A Brooklyn writer of books on the futility of marriage risks his reputation after he decides to tie the knot. Things get even more complicated when he learns on his wedding day that his belo... Read allA Brooklyn writer of books on the futility of marriage risks his reputation after he decides to tie the knot. Things get even more complicated when he learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are habitual murderers.A Brooklyn writer of books on the futility of marriage risks his reputation after he decides to tie the knot. Things get even more complicated when he learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are habitual murderers.
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- 1 nomination
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Did you know
- TriviaAccording to "Dear Boris" biographer Cynthia Lindsay, Josephine Hull and Jean Adair went to their graves believing that Boris Karloff had been so saintly as to agree to let them go to Hollywood to make this film while he stayed on Broadway doing the play. Nothing could have been further from the truth: Karloff was very angry and disappointed that he was the only cast member not allowed out of his contract to do the film.
- GoofsThe movie opens with the Brooklyn Dodgers winning a baseball game on Halloween, weeks after the end of baseball season. This is a gag to suggest that the only time the Brooklyn Dodgers could win is on Halloween, similar to saying when pigs fly.
- Quotes
Mortimer Brewster: Look I probably should have told you this before but you see... well... insanity runs in my family...
[he hears Abby and Martha singing]
Mortimer Brewster: It practically gallops.
- Crazy creditsThis is a Hallowe'en tale of Brooklyn, where anything can happen -- and it usually does. At 3 P.M. on this particular day, this was happening. [Scene of Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees baseball game, irate fans and brouhaha between teams on the field, then...] While at the same time across the river in the UNITED STATES PROPER there was romance in the air. [Scene of cruise ship on the river with NY City skyline in the background, then...] And now, back to one of Brooklyn's most charming residential districts -- [Scene of old gabled Brewster house next to a cemetery, then...] -- From here on you're on your own.
- Alternate versionsAlso available in a computer colorized version.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The 42nd Annual Academy Awards (1970)
- SoundtracksThere Is a Happy Land
(uncredited)
Music by Leonard P. Breedlove
Arranged by Max Steiner
[quoted in score]
Mortimer and Elaine take a taxi to Brooklyn to bring their luggage and Mortimer visits his adorable elderly aunts Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha Brewster (Jean Adair), who raised him and are considered Good Samaritans in the neighborhood, renting rooms and giving meals to the poor. His aunts live with his insane brother Teddy (John Alexander), who believes that is Theodore Roosevelt and is digging locks for the Panama Canal in the basement of the house. When Mortimer is ready to go, he finds a dead body hidden in the window seat and his aunts explains that they have murdered the poor men for charity to stop their suffering serving wine spiked with arsenic and other poisons. Then Teddy buries the corpses in the locks believing that they had yellow fever.
Mortimer decides to send Teddy to the Happy Dale Sanatorium but things get worse when his other insane and cruel brother Jonathan Brewster (Raymond Massey), who had disappeared twenty years ago and has the face of Boris Karloff, unexpectedly appears in the house with his alcoholic partner, the plastic surgeon Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre), expecting to find a place to dispose the corpse of his victim. The place transforms in a nuthouse.
"Arsenic and Old Lace" is a hilarious screwball comedy by Frank Capra based on a theater play. The plot and the characters are very funny with Josephine Hull and Jean Adair performing two innocent serial-killers believing that the death of their victims is charity. Cary Grant exaggerates in his reaction and he seems to be crazier than his insane relatives, but the result is wonderful. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "Este Mundo é um Hospício" ("This World is a Sanatorium")
- claudio_carvalho
- Jun 23, 2012
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- Frank Capra's 'Arsenic and Old Lace'
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- Budget
- $1,164,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 58 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1