster sisters (Josephine Hull, Jean Adair), beloved in their genteel Brooklyn neighborhood for their many charitable acts. One charity which the ladies don't advertise is their ongoing effort to permit lonely bachelors to die with smiles on their faces--by serving said bachelors elderberry wine spiked with arsenic. When the sisters' drama-critic nephew Mortimer (Cary Grant) stumbles onto their secret, he is understandably put out--especially since he has just married the lovely Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane). Given the homicidal tendencies of his aunts, the sinister activities of his escaped-convict older brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) and the disruptive behavior of younger brother Teddy (John Alexander)--who is convinced that he's really Theodore Roosevelt, and runs around the house yelling "CHAAAAARGGGE"--Mortimer isn't keen on starting a family with his new bride. "Insanity runs in my family," he explains. "It practically gallops."
Scene from "Arsenic And Old Lace" (1944)
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
One of my favorites.
Josephine Hull is also great as Elwood P. Dowd’s sister in “Harvey.”
Great movie.
“Not the Melbourne Method!”
L
Cary Grant at his best. Peter Lorrie was in it to. Great movie!
Peter Lorrie was a hugely underrated actor and a somewhat tragic figure in his later years.
Great movie...Mr Grant is always classy!
I just saw an older Peter Lorre with Steve McQueen on YouTube. “Alfred Hitchcock Presents:The Southern Gentleman” was an exceptional half-hour drama with an extra twist at the end. Available free in two parts.
Grant had great range in film. Bringing up baby to North by Northwest. He was great. Hitchcock used him a lot. Peter Lorrie in the Maltese Falcon is another favorite of mine.
I have to wonder if today’s psychiatrists would require everyone to accept and celebrate the delusional brother’s fantasy that he is, in fact, Teddy Roosevelt and to deny it would constitute a “phobia”.
That said, a good movie from a saner time.
Seems like the sweet old Aunts had Teddy digging the Panama Canal in the basement when Mortimer arrived.
The other night, Turner Classics showed him in the 75 year-old film "None But the Lonely Heart" where he played a down-at-the-heels, lazy, grown son living with his sick mother, Ethel Barrymore, in the London slums of pre-war Britain.
Cary had the cockney accent down pat.....and you had to love his sleazy character, which he played to perfection.
On Oscar night, I probably won't even know any of the nominated actors and actresses, or their movies....so I'll watch some of the Fox line-up and Live Cops.
Leni
This was Cary Grant’s best ‘body comedy’ movie in my opinion. His takes and double takes are fresh in my mind from last watching this 20 years ago!
That was a good episode. Another one with Lorre is with George Peppard in Mexico.
‘Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House’ is one of my favorite movies.
lol!! I loved it when he charged up the stairs, thinking they were San Juan Hill.
Hmmm... My choice would be "His Girl Friday" (1940) with Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, & Gene Lockhart...
Have watched it dozens and dozens of times and it always delivers...
Of course when it came to the theaters I was only 8, so "Captain Midnight" (every Saturday) was when I would spend the 5-cents admission to see a movie...
Hollyweird doesn’t have the aptitude to produce such fine films today.
Lorrie in “M” is a classic.
Sexiest man to have ever lived.
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