Arsenic and Old Lace 1944

Mortimer Brewster, a Brooklyn theater critic and aspiring writer, is preparing to marry his neighbor Elaine Harper Brewster on a Halloween that will reveal more twists than any play he’s ever reviewed. He has long described marriage as “an old-fashioned superstition,” yet the idea of a quiet wedding with Elaine seems like the perfect escape from his bustling life of reviews and deadlines. Their plans are interrupted when Elaine visits her minister father, the kindly but wary Reverend Harper, to share the news, and Mortimer returns home to break the news to his two aunts, Aunt Abby Brewster and Aunt Martha Brewster, who raised him in the creaky and comforting family house that sits high above the busy streets of Brooklyn.

The old house is filled with oddities and warmth, where Teddy Roosevelt—Mortimer’s delusional younger brother who believes he is the famous president—often appears in the backdrop, blowing a bugle and shouting a heroic charge as he dashes up and down the stairs. The scene is light with a tinge of fear, as the aunts keep a tidy cellar and a perfectly pleasant dining room, and nothing seems out of the ordinary until Mortimer stumbles upon a shocking discovery: a corpse hidden in the window seat while he’s searching for notes for his next book. What begins as a chilling moment soon spirals into a macabrely comic confession: Aunt Abby Brewster and Aunt Martha Brewster admit that they have murdered several lonely old bachelors, believing they are freeing them from suffering by offering a “charity” of elderberry wine spiked with poison. The tally of their victims—twelve in all—adds a chilling rhythm to the house, which Teddy dutifully buries in the cellar, convinced they are laying victims to rest as yellow fever patients at the Panama Canal.

Mortimer, horrified, hatches a plan to protect his aunts by getting Teddy declared legally insane and committed to Happy Dale asylum. He leaves quickly to file the necessary paperwork, hoping to avert disaster and preserve the family’s imperfect peace. But his escape from the scene is short-lived: Jonathan Brewster, his cold-blooded older brother, arrives with his alcoholic accomplice, Dr. Herman Einstein. The pair have traveled under the cover of night, and Einstein—who bears a Frankenstein-like look after a botched alteration while drunk—turns Jonathan into a living weapon for murder. Jonathan is a notorious serial killer with a dozen bodies to his name, and he arrives with a plan to dispose of his latest victim, Mr. Spenalzo, whose body they conceal in the very same window seat Mortimer discovered earlier.

Mortimer returns to the house just as the two criminals hide Spenalzo’s body and are welcomed by his exasperated disbelief. Jonathan and Einstein reveal they have found Mr. Hoskins’s body in the cellar, a fact that Mortimer tries to keep secret while he races to fix Teddy’s commitment papers before the family secrets explode. Einstein, in a moment of spite, ridicules the aunts’ own tally of victims, claiming their names belong to an even larger ledger, and Jonathan’s resolve hardens: he intends to kill Mortimer to prevent exposure and to keep his own murderous spree uninterrupted.

As Mortimer contemplates the future of his marriage, the tension in the house grows thick. He discusses his alarm with Elaine, who senses that the family’s quirks may threaten their life together. Mortimer’s fears are confirmed when Einstein offers him a way out, a chance to walk away from the chaos, if he agrees to leave. But the web tightens as Jonathan reclaims his grip on the situation—he ties up Mortimer and keeps him quiet while the two criminals argue over how to handle the apparent threat to their operation. The movie’s sharp humor surfaces in moments when Einstein, puffing with bravado, defends the aunts’ “charity,” and when O’Hara, the local officer, arrives after neighbors complain about Teddy’s trumpet-like bugle blasts.

The arrival of Officer Patrick O’Hara and his partner throws the situation into sharper, comic focus. O’Hara himself becomes part of a running joke as he recites the plot of a play he’s writing, misinterpreting the events as a staged drama. Lt. Rooney soon appears in the mix, investigating the missing officers and the aib of the supposed escapees. He recognizes Jonathan from Wanted posters as an escapee from an Indiana mental asylum, and his arrest seems certain—yet the true arrest comes when the truth of the thirteen bodies buried in the cellar surfaces, forcing a dramatic reckoning for the family. In a flurry of escapes and pursuits, Mr. Witherspoon is pressed into service to help move Teddy to the asylum, and the sisters insist on accompanying him, determined to protect their brother and keep the house intact.

With the law closing in, Mortimer finally confronts the reality of his lineage: the aunts reveal, in a twist that lands like a punchline, that he is not a true Brewster after all. His mother was the family cook and his father a chef on a steamship, which means Mortimer’s sense of belonging in the clan is questionable at best. The revelation shatters the certainty that he could leave the house to Elaine with a clean conscience, and yet Mortimer’s love for Elaine—to whom he has become closer through their shared fear and fascination with the macabre—persists. Elaine, horrified by the corpses in the cellar, trembles as she contemplates marrying into a family of infamous killers. Mortimer, in a bold attempt to preserve their happiness, silences her worries with a kiss, and proposes to take her away on their honeymoon, away from the Brower house’s chilling secret.

In the end, the comic tragedy resolves in a way that feels both eerie and hopeful. The aunts, determined to shield their nephew from a harsher fate, join Mr. Witherspoon on his plan to escort Teddy to safety, leaving the ailing house to the memory of its oddities rather than its crimes. Einstein, after signing the aunts’ commitment papers, has his own escape route, while Mortimer discovers a future with Elaine, a life built on mutual support against a family history that never quite fits into normal society. The film lingers on a scene of quiet anticipation: two lives ready to begin anew, while the darkly comical echo of the old house remains, a reminder that some families are built not on blood alone, but on the willingness to laugh at fear and to protect one another in the face of the unbelievable.

Charge!