23.2.11

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Sometimes the old movie is just old movie.

For some strange reason,I thought I might enjoy this, movie adaptation of stage comedy classic - if I remember correctly,this even played in croatian theatre and my guess is,it was probably far better that way,where it belongs - on the stage.


Frank Capra directed this,really ridiculously over-acted and wrongly paced story where everybody runs around screaming and pretending - I did not laughed,or chuckled or even found it amusing - simply a case of old,silly movie.

Carry Grant is the main character here - he makes faces,runs up and down the stairs and basically fools around very loud & annoyingly. His fiancee (Priscila Lane) is completely unnecessary because Grant pushes her around and throws her out of house all the time,when he don't know what to do with her,he shuts her up with kisses. Two sweet aunties are very likable - and they have to be,because the whole story depends on this - and everything is fine as long as they are on the screen.But we have nutty relative who thinks he is Roosevelt,murderous brother with a face of Boris Karloff and (believe it or not) Peter Lorre somewhere in there. Add several other characters like silly policemen,doctors,cab drivers and so on... pure madness and not very entertaining either,just a lot of people yelling and screaming all the time.

The only good things were two sweet aunties - played by Josephine Hull and Jean Adair and I must say they did excellent job by creating such unforgettable characters,because the point is - the old ladies are actually mass murderers but somehow they pull it off with charm and cuteness so viewer actually don't mind. We don't want police to find them or anything bad to happen to them,so luckily the script has a perfect solution for them and it is a sort of happy ending.

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