Arsenic and Old Lace

I was not prepared for any of this. I was not prepared to see a light-hearted screwball comedy about a pair of elderly women who are serial killers. Or that they live with their nephew, who is convinced he's Teddy Roosevelt. Or that they have another nephew who is a sociopathic criminal with a dozen murders all over the world, and enough plastic surgery to make him look like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. And I definitely was not prepared to see Cary Grant, the coolest human being to ever walk the earth, be the exact opposite of cool: a mugging, befuddled, gobsmacked, derpy buffoon. I was not prepared for any of it. But I loved it. Seriously, Grant's facial and body acting ought to be a class in acting workshops and theater programs all over the world. The man manages to eradicate any vestige of his suave, debonair persona and replace it with a goofy goober that is absolutely hilarious. I didn't know he had it in him. Grant is absolutely, positively, the anchor of this movie, as he is the straight off which all the insanity bounces like a handful of cocaine-fed superballs. That's not to say the rest of the cast doesn't hold up their own; Priscilla Lane is a classic spunky dame archetype, but also endearingly cute and sweet, and you hate seeing her on the outside of this farcical whirlwind, not understanding why her new husband is acting like a madman. And whenever Grant and Lane are on the screen together, the chemistry is electric enough to power the New York skyline. Josephine Hull and Jean Adair are magnificent as Grant's kindly old spinster aunts, who love their nephew and want to see him happy, and think that poisoning old widowers is a mercy. Raymond Massey is excellent as the malevolent brother Jonathan, and Peter Lorre is pretty much every Peter Lorre toadying sidekick he's ever played, which isn't a bad thing at all. And then there's the direction. 95% of the movie takes place in the Brewster home, and Capra uses it to his advantage. It feels both claustrophobic and homey. He manages to make the comedic pace, which is frantic to say the least, feel breezy and never tiring. This is only my second time seeing his work (the other being It Happened One Night, one of my favorite Best Picture winners), and the man's reputation as one of the greatest directors ever is justified. He knew how to use every element, from lighting to pacing to music cues to the set to camera movement, to his advantage,. The only thing, the only ding I could possibly give this movie, is the rushed ending. Elaine's discovery of the bodies is brushed aside with kissing. After everything else either got fixed by way of some clever machinations or just blind luck, I would've liked to see how Mortimer managed to silence his new bride's discovery. You can't just romance your way out of "I discovered today that my aunts, who I'm not actually related to, were serial killers and have a dozen bodies buried in the basement". Even Cary Grant's not cool enough to wave that off. They don't make comedies like this anymore, and I don't know why. Is it the rise of internet humor? Have we moved on from this kind of simple, straight-forward, madcap romp, even with its ample doses of black humor sprinkled in? I don't know, but I'd love to see this kind of comedy movie come back. I can't think of the last comedy that left me smiling all the way through.