- Let it be admitted that the Brewster family has its fair share of problems. Let's start with Mortimer (Cary Grant), an author known for his anti-marriage screeds who reluctantly prepares to march down the aisle with Elaine (Priscilla Lane). While a tad eccentric, he's the normal one when compared with his homicidal lunatic of a brother, Jonathan (Raymond Massey), whose countenance recalls that of a certain reanimated monster. And then there's Uncle Teddy Roosevelt (John Alexander) who, true to his name, regularly charges up the San Juan Hill staircase and digs the Panama Canal in the basement. More on that later. Finally, there are the two sweet old aunts, Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair). They have "a very bad habit" of poisoning old bachelors and burying their corpses in the basement. As Mortimer puts it, "insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."
- Arsenic and Old Lace is one of the classic screwball comedies in which the bizarre stable of characters is also essentially the plot. Sure, there are a few more ingredients thrown in, like the dense cop O'Hara (Jack Carson) or the enjoyably disreputable Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre), but the film is basically two hours of wacky antics courtesy of the Brewsters. So how does this style of comedy hold up 65 years later? Well, the always enjoyable Cary Grant is at his most manic here, which makes for a real spectacle. The aunts and Uncle Teddy, too, are quite amusing, even if they are essentially one-note characters. Jonathan, on the other hand, is not nearly as funny as the real Boris Karloff must have been in the original stage play. The overall impression is one of a single joke stretched out for a little too long by a cast that is decent enough to nearly pull it off.
- The play by Joseph Kesselring starred the same people who played the aunts and Teddy and, as mentioned, Boris Karloff.
