Trivia and Other Fun Stuff on ARSENIC AND OLD LACE

After completing Arsenic and Old Lace, Frank Capra, up to this time one of the most successful directors in Hollywood, spent the next four years making a series of acclaimed war-related documentaries and training films. His first entertainment feature after the war, It's a Wonderful Life (1946), has become an enduring American classic and perennial holiday TV favorite. But none of the nine films he made in the remaining 45 years of his life ever achieved the commercial and critical success of his greatest pre-war work.

Although Capra jumped at the chance to do this film because it held no deep meaning or message, his biographer Joseph McBride notes some odd connections between the movie and his life. Capra's mother, who like the Brewster sisters made her own wine (albeit not lethal), had her own dual image: beloved figure to those outside her family but a much darker person to those who knew her well. Like Mortimer, McBride says, Capra felt estranged from his family at an early age and had a brother who, like Jonathan in the story, tormented the young Frank and grew up to become a criminal.

The Epstein brothers called their brief work on this project "abnormally such a good situation." Together the twins were responsible for the scripts of nearly 30 films, including the narration for several of Capra's wartime "Why We Fight" propaganda film series. They won an Oscar© for their screenplay for Casablanca (1942). Valued members of the Warner Brothers team, they also wrote scripts for Bette Davis (The Man Who Came to Dinner, 1942; Mr. Skeffington, 1944), James Cagney (The Strawberry Blonde, 1941; Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and the two stars together (The Bride Came C.O.D., 1941). After Philip's death in 1952, Julius continued writing for the screen, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his last work, the screen adaptation of Peter De Vries' novel Reuben, Reuben (1983).

Like Capra, cinematographer Sol Polito was born in Sicily, but this was their only collaboration. Polito was Oscar®-nominated for his work on The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Sergeant York (1941), and Captains of the Clouds (1942).

Along with his salary for this film, Cary Grant also donated his pay for The Philadelphia Story (1940) to the British War Relief fund.

Jean Adair, who played Grant's Aunt Martha in the movie, had helped nurse him back to health twenty years earlier when he came down with rheumatic fever while they were both touring with a theatrical troupe.

The National Arts Club gives an award every year to a promising playwright; it is named for Arsenic and Old Lace author Joseph Kesselring.

Famous Quotes from ARSENIC AND OLD LACE

MORTIMER (Cary Grant): Don't you understand? How can I marry you? Me! The symbol of bachelorhood. I've sneered at every love scene in every play. I've written four million words against marriage. Now I'll be hooked to a minister's daughter. And not only a minister's daughter but a girl from Brooklyn.

OFFICER BROPHY (Edward McNamara): I'm turning over to you the nicest, the best beat in Brooklyn. ÉThis whole neighborhood just stinks with atmosphere.

REVEREND HARPER (Grant Mitchell): Have you ever tried to persuade him that he wasn't Teddy Roosevelt?
ABBY (Josephine Hull): Oh, no!
MARTHA (Jean Adair): Oh, he's so happy being Teddy Roosevelt.
ABBY: Oh, do you remember, Martha, once a long time ago, we thought if he'd be George Washington, it might be a change for him, and we suggested it.
MARTHA: And do you know what happened? He just stayed under his bed for days and wouldn't be anybody.

ELAINE (Priscilla Lane): But Mortimer, you're going to love me for my mind, too?
MORTIMER: One thing at a time.

ELAINE: We were married today. We were going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Your brother tries to strangle me. A taxi is waiting, and now you want to sleep on a window seat. ÉYou can take your honeymoon, your wedding ring, your taxi, your window seat, and put 'em in a barrel and push 'em all over Niagara Falls!

MORTIMER: Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.

MORTIMER: Aunt Abby, how can I believe you? There are twelve bodies in the cellar and you admit you poisoned them.
ABBY: Yes, I did. But you don't think I'd stoop to telling a fib.

MORTIMER: I am not throwing you out of the house, I am not throwing you out of the house, I am not throwing you out of the house. Will you get out of here?

ELAINE: But, Mortimer - Niagara Falls.
MORTIMER: It does? Well, let it.

OFFICER O'HARA (Jack Carson): I'm a playwright. I'm working on a play right now.
MORTIMER: You are? Well, well, maybe I can help you.
O'HARA: Oh would ya? What a break! I get wonderful ideas but I can't spell them.
MORTIMER: Oh, I can spell like the dickens!

Compiled by Rob Nixon