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Arsenic and Old Lace

 What does a black & white movie from 1944 have do with our lives today? Nothing.

That being said, if really like over-acted plays-turned-into movies, antiquated cultural references and forced dialogue, then you might really like this “timeless classic”. If you’ve seen Arsenic & Old Lace, then you know what I’m talking about.  If you haven’t seen it, please make some good use out of the 2 hours of your life you avoided wasting. In all fairness, it is an interesting story, and I love the idea of 2 old ladies committing murders in the spirit of good Christian kindness. The big problem is that it didn’t commit to a genre. It was far too dramatic to really claim itself as a comedy, and had far too many comedy-of-errors moments to be an effective drama.

I want to mention one thing about the music.  All in all it was the kind of music you would expect from a WWII-era film, with lots of strings and swells. During a dark scene, almost an hour into the movie, I heard something that caught my ear…it was a really slow version of the Imperial March “written” by John Williams some 40 years later for Empire Strikes Back. The estate of the “father of film music” and A&OL’s composer Max Steiner should sue John Williams for a hefty chunk of coin. They probably don’t need it since he composed over a hundred film scores (many for better movies than this one). He died in 1971, but I guaranteed if he had been alive, he would’ve recognized the plagiarism of Mr. Williams and there would’ve been a scandal of some sort.  Actually if he had lived to see the release of Empire he would’ve been in his mid 90’s and I doubt his memory would’ve been much use for recognizing anything.

Besides the music, what was good? All the old people were good.  They were quirky and strange just as normal old people are.  Cary Grant, however, was really awful.  He even agreed that this movie was his most overacted role.  Not even Cary fucking Grant liked his performance. All in all, I give this film a hearty “Meh” and give it a star and a half (out of four). Even if the references had made sense to me, the most I would give this film is 2 stars.  I suppose it is possible that the play is better (without Mr Grant, it couldn’t be worse) but neither one is timeless enough to keep me interested so phooey.-LF