Arsenic and Old Lace
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Synopsis
Frank Capra adapted a hit stage play for this marvelous screwball meeting of the madcap and the macabre. On Halloween, newly married drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant, cutting loose in a hilariously harried performance) returns home to Brooklyn, where his adorably dotty aunts (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair, who both starred in the Broadway production) greet him with love, sweetness . . . and a grisly surprise: the corpses buried in their cellar. A bugle-playing brother (John Alexander) who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, a crazed criminal (Raymond Massey) who’s a dead ringer for Boris Karloff, and a seriously slippery plastic surgeon (Peter Lorre) are among the outré oddballs populating Arsenic and Old Lace, a diabolical delight that only gets funnier as the body count rises.
Picture 8/10
Revisiting another one of their original LaserDisc titles The Criterion Collection presents Frank Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace on Blu-ray in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1 on a dual-layer disc. The 1080p/24hz high-definition presentation is sourced from a brand-new 4K restoration taken from a scan of the 35mm original nitrate negative.
All around I was quite pleased by the restoration and end presentation. The restoration itself is phenomenal, all significant stains and marks now gone with only a minor spec here and there. Every fine detail has been captured right along with the fine film grain, and close-ups show wonderful intricacies not readily apparent before on Warner’s DVD release, with the only caveat (even if it isn’t fair to address it as such) maybe being how Raymond Massey’s make-up looks a little spongier thanks to that improved detail. Grayscale is extraordinary as well, and the image provides a striking level of range within those grays, further aiding in drawing out fine details such as the herringbone patterns on jackets. Blacks end up coming out very deep, as can be seen in a lengthy sequence that plays out in what is close to complete darkness, and shadow delineation is excellent.
The encode is mostly strong, grain resolving well much of the time and keeping a natural looking texture. On occasion things can get a little noisy in darker areas but I feel you have to be looking for it. On the whole the end results look quite remarkable and it's a real shame Criterion didn’t try for a 4K release as well.
Audio 7/10
The film comes with a lossless PCM 1.0 monaural soundtrack. The overall quality is impressive: the track is very clean, free of distortion and heavy damage, and doesn’t sound to have been filtered to an extreme degree. Range is also rather wide, nicely handling the films many manic moments where voices are raised. It sounds quite good.
Extras 6/10
After what ends up mostly be a shockingly good presentation the release ends up disappointing when it comes to features. At the very least Charles Dennis, the author of There’s a Body in the Window Seat! (about the making of the film), does end up providing a new audio commentary for the film. Getting past some attempts at impersonations when quoting figures ranging from Boris Karloff to John Huston (which aren’t half bad if I’ll be honest) I found it to be a generally illuminating academic track. I’m assuming it’s all based around his book and the research for it, but Dennis takes a thorough deep dive into the origins of the film and its production, going all the way back to the original play which ends up having its own rather intriguing history. He of course explains why Boris Karloff (who gladly took on the Jonathan roll in the play despite his reservations around doing stage work) was unable to do the film, Dennis adding how the play producers would have allowed it if Warner Bros. gave them Humphrey Bogart during the time period Karloff was unavailable, and he also talks about how the play was altered during the process of adapting it to film (the sex and innuendos were heavily toned down thanks to the production code). Dennis also takes time to talk about some of the performers, covering topics like how Peter Lorre came to do the film and how Cary Grant was not a fan of this film, and he even gets into Capra’s background and his dealings with Warner Bros. One of the more interesting, lengthy sections involves concerns Warner Bros.’ legal department had around the heavy references to Karloff in the film and hinting he looks scary, and it sounds as though they all went through hoops and a lot of legal work only to it all end (not surprisingly) in an anti-climatic manner once they actually contacted Karloff. This also led to altering Jonathan’s make-up a bit to look closer to Karloff’s Monster from Frankenstein rather than exactly like Karloff. There are a few lengthy dead spaces and it’s very clear that Dennis is working from a script, but I found it well put together and he keeps things engaging.
Sadly, outside of the original trailer, the only other on-disc supplement is a 59-minute radio adaptation of the play, which aired in 1952 on a program called Best Plays. The notable aspect here is that Karloff himself is in the role of Jonathan, and while you can’t see him (obviously) you can at least hear how he would have delivered the lines. The feature also sort of works to offer a comparison between the film and the play since this is an adaptation of the play itself, but seeing as how it has been clearly truncated it’s still limited in that regard. The included insert then features a new essay by David Cairns on the frantic nature of the film.
Unfortunately, that’s it. I’m surprised there isn’t more about Capra here, or even Grant or Massey or even Lorre, and I’m also a little surprised there isn’t much of anything about cinematographer Sol Polito and the film’s expressionistic photography, both of which Dennis only touches on in his commentary (though I guess he at least mentions it). The commentary is ultimately fine, but I just feel this could have been a bigger edition.
Closing
Despite a fine enough commentary the features feel slim. Thankfully the presentation itself is incredibly sharp and pleasing.
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