“In Arsenic and Old Lace, Warner Brothers’ social conscience takes on a black twist as two timid old ladies mix a potent potion of elderberry wine, arsenic and a ‘pinch of cyanide’ in their humanistic crusade to relieve lonely old men of their loneliness. Directed by Frank Capra in 1941 (but not released until 1944), this hysterical adaptation of Joseph Kesserling’s popular Broadway play borders on hysterics, as the facade of quiet, middle-class suburban life is ripped away to expose a household of lunatics. Besides the murderous aunts (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair), there’s cousin Jonathan (Raymond Massey) who’s collecting his own share of corpses; Teddy (John Alexander), who in his fantasies as Teddy Roosevelt, alternately attacks the stairs and cellar; Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre) whose surgical error has transformed Jonathan into a Frankenstein look-alike; and Mortimer Brewster (wonderfully performed by Cary Grant), a New York drama critic who is the voice of (diminishing) reason amidst the madness. All combine to make this a film which, as Donald Willis observed, ‘probably does have more laughs--real and phony--than any other movie ever made’ (The Films of Frank Capra).”