Arsenic and Old Lace

Video posted to YouTube by davinci5152

This is a Halloween tale of Brooklyn, where anything can happen and usually does.”among the opening titles to the Frank Capra movie, Arsenic and Old Lace.

Set in Brooklyn, New York (the center of the universe) in 1941, this Halloween movie is the funniest of all time.  The snip above doesn’t begin to give an idea of the hilarity to come. Starring Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane, it is based on the Joseph Kesserling play, which ran from January 1941 through June 1944.  Jean Adair, Josephine Hull, and John Alexander who starred in the play were released to act their parts in the movie.  And, no – I don’t remember that – my mother told me. Boris Karloff played the evil brother in the play.  He was one of its big draw and could not be released for the movie. Hence Raymond Massey got the role.  Some of the fun and several quirky quips in the movie reference that switch.

The story is about a theatre critic (Mortimer Brewster) who is also a critic of marriage.  He finally succumbs to the charms of the young woman who lives in Brooklyn right next door to his two aunts and a cemetary (Gravesend maybe?). The aunts, as it happens, very kindly murder lonely old men and bury them in the basement  of their home.  The “weapon” of choice is elderberry wine laced with arsenic. The aunts are helped with the burial chores and ceremonies by Mortimer’s brother Teddy, who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt.  When Mortimer finds out what’s been going on and evil brother Jonathan arrives on the scene ready to kill Mortimer and put the aunts’ at risk, hysteria breaks loose.

Added value for Brooklynites and/or B-ball fans: You get a glimpse of the old Brooklyn Dodgers in the opening scene.

You can watch the entire move at hollywoodclassics4. 

I’ll take humor over horror any day.  This will be my Halloween treat tomorrow . . . You?

~ by brooklynmemoriesmostgreen on October 30, 2009.