Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) starring Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Jack Carson, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair. Directed by Frank Capra. Two seemingly harmless old ladies (Hull and Adair) poison lonely gentlemen callers, then bury them in their cellar. Their nephew, Mortimer Brewster (Grant), finds out what is going on just as he is preparing to leave for his honeymoon. To complicate matters, Mortimer's long-lost brother Jonathon (Massey) shows up -- now a criminal, made unrecognizable by plastic surgery -- and he too has a body to dispose of. Mortimer's frantic efforts to resolve all the tangled elements in the story generate the comedy, and it's funny, in a dark way. I can't say Grant is a great comic actor -- he seems more suited to the suave, debonair thing to me. But he does all right, even taking a few pratfalls. Grade: B
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