Arsenic and Old Lace

Starring Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, & Raymond Massey

In partnership with the Pittsburgh Classic Movie Club, The Strand is tickled to bring this vintage screwball comedy from 1944 back to the Big Screen in 39 speaker surround-sound. A member of the Pittsburgh Classic Movie Club will make a short presentation about the film and the club before the Sunday matinee only.

Mortimer Brewster, a Brooklyn writer of books on the futility of marriage, risks his reputation after he decides to tie the knot. Things grow complicated when he learns that his beloved maiden aunts Abby and Martha are serial murderers.

At the time of production, Warner Bros. announced that the Brewster house was the largest set ever built at the studio. The house was complete, room by room, in every detail. Production records confirm that several scenes were shot in various rooms of the Brewster house. (Mortimer’s grandfather’s study, the aunts’ bedroom, and the cellar were filmed, but not included in the final cut of the film).

In none of his closeups does Raymond Massey ever blink.

Cary Grant’s birth name, Archie Leach, appears on a tombstone in the cemetery near the Brewster’s house. In Grant’s earlier picture, His Girl Friday (1940), his character, Walter, responded to a threat by saying ‘Listen, the last man that said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat’. As a gag, the departed Mr. Leach was apparently interred in the Brooklyn cemetery by the Brewster’s home.