Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane in "Arsenic and Old Lace"

Arsenic and Old Lace is an American black comedy directed by Frank Capra and starring Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane. The excellent supporting cast includes Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Jack Carson, James Gleason, and Edward Everett Horton. Jean Adair, Josephine Hull, and John Alexander reprised their roles from the Broadway production.

The screenplay was written by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein and based on the play of the same name by Joseph Kesselring. The film score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography was by Sol Polito.

Mortimer Brewster (Grant), a writer who has written extensively on how marriage is “an old-fashioned superstition,” falls in love with Elaine Harper (Lane), the minister’s daughter next door to his family home. Mortimer and Elaine get married on Halloween day. Elaine returns to her father’s house and Mortimer goes to his childhood home where his Aunts Abby and Martha raised him and still live. Along with his aunts, his older brother Teddy, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt, lives there too.

While looking for the manuscript notes for his next book, Mortimer discovers a body in the window seat. He immediately thinks it's Teddy who must have been the murderer. But to Mortimer’s horror, he discovers that it’s his two aunts who are responsible. Not only are they responsible for the man in the window seat, but they are serial killers who “minister” to old bachelors by putting them out of their misery. And all these “gentlemen” are buried in the basement!

Besides his serial-killer aunts, Mortimer's brother Jonathan (Massey) is also a serial killer who is on the lamb and hiding out in his childhood home.

How in the world will Mortimer be able to save his aunts from going to prison and protecting them from the menacing Jonathan?

Frank Capra (1897 - 1991) was an American film director, producer, and writer. During the 1930s and 1940s, Capra’s films were among the most popular and awarded films. By 1938, Capra has won three Best Director Academy Awards. Born in Italy, Capra immigrated to the United States with his family when he was five years old. By sheer determination and his self-described cockiness, Capra talked his way into the movie business. He found a great home at “Poverty Row” studio, Columbia Pictures. At Columbia he had a major success with It Happened One Night (1934), which swept all the major categories at the Academy Awards that year. This helped turn Columbia Pictures from a Poverty Row studio into a major one. Other Capra successes include You Can’t Take It with You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

Cary Grant (1904 – 1986) was an English-born American actor who became one of the most popular leading men in film history. Grant started his career in vaudeville before heading to Hollywood. He became a superstar in the late 1930s in a series of screwball comedies including The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne. He was a memorable C. K. Dexter Haven in The Philadelphia Story (1940) opposite Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart. He received two Best Actor nominations for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Hearts (1944). Other classic Grant films include Gunga Din (1939), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He made four popular films with Alfred Hitchcock: Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959). He was presented with an Honorary Oscar at the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970.

Priscilla Lane (1915 – 1995) was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for her film roles in The Roaring Twenties (1939) co-starring James Cagney, Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur (1942), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) co-starring Cary Grant. Before she became a star, she had a screen test at age 16 at MGM offices in New York City. Other actresses being tested that day included Katharine Hepburn and Margaret Sullavan. All three flunked their MGM auditions. Not to be dismayed, Priscilla and her older sister Rosemary were signed to a radio contract with Waring’s orchestra. In 1938, she and her sister Rosemary were signed to seven-year contracts with Warner Bros. Priscilla starred in Four Daughters (1938), the film that introduced John Garfield to moviegoers. Other popular films starring Lane include Brother Rat (1938), Dust Be My Destiny (1939), again co-starring with Garfield, Three Cheers for the Irish (1940), and Blues in the Night (1941). Disillusioned with the roles Warners was offering her, she left the studio in 1942. She made five more movies, the last one in 1948, and then retired from films to raise a family.

Priscilla Lane and Cary Grant in a publicity still

Arsenic and Old Lace trivia

• Bob Hope was the first choice for Mortimer Brewster but his home studio wouldn't release him so he couldn't accept the role. Jack Benny was considered but when Frank Capra found out that Cary Grant was interested, he was offered the role.
• Frank Capra requested Priscilla Lane for the role of Elaine.
• Archie Leach (Grant's real name) is on one of the tombstones near the Brewster home.
• Cary Grant considered this the least favorite of all his films.
• Capra had to pay $25,000 each for the services of Jean Adair and Josephine Hull to the producers of the Broadway play. Adair and Hull were paid $10,000 each for their film roles.
• The film was completed in eight weeks under budget.
• Filmed in 1941, but released in 1944.

To watch the film on YouTube, click the link below.

To join the discussion on October 31, 2022, at 6:30 p.m. Central Time, click here. Once you RSVP, you will receive an invitation to join the discussion along with the Zoom link.

Discussion questions

1. Grant hated his performance in this film. Why do you think he was unhappy with the final cut?
2. The supporting cast is pretty amazing. Do you have any favorites? Did you have a favorite aunt?
3. Did you have a favorite scene or piece of dialogue?
4. If the movie was remade today, would you set it in the 1940s? Who would you cast as Mortimer, Jonathan, and the aunts?
5. In spite of Grant's opinion of his performance and the film, it's often sighted as a favorite among film fans. What's your opinion? Do you consider this one of Grant's best performances?

