Curator Watchlist
A brisk, macabre farce that turns murder into screwball chaos, powered by Cary Grant’s escalating panic and a wonderfully deadpan supporting cast. Its stagebound setup is part of the charm, and the jokes still land if you enjoy old Hollywood wit with a dark streak.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 58m
Director: Frank Capra
Starring: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Josephine Hull
Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets married; but when he makes a quick trip home to tell his two maiden aunts, he finds out his aunts' hobby - killing lonely old men and burying them in the cellar!
Frank Capra
Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Josephine Hull
A brisk, macabre farce that turns murder into screwball chaos, powered by Cary Grant’s escalating panic and a wonderfully deadpan supporting cast. Its stagebound setup is part of the charm, and the jokes still land if you enjoy old Hollywood wit with a dark streak.
Arsenic and Old Lace is one of Hollywood’s great examples of taking a wildly unhinged premise and playing it with immaculate comic control. Frank Capra keeps the machinery moving, but the real pleasure is watching Cary Grant spiral from polished leading man into a man trying to survive his own family’s secrets without losing his mind.
The film’s humor comes from contrast: cheerful domesticity against serial murder, civic respectability against lunacy, and Grant’s increasingly expressive face against the aunts’ calm, murderous hospitality. It’s very much a product of its era, with a theatrical, talky rhythm, but that also gives the jokes room to breathe and build.
If you like black comedy that stays light on its feet, this is a delight. It’s less about suspense than about timing, performance, and the absurdity of trying to keep a straight face while everything collapses around you.
eely (4.5★) · 2161 likes
cary grant shows all seven stages of grief on his face in the span of 60 seconds and can do more with his left eyebrow than every actor in hollywood put together
sarah (4★) · 1801 likes
BUT DARLING, NIAGARA FALLS IT DOES? WELL LET IT
mia lee vicino (3.5★) · 1223 likes
me in 1944 when i try to distract myself from the horrors of WWII by going to the local Cinema to see the latest Cary Grant Picture and realize it’s about how Women Be Poisoning: gee ........... hope this doesn’t ..... awaken anything in me ...........
lucy (4★) · 1073 likes
i never knew cary grant had so many facial expressions
Erin 🍺 (4★) · 1050 likes
The part when Cary Grant stops to smoke a cigarette and bitch to himself amid all the chaos is me
Another elegant murder story from the classic era, but played with a chillingly controlled, high-concept style that makes the dark humor and tension feel unusually modern.
A dead body becomes a source of dry, offbeat comedy in a small-town setting, making it a strong tonal cousin for viewers who enjoy macabre wit.
A sweetly sinister comedy about criminals colliding with an eccentric household, balancing civility, absurdity, and escalating chaos.
A refined black comedy about murder, class, and inheritance, with a delightfully detached tone and a famously civilized sense of wickedness.
A fast, dialogue-heavy studio comedy built around social chaos, theatrical energy, and a household overwhelmed by an impossible guest.
Capra’s other great ensemble comedy of eccentric domestic disorder, with warmth, speed, and a fondness for lovable chaos.
For viewers drawn to sparkling old-Hollywood banter, romantic complications, and a lead performance that thrives on comic control.
A benchmark for rapid-fire dialogue and romantic combat, ideal if the appeal here is verbal timing and polished studio-era wit.
Another classic screwball of escalating confusion, with a lead performance pushed into gleeful panic by an increasingly absurd situation.
A witty crime comedy with elegant banter, playful mystery, and a glamorous couple navigating murder with remarkable ease.
Keeps the breezy mystery-comedy spirit alive with a lighter domestic angle and the same fondness for urbane, alcohol-fueled wit.
A studio-era blend of romance, melancholy, and supernatural oddity that suits viewers who like classic films with a slightly off-center mood.
black comedy, family secrets, murder farce, marriage anxiety, small-town respectability, theatrical farce, screwball energy, darkly comic crime
black comedy, farce, screwball, crime comedy, stage adaptation, 1940s Hollywood, murder, family dysfunction, madcap, classic studio era