The first time I saw Arsenic and Old Lace was my junior year of high school in Drama II. My teacher set up an old television on a cart and let it play. It was hard to hear, and like most mornings in high school, I was nearer to sleep than I was to being awake. I caught bits and pieces of it, and we read the play, so I knew what was going on, but I just wasn't fond of it.
The second time around was much better. Granted, I was tired last night when we watched it, but I soldiered through it.
The play was written by Joseph Kesselring in 1939, (isn't Wikipedia amazing?) and the movie is clearly driven by dialogue like plays usually are. But there are so many twists in the plot that it holds your attention without too much trouble. Can you imagine your aunts as murderers who know full well what they're doing?
It's hard not to love Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha, and in a weird way, it's a bit like Dexter (at least from what I've heard about Dexter). They're aware they're committing murder, and you're aware they're committing murder, but you still sympathize with them anyway. They're trying to make the lives of lonely men better...by killing them off.
Cary Grant has some incredibly intense facial expressions, and you can't help but feel terrible for his new bride Elaine, who he keeps ignoring as he tries to cover up the murders and remedy the situation.
You can't get much better than the parallel dialogue and action toward the end, where Mortimer narrates his own almost-murder through the plot of a play he saw, and the cop narrates his own almost-murder through the plot of a play he tries to pitch to Mortimer as the crazy brother Jonathan (who looks like Boris Karloff) comes down the stairs with a knife to stab him.
It was a good way to kick off our Top 250 adventure. Looks like there will be many more to come...
1 comment:
Such a good movie!
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