Arsenic and Old Lace

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aya t @ayaueta Dec 3 my most favorite screwball comedy! cary grant (a former acrobat) as mortimer brewster, who's shocked when he discover a body in the windowseat & runs around panicking. he thinks his crazy brother, theodore (who looks like & acts like teddy roosevelt), killed him so he tries to hide it from his elderly sweet aunts but theres a twist. dark comedy based on the popular play. See more J B Nov 27 It is by far the worse movie I've ever seen. Wtf was that See more Uber A Nov 23 It's zany alright. Not really funny though. See more Jo P @JoParkerBear Nov 1 A classic that never gets old. Zany, paranoid, terrifying lunacy. It’s really about the hypocrisy of the puritanical white middle class, but that’s not important. It’s good, weird fun. See more Harold C. @ChambersContent Oct 7 Cary Grant delivers one of his funniest performances in this sharp, stage-born comedy that still feels fresh decades later. The ensemble cast keeps the farce buzzing, the set design gives it a lively play-meets-cinema charm, and the humor remains surprisingly effective with only a few dated touches. With just enough spooky atmosphere to work for Halloween but plenty of laughs to enjoy any time, it’s a classic that earns its spot as one of the funnier old Hollywood comedies worth revisiting. See more Wayne K Sep 21 Genres go in and out of fashion as time passes, and that’s what happened with screwball comedies, just without out the whole ‘coming back’ thing. Arsenic & Old Lace is one of the more famous films in the genre, and while I found it sporadically funny, most of it exemplified why such movies wore out their welcome. A tonne of zany antics, characters talking endlessly, people jumping in and out of conversations, running around and tripping over things while yelling and wildly gesticulating. Cary Grant, one of the most acclaimed actors who ever lived, owned up to the fact that he disliked his performance here. Grant was at his funniest when he was restrained, reacting to absurdity by attempting to minimise it. Here he simply feeds into it, and he shouts so many of his lines that you quickly get tired of him. Shenanigans that start off funny gradually become irritating to the point that the last 20-30 minutes is more of a tedious slog than anything else, despite the odd chuckle here and there. I like how the film is shot as both a wild comedy and an atmospheric horror, effortlessly swinging back and forth between the 2. I enjoyed it more overall than His Girl Friday, which I watched not long ago, and its certainly not a bad film by any means. It’s simply a film of its time, a period in history when audiences needed all the joy they could get their hands on. It’s not so surprising that it was so beloved in its time, but its also not a mystery as to why films of its ilk went the way of the Dodo all those decades ago. See more Read all reviews

Arsenic and Old Lace

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