Arsenic and Old Lace

DVD, Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) film

If ever a film was completely off its rocker, then this is the one! I thought I'd seen it before, I thought it would be another of those 'screwball' comedies (whatever a screwball is), I thought I knew what it was about. I was wrong. It's madder than brother Jonathan, but also quite delightful in its insanity. Perhaps it outstays its welcome by going on a bit longer than required, but it has such a collection of crazy characters and odd happenings that you end up feeling a little dotty, like Mortimer.

At first it seems like just another old comedy, but once Cary Grant gets into the family home and his eyebrows start doing the acting everything turns upside down. So it was no secret that it was about little old ladies offing people, but I imagined it in the vein of the Ealing comedy, 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' (where Alec Guiness plays all the characters). It was based on a play and you can see that very clearly as it's very much a one-set narrative with it all happening in one location in the main.

They even get to poke fun at plays and films and it goes beyond farce, yet somehow there's enough sanity in there for it to become quite disturbing - I'm not surprised it's a 'PG' as it does contain some unpleasant moments where your brain fills in what might happen next. It may be from 1944, over sixty years ago, but it still packs a wallop, and also has some hilarity to it too - I laughed out loud several times. So I'm pretty sure I never had seen this before. I would have remembered!

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