Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic who hates marriage, discovers that his two sweet elderly aunts have a very dark hobby — and that his family tree is far stranger than he knew.
In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), directed by Frank Capra, Cary Grant plays Mortimer Brewster, a bachelor who has just married Elaine Harper, played by Priscilla Lane. When he visits his aunts Abby and Martha in Brooklyn, he discovers a body hidden in the window seat — and learns that his aunts have been poisoning lonely old men with elderberry wine, believing they are doing them a kindness. Mortimer must deal with the aunts, a brother who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt, and another brother, Jonathan, who has returned home with a criminal accomplice.
Grant’s performance is a masterclass in controlled panic. He races, he whispers, he tries to keep everyone calm while the situation grows more absurd, and his double takes and frantic energy drive the comedy. Capra lets Grant carry the film’s pace, and the contrast between Mortimer’s respectable life and his family’s madness is the joke that never stops working.
Arsenic and Old Lace remains one of Grant’s funniest films, a dark comedy in which he proves he could be both the sane centre and the most frantic character on screen.