horror movie asylum
In the just over a decade from 1934 to 1946, Frank Capra hit his way. The films of that era were It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can not Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Not all of these films were an immediate success (the stories It's a Wonderful Life's initial failure are now legends of Hollywood), but each of them had in his heart an idealism, a basic goodness and the spirit of joy. When Capra worldview combined with some of the best actors of the time (Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, James Stewart and name a few), the films have much resistance and many others beyond their time or ours.
Among the films mentioned above, Arsenic and Old Lace stands out as a bit of an odd duck. Like You Can not Take It With You, which was adapted from a play, and indeed is presented is very much like a filmed play. Capra does not choose to take the liberty of filming movie in many places just because they can, but focuses most of the action within the elegant old house in Brooklyn, and relationships between characters. This is why the story of a family that has killed collectively two dozen innocent people is really a comedy.
Stars Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster, a theater critic and lifelong bachelor who falls for the daughter the Minister, who lives next to her aunts in Brooklyn. They marry in the first scene by a justice of peace, then it ceases to Brooklyn so he can tell his elderly aunts (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair) on marriage, and so you can pack for their honeymoon to Niagara Falls.
Once arriving in Brooklyn a few things to be clear to the viewer. One is that Mortimer deeply loves her aunts, who apparently raised him and his two brothers, Jonathan and Teddy. The other is that Teddy is delusional and thinks that is Teddy Roosevelt, but it's harmless, and indeed is a great help and comfort to her aunts. There are some plot point to talk with Teddy committed to an asylum, but nobody sees any hurry about it. There is also some memories about what a child Jonathan was horrible, and how it went for twenty years.
One of the best scenes of the the film is that Mortimer discovers, by chance, there's a corpse in the window seat. He reveals the shocking fact for his aunts, who calmly say the dead is one of their colleagues, the twelfth such poor souls who have ministered to him out of this life by means of poisoned elderberry wine. The facial expressions of Cary Grant and physical reactions are priceless and some of the best in his career. For some reason, the argument never explain, Mortimer decides the best way to deal with the hobby his aunts of murdering lonely gentlemen and bury them in the basement is to have his brother Teddy committed to the asylum immediately.
Amid this crisis family, the long-lost Jonathan returns home, accompanied by Dr. Herman Einstein Sidekick plays with a kind of humor tortured by Peter Lorre. Jonathan has met the promise he showed as a child and has become a criminal psychopath who does not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his way, including his brother and aunts. And Jonathan also brings with him a dead body, so that for a while, there is a total change in the body between the window and the graves dug in the basement, which the aunts to be very angry that services are expected to read through a complete stranger.
Through a series of unlikely coincidences slapstick, the wicked are trapped, aunts decide to commit themselves voluntarily, Mortimer and his girlfriend returned with assurances that he is adopted and therefore not likely to inherit the madness that "practically gallops "through his family.
The film's emotional axis is the affection he feels for his aunts Mortimer, and Capra makes this clear on each point: Grant's frustration at their inability to understand that killing people is wrong wars with his desire to protect themselves and the consequences of their actions. The film is not without some serious issues-the ending is too easy and hiding the seriousness of the situation, attempts to get Teddy Mortimer is committed when the aunts who are murdering people who do not make sense and are not explained, and the scenes in the middle with Jonathan and Dr. Einstein are too dark and pull the atmosphere of the film down so far never fully recovers, so Grant slapstick approach becomes almost slapstick in the second half. Not that Capra never faces the darkness, but usually it is the darkness idealism crushed inside or apparent futility of his characters have to, face unrelated murders.
However, none of that matters much, while you are seeing. Cary Grant is extraordinary, both as a comedian and an actor, Hull and Adair are perfectly charming and believable as aunts, whose only motivation is always the kindness and compassion. More importantly, Frank Capra knows where the heart of the film is, and keeps it there. It is best to see knowing full well that the scenario is unlikely, the plot is full of holes, but it's fun to watch and laugh anyway.
Katherine Teel has a film blog, Kat’s Film and Book Reviews (www.katsfilmandbookreviews.com) and an adoption blog, Joseph’s Joy: An Adoption Blog ( http://www.josephsjoy.com ). She is a professional freelance writer and the mother of three.
horror asylum
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