I just saw this movie for the first time. Boy, is it hysterical for a macabre story! But, in the mixed-up stories of murder…I cannot recall some key points to the plot! Can anyone tell me:
a) Why did Mortimer, the main character, want to commit “Teddy Roosevelt”? He was simply suppose to leave on his honeymoon when the plot thickens.
b) Several times, they refer to “Teddy Roosevelt” as Mortimer’s brother. But, Mortimer (and Johny) seem a generation or two younger! Wouldn’t “Teddy” have been an uncle to Mortimer? (Did you notice this, too?)
c) Where were the two aunts during most of the last segment of the movie? When the plot hits its climax and finally appears to be working to a resolution, the two aunts just seem to drop out of story for awhile. Finally, they reappear at the very end of this “big scene” after a scuffle with the police and more.
The play’s a good bit different from the movie. In the play, Mortimer (who isn’t married, but he’s engaged by the end, sort of) is a good bit younger than his “brothers” because they have a different mother (and, as it turns out, a different “father” as well- his mother was the cook and the aunts’ brother married her because she was pregnant). He wants Teddy committed because he thinks that Teddy is responsible for the dead body in the window seat, then when he finds out it’s the aunts he wants him committed to take the fall for their crime (the jury won’t likely convict an obvious mental case of murder). Also, Teddy’s 3 a.m. horn blowing and the like is getting old.
I think Sampiro’s covered it. Your question #3, the two aunts are hiding out in their room(s), frightened by Jonathan. Jonathan had, IIRC, threatened them.
True, he threatened them, but they did re-appear since his threat when they haggle over who killed more people! Very funny scene! I’ll have to watch it again for there was a lot going on!
Yes, this is rather true to the movie. At the end, it ALL comes out in avery funny scene. True, Mortimer had a different mother as it is said that Mortimer is not a blood relative (for he really couldn’t sign papers as next of kin). But, if his mother married the aunt’s brother…he IS a blood relative to the aunts, isn’t he?
Great movie, One of my personal top 100.
Jonathan was played by Boris Karloff on Broadway but he wasn’t available for the movie. I believe both of the old Aunts had done the Broadway play first.
Josephine Hull only other big Hollywood role was as the exasperated Mom in Harvey, another all time great movie.
I almost always watch it when I stumble across it.
Another point about Teddy is that he buried the bodies in the basement. He was told they were “Yellow Fever Victims”. I think that makes him an accessory after the fact.
This is why Mortimer was so happy to find out that his mother was already pregnant when she married into that nutty family. He doesn’t share any blood with the crazy people (although, frankly, I’m not sure that’ll save him ), so he is able to embark on his married life without worrying about his family’s “tainted” blood being passed on to his children.
Even if that were the case, I suspect, very strongly, that Teddy and the aunts all have a good insanity defense (i.e., unable to understand the nature and quality of their actions).
My favorite line from the play is when Mortimer’s explaining to Elaine why he can’t marry her: “Insanity runs in my family… hell, it practically gallops!”
I’ve been in three productions of the play, twice as Officer O’Hara and once as Teddy. It’s one of my favorite plays to do- 65 years later it’s still funny.
Well, it’s also important to remember that the whole film takes place in one night. When Jonathan and Einstien are getting ready to work on Mortimer, and the cops show up, it’s probably about 2 a.m. and the aunts are asleep.
Good point. I’ll have to pay careful attention the next time I see thie movie. I might buy your explanation except I hesitate. I don’t recall them coming down from upstairs…hmm, actually, come to think of it…I think they come up from the basement after a hymnal (if that’s the right turn) for the two bodies, even though they say they’re only doing it for one of the two. Yes, yes…IIRC, there’s a scene where Mortimer is sweet talking his fiancee at her window and you hear the hymns being sung in the background. This is when the doctor arrives (at some god awful hour) to sign the papers to commit “Teddy R”.
The sisters then appear late in the scene after the scuffle with the cops and they insist on going with Teddy R. There’s more they insist upon, but I won’t spoil it for anyone reading this who may not have seen the play or movie, like myself (until recently)!
Hmm, I wonder if that was a “cult film” for its time, like Little Shop of Horrors?
No, he’s referring to Josephine Hull (the larger aunt). To clarify, she play’s Jimmy Stewart’s sister, and mother of Victoria Home in Harvey. (The movie also features future Maytag Repairman Jesse White.)
Back to Arsenic and Old Lace, as Sampiro says, Grant’s character first suspects Teddy of culpability with the body in the window-seat. The later revelation of his kindly aunts’ involvement in the murders leads him to simply wanting to dismiss the problem of Teddy, though to be fair Teddy is (literaly) certifiable and probably couldn’t survive without regular oversight and care regardless.
The play, as Sampiro notes, is somewhat more risque than the film in that Mortimer and Elaine were not yet married, and a number of scenes would not have passed muster with the Hayes Office. Elaine also has a somewhat more active role in the play than the film, where she essentially exists as a regular annoyence to be pushed off-scene. The ending of the play (if the version we saw was canonical) would also have been unacceptible per the Production Code.
I suspect that Mortimer, while not driven entirely insane by the whole ordeal, while probably work himself into an early grave with Elaine (the play version). The aunts and certainly Teddy have, as Campion notes, not only a technically but ethically defensible position as being genuinely incapable of appreciating the consequences of their actions, and from the tone of the ending the whole incident seems likely to be brushed under the carpet by authorities rather than subject two kindly old ladies to the indignity of a trial, particularly in light of their willingness to be voluntarily committed to an institution.
And while this may be in jfranchi’s Top 100 films, it is or at least is a runner up for my Top 10. Note the screenwriters; the Epstein twins, also responsible (in part) for Casablanca. They don’t make 'em like this anymore. I wish I’d had the foresight to make my username Son Of A Sea Cook.
A few times it is mentioned who Jonathan looks like. Is it ever explained who that person is? Or, is it a name the audience should have known in the day? What was that name, and why did it upset Jonathan so?
I WAG it was the name of some other hardened criminal. I can only WAG it upset Jonathan because the cops might easily recognize him as the wrong person? Other than that, could it be for vanity sake? Perhaps Jonathan pictured himself more handsome than that scarred face Dr. Einstein gave him?
