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Hello dudesdivorce.com readers, looking for a great movie you can set down with any member of your family and enjoy this Halloween? Then let me suggest this classic from 1944, “Arsenic and Old Lace” starring one of my personal favorites, Cary Grant, Peter Lorre, Raymond Massey, Edward Everett Horton and Josephine Hull (read my review of “Harvey” , http://dudesndivorce.com/2009/09/28/well-for-years-i-was-smart-i-recommend-pleasant-elwood-p-dowd-harvey/).

This is a madcap comedy with emphasis on the mad! Grant plays Mortimer Brewster a famous New York bachelor that has made a name for himself writing newspaper columns and books AGAINST marriage! Nevertheless the movie starts with Mortimer caving in to his marrying nature and bringing his new bride back to the home where he was raised by his two kind loving aunts, played by Hull and Jean Adair. Mortimer is having a great day and thoroughly enjoying his new status as a husband when he suddenly and mistakenly discovers the body of a dead man in the window seat of his aunt’s home! When he tells Aunt Abby (Hull) about it she calmly replies, “Oh don’t worry about him, dear, that just Mr. Hotchkiss!”

To Mortimer’s surprise his lovely old aunts have been “doing away” with old lonely mean for years, in fact the total is now up to 12! They consider it their ministry, helping old lonely men end their lives in peace. Just a nice sip of elderberry wine laced with arsenic and a mix of some other poisons and their out like a light! Mortimer is horrified! Why what do you do with bodies, he asks them? Well, they have his cousin Teddy bury them in the cellar. You see that’s not so hard to do because cousin Teddy thinks he is President Theodore Roosevelt and the cellar is the Panama Canal! Naturally all those poor yellow fever victims  have to be buried somewhere, why not just bury them in one of those “locks’?

Mortimer can’t bear to see his sweet old aunts go to prison for 12 murders so he concocts a plan to hang all this on Teddy and get him committed to an insane asylum. Of course his bride, and the taxi cab driver!,  are still waiting to leave for the train station to whisk them away on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls! As if you didn’t think Mortimer didn’t has enough on his plate for one day in walks his long lost brother, Jonathan Brewster (played by Massey) with his sidekick Dr. Einstein (played by Lorre). Let me just say Jonathan Brewster was not a good little boy and he has gotten worse as he grew up! Now he’s a murderer on the run and Einstein is a plastic surgeon who likes to hit the bottle too much. Not a good thing for a plastic surgeon (probably any surgeon!). In fact, his last attempt at masking Jonathan’s looks left him looking like Boris Karlof (who played the role on stage, a point they continue to play off of for laughs throughout the movie).

So now you’ve got a house full of 13 dead bodies (Jonathan brought one of his own), two old ladies who like to knock off old lonely men, a man that thinks he is the President of the United States and is building the Panama Canal in the cellar, a certified serial killer on the run from the law with an alcoholic plastic surgeon in tow! Oh, I forgot to mention the new cop on this beat thinks he is a playwright and wants Brewster to read his play. And let us not forget Brewster’s  new bride and the taxi driver still waiting outside!  All this adds up to MADNESS!!! And lots of laughs for you.

Why is this a Halloween movie? It all takes place on October 31st!

Some interesting tidbits concerning “Arsenic and Old Lace”:

Cary Grant donated his entire salary from the movie to U.S. War Relief Fund.

Grant’s role was first offered to Ronald Reagan and Jack Benny, who both turned it down. It was then offered to Bob Hope but he was under contract to Paramount Pictures and they refused to allow him to work for Warner Bros. to make the movie.

On stage, Boris Karloff played the monstrous Jonathan Brewster, Raymond Massey’s film character, who, in eerie-looking screen makeup, resembled Karloff, which was a running gag throughout the picture. Because Karloff was still appearing in the Broadway play during the film’s production, he was unable to do the picture.

When Mortimer is sitting in the graveyard, one of the tombstones has the name Archie Leach on it. Archie Leach is Cary Grant’s real name.

Also some of you may remember ( I certainly do!) Edward Everett Horton as one of the voices/narrators on the cartoons “Fractured Fairy Tales” and “The Adventures of Bullwinkle and Rocky” as well as “Rocky and Friends”.

Great quotes from the movie:

Elaine Harper: But Mortimer, you’re going to love me for my mind, too.
Mortimer Brewster: One thing at a time!

Reverend Harper: Have you ever tried to persuade him that he wasn’t Teddy Roosevelt?

Abby Brewster: Oh, no.
Martha Brewster: Oh, he’s so happy being Teddy Roosevelt.
Abby Brewster: Oh… Do you remember, Martha, once, a long time ago, we thought if he’d be George Washington, it might be a change for him, and we suggested it.
Martha Brewster: And do you know what happened? He just stayed under his bed for days and wouldn’t be anybody.

Mortimer Brewster: Look I probably should have told you this before but you see… well… insanity runs in my family… It practically gallops.

[discussing the body count]
Dr. Einstein: You got twelve, they got twelve.
[angrily grabs Dr. Einstein's necktie]
Jonathan Brewster: I’ve got thirteen!
Dr. Einstein: No, Johnny, twelve – don’t brag.
Jonathan Brewster: Thirteen! There’s Mr. Spinalzo and the first one in London, two in Johannesburg, one in Sydney, one in Melbourne, two in San Francisco, one in Phoenix, Arizona…
Dr. Einstein: Phoenix?
Jonathan Brewster: The filling station…
Dr. Einstein: Filling station? Oh!
[slits throat]
Dr. Einstein: Yes.
Jonathan Brewster: Then three in Chicago and one in South Bend. That makes thirteen.
Dr. Einstein: You cannot count the one in South Bend. He died of pneumonia!
Jonathan Brewster: He wouldn’t have died of pneumonia if I hadn’t shot him!
Dr. Einstein: No, no, Johnny. You cannot count him. You got twelve, they got twelve. The old ladies is just as good as you are!

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do! Just don’t get any ideas!

Russ