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Happy Days With The Brewster
Bunch: Arsenic And Old Lace (1944)
Review Copyright Roger Zotti,
2000
Those harmless sisters Brewster, Abby and Martha, aren't
really harmless. That's because they have an odd pastime: When lonely, elderly
gentlemen come calling, the gals poison them.
Their recipe is simple. "For a gallon of elderberry wine," Martha says,
"I add a tablespoon of arsenic, half a teaspoon of strychnine, just a
touch of cyanide." It works. There are quite a few of the old gents buried
in the ladies' cellar.
In fact, after spending a few hours with them Mortimer becomes so befuddled
that he says, "Usually I'm Mortimer Brewster. But I'm not quite myself
today." His words prove prophetic, for near the end of the film he learns
something about himself that, well, changes everything he had previously
known about himself.
Teddy is Abby and Martha's other nephew. The only thing wrong with him
is that he believes he's Teddy Roosevelt. Talks like him. Dresses like
him. Believes the cellar is the Panama Canal. Instead of walking up the
stairs, he charges up them. After all, in his mind the stairs are San
Juan Hill.
"Charge!" he yells, and off he goes, two steps at a time, imaginary
sword in hand.
With him is a wormy fellow named Dr. Einstein. Einstein has been performing
plastic surgery on Jonathan. (Don't tell Jonathan, but the surgery hasn't
helped.) More, Jonathan and Einstein are lugging a corpse around with
them. The chap's name is Spenalzo.
Then there's Elaine, Mortimer's bride. All she wants is to go on her
honeymoon. Instead, she finds herself confronting dead bodies, weird characters,
and her husband's increasingly bizarre behavior. Of course, let's not
forget Martha and Abby, the likes of whom Elaine has never come across
before.
Witherspoon is right. Not only is the film's madness infectious, but
so, too, is its hilarity. Fun and laughs come at a frantic pace from the
first scene to the last.
Einstein is played by an especially creepy Peter Lorre; Raymond Massey
brings genuine menace to his role of Jonathan; and dependable Jack Carson
is perfect as Officer O'Hara,
And, of course, there's everyone's favorite character actor James Gleason,
who nearly steals the show as police Lt. Rooney. His tough-talking, no
nonsense character utters the film's most telling line. After spending
a little time with the Brewsters, he says, "I wouldn't know what is and
what ain't strange anymore."
You'll agree with Frank Capra, the film's director, who said in The
Name Above the Title, his autobiography, that he had indeed "assembled
an all-star cast of scene-stealers."
Welcome, Mortimer
When their nephew, drama critic and author Mortimer Brewster, visits his
aunts on his wedding day, he learns of their activities. Naturally he's
traumatized.
Welcome, Jonathan and Einstein
Enter Jonathan Brewster, Mortimer's sinister brother. And what a creepy
guy Jonathan is! Bearing an uncanny resemblance to... Wait! You'll
have to see the movie to find out.
No Rest
The wackiness never ceases. At one point Mr. Witherspoon, head of the
Happy Dale Sanitarium (Teddy's future home), is so bewildered by the goings-on
that he addresses Mortimer as Mr. Witherspoon. After Mortimer corrects
him, Witherspoon says, "It's contagious."
Cast
Cary Grant plays Mortimer, and Priscilla Lane is Elaine. Add to the mix
Edward Everett Horton as a very funny Witherspoon; the great Josephine
Hull (unforgettable years later in Harvey) as Abby; Jean Adair
as Martha and rambunctious John Alexander as Teddy.
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