Frank Capra (hat), Cary Grant, and Priscila Lane on the set

Fritz Lang’s “The Woman in the Window” starring Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett

The Woman in the Window (1944) is an American film noir directed by Fritz Lang, produced by Nunnally Johnson, and starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, and Dan Duryea.

The plot centers on a mild-mannered college professor Richard Wanley (Robinson) who meets Alice Reed, (Bennett) while staring at a painting in an art gallery window. He soon realizes that the woman was the model for the painting. What started out as an innocent night out for a few drinks turns into a night of murder and blackmail.

How will  Professor Wanley and Alice get out of the mess they’ve gotten themselves into?

Joan Bennett and Edward G. Robinson

Fritz Lang (1890 – 1976) was an Austrian-German-American director. Lang is the director of the silent film classic Metropolis (1927). After serving in World War I, Lang worked for a time as an actor in the theater and then worked as a writer at Decla Film in Berlin. Lang’s first talking picture was M (1931) a story about a child murderer. Due to his growing renown, Joseph Goebbels offered him the position of head of the German film studio UFA in 1933. Lang emigrated to Paris and then to the United States in 1936. Lang worked for all the major studios, making twenty-three feature films in the United States. Some of Lang’s films include Scarlet Street (1945), The Big Heat (1953), and While the City Sleeps (1956).

Nunnally Johnson (1897 – 1977) was a journalist, screenwriter, producer, and director. He worked for many years as a writer at 20th Century-Fox before he co-founded International Pictures in 1943 with William Goetz. Johnson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay in 1940 for The Grapes of Wrath. Johnson wrote, produced, and directed The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) and The Three Faces of Eve (1957). As a writer-producer, he is responsible for The Gunfighter (1950), My Cousin Rachel (1952), and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Johnson’s last credited screenplay was for The Dirty Dozen (1967).

Milton R. Krasner (1904 – 1988) was an American cinematographer. He is best known for his work at 20th Century-Fox where he filmed such classics as All About Eve (1950) and The Seven Year Itch (1955). Other notable films he photographed include Scarlett Street (1945), The Dark Mirror (1946), The Egg and I (1947), The Farmer’s Daughter (1947), Bus Stop (1956), An Affair to Remember (1957), Bells Are Ringing (1960), Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), and The Singing Nun (1966). Krasner won an Academy Award for his work on Three Coins in the Fountain (1954).

Edward G. Robinson (1893 – 1973) was an American actor of the stage and screen. Robinson is a true star from Hollywood’s Golden Age where he starred in the gangster classic Little Caesar (1931), Kid Galahad (1937), Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), The Sea Wolf (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), and Key Largo (1948). Robinson was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1973 but was never nominated for a competitive Oscar.

Joan Bennett (1910–1990) began her film career during the early sound era. A natural blonde, Bennett dyed her hair as a plot device in the film Trade Winds (1938). As a brunette, Bennett projected a sultry persona that had her compared to the brunette beauty, Hedy Lamarr. During this period she starred in two costume epics. She played Princess Maria Theresa in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) and Grand Duchess Zona of Lichtenburg in The Son of Monte Cristo (1940). Bennett was one of two finalists for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), along with Paulette Goddard. She had a very successful collaboration with the director Fritz Lang. With Lang, she starred in the classics Man Hunt (1940), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945). Bennett acted on stage and on television where she became a pop culture icon playing Elizabeth Collins Stoddard on the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows (1966-1971).

Dan Duryea (1907 – 1968) was an American film, stage, and television actor. He is best known for his character roles as villains, but he had a long career that included a variety of lead and second lead roles. Duryea graduated from Cornell University in 1928. In his senior year, he was the president of the college drama society. Duryea went to Hollywood in 1940 to Leo Hubbard in The Little Foxes, a role he created on Broadway. He established himself in films noir costarring in classics like Scarlet Street (1945), Criss Cross (1948), and Too Late for Tears (1949).

Below is the link to the movie on YouTube. Please use this link; there are several prints uploaded to the channel, but this one is the best one available.



Join us on Zoom for a discussion of this film on June 30, 2020, 2020, at 6:30 p.m. Central Time. Check below for meeting links.

Stephen Reginald is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Discussion of "The Woman in the Window"
Time: Jun 30, 2020, 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/71665496130?pwd=ZDdveDhIN1ZCcjNSSGRDNTE2SHhBQT09

Meeting ID: 716 6549 6130
Password: 7yG9D2

Questions for discussion:
1. Noir or not? Does this film fit your idea of film noir?
2. Did you notice any noir visual clues?
3. Was Edward G. Robinson credible as a middle-aged college professor?
4. Any significance to the name Wanely? Why do you think professor Wanely decided to read “The Song of Solomon.”
5. Joan Bennett wasn’t your typical film noir “dame.” What sets her apart from some other femme fatales in other films noir? Were you curious about Bennett’s profession?
6. Fritz Lang is considered one of the best directors of film noir. From what you know about Lang, do you agree? What makes his style unique?
7. Did you like the ending? Was it a surprise or expected?

Trivia: Look for Robert Blake at the beginning of the film. He plays Robinson’s young son. Blake wasn't credited in the movie.