The Criterion Blogathon: "Arsenic and Old Lace" (1944)
Original release poster Directed by Frank Capra, Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) tells the story of Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant), a Broadway critic and "symbol of bachelorhood," author of several anti-marriage books , who ironically weds Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane) on Halloween . On their way to their honeymoon, they stop in Brooklyn, where they grew up next door to each other. While Elaine drops in on her father, Reverend Harper (Grant Mitchell), Mortimer visits the eccentric but lovable relatives who raised him and who still live in his old family home: his spinster aunts Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair), and his derranged brother Teddy (John Alexander), who believes h imself to be Theodore Roosevelt. As he s earch es for the notes for his most re cent book , Mortimer discovers a dead body hidden in the window seat and is s hocked to find that his aunts were responsible for the murder. Abby and Martha calmly explain that they have been k...