Arsenic and Old Lace

I can see something that you can’t. Something that remains concealed from the audience puts Cary Grant in the role of theater critic Mortimer Brewster into a state of shock and catapults him into an unreal world in the fraction of a second: his lovably cranky aunts are a dab hand at mixing poisons, to say nothing of using them! His seemingly harmless cousin, who think he’s Roosevelt, turns out to be a gravedigger! All this must remain hidden from Brewster’s other half, with whom he has only recently tied the knot, as must the arrival of his brother Jonathan, who is being pursued by the police and is the unfortunate victim of an botched facial surgery carried out by his surgically skilled accomplice Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre). It’s well known that a thin line separates normality from insanity. In the world of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, the only thing separating the real world from the unreal one is the lid of a wooden chest. (mg)