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Arsenic and Old Lace
Arsenic and Old Lace

Arsenic and Old Lace

1944 118 min ★ 7.6 Comedy, Crime

Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets married; but when he makes a quick trip home to tell his two maiden aunts, he finds out his aunts' hobby - killing lonely old men and burying them in the cellar!

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Cast

Cary Grant

Cary Grant

Mortimer Brewster

Priscilla Lane

Priscilla Lane

Elaine Harper Brewster

Josephine Hull

Josephine Hull

Aunt Abby Brewster

Jean Adair

Jean Adair

Aunt Martha Brewster

Raymond Massey

Raymond Massey

Jonathan Brewster

John Alexander

John Alexander

'Teddy Roosevelt' Brewster

Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre

Dr. Einstein

Jack Carson

Jack Carson

Officer Patrick O'Hara

Edward Everett Horton

Edward Everett Horton

Mr. Witherspoon

James Gleason

James Gleason

Lt. Rooney

Details

Director

Frank Capra

Screenplay

Philip G. Epstein

Tagline

"She Passed Out On Cary! No Wonder . . . She's just discovered his favorite aunts have poisoned their 13th gentleman friend!"

Status

Released

Original Language

EN

Budget

$1,120,175

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures

Reviews

J

John Chard

July 1, 2019

★ 9/10

Frenetic roller-coaster ride - Capra style! The Broadway show this film is based on ran for something like four years, such was the yearning for riotous rompathons in the 40s, and thus here the Capra adaptation is pretty much non stop mania. Led by the perfectly cast Cary Grant, the film barely pauses for breath, stopping only briefly to put a bit of creepy menace into the otherwise insane plot...

B

barrymost

January 19, 2020

★ 10/10

There are thirteen bodies in the cellar! Oh, piffle. Drama critic Mortimer Brewster has just gotten married. But his newfound wedded bliss is interrupted by the disturbing discovery that his sweet old spinster aunts have been murdering lonely old men with their homemade elderberry wine, and burying the bodies in the cellar. This demented screwball comedy was the film that introduced me to Ca...

F

Filipe Manuel Neto

December 3, 2023

★ 10/10

**An extraordinary comedy that stands out for its unpretentiousness.** I didn't have high expectations when I decided to watch this film, and I think this increased the impact it ended up having even more: based on a successful play, the film is an extraordinary comedy full of bizarreness and mischief, without a single dead moment and full of twists and turns that make us laugh and amuse us. ...

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