It’s Halloween week! I don’t know what your thoughts on Halloween are. Some people don’t like it because it promotes scary stuff. Some other people (who shall remain nameless) say those former people are totally missing the point: the holiday promotes candy! Free candy if you’re a kid in costume (or an adult who’s really good at making puppy dog eyes).
Regardless…movie cohort Clay Morgan and I might have gone through like forty (or four) Halloween-ish movie possibilities before landing on the obvious choice staring us in the face: Arsenic & Old Lace. Not only does it take place on Halloween, but it’s been requested by one of our thousands of viewers.
It’s a ridiculously awesome movie with Cary Grant at his silliest and IOWAN Priscilla Lane in her most well-known role. And Josephine Hull and Jean Adair are so well cast it’s almost uncanny. We have lots of fun stuff to say about this one…including what cereal box mascot was inspired by Peter Lorre. No joke. Check it out…
Have you seen Arsenic & Old Lace?
Do you have a favorite Halloween movie?
p.s. As always, feel free to throw out suggestions for future flick picks. Miss a past Gush? Just take a little jaunt on over to our YouTube channel…
Comments 21
Huh, I never thought of Arsenic and Old Lace as a Halloween movie. I really enjoyed it, and I guess it’s my favorite, because I can’t recall ever watching any others. Either that or I’ve totally blocked them from my mind. 😉 From the time my sister let me watch the original “The Blob” when I was maybe five and she was babysitting me and I had nightmares afterward, I’ve avoided scary movies. LOL Of course, these days, that particular movie is a laugh-out-loud one I’m sure. 😉
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Haha…a babysitter watched The Neverending Story with me as a kid which completely freaked me out…nightmares…and I couldn’t watch a scary movie for SO long. Neverending Story isn’t even that scary…but that flying dog dragon think scared me so much. 🙂
Loved it, Melissa and Clay! Great job nailing the movie and all its intriguing facts (that I didn’t know). Clay, I’m glad you got to see this movie because everyone should at least once in their lifetime view it. 🙂 This movie (along with Bing Crosby’s Holiday Inn) is my favorite classic film.
I think the creepiest line in the movie is when Jonathan has Mortimer tied to a chair and he hisses, “Do you remember the needles under the fingernails?” *shiver* That line creeps me out every time. 🙂
Thanks for reviewing Arsenic & Old Lace today. It made my day! God Bless
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YES that line is creepy. I never really thought of Arsenic & Old Lace as a scary movie, but I did recommend it to a friend once and she was so disturbed by it. I think it took her awhile to forgive me!
Yay, I like Holiday Inn. Fred Astaire makes me SO mad in it–he’s so mean to Bing! But I love it. So the song White Christmas was actually written for Holiday Inn not the musical White Christmas. But it became so popular after Holiday Inn that they basically wrote the musical White Christmas just to play on the song’s popularity.
Yes! I read that too when I reviewed Holiday Inn last year on my Top 25 Favorite Movie Countdown for my blog (which was #1, of course!) 🙂 It took me a while to watch another Fred Astaire movie after that, as I had the same thought toward him too, LOL.
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Ooh, I think I need to see this list of Top 25 movies. 🙂
It was a fun one Rachel. And we might just be getting to that second favorite movie of yours in short order.
I love this movie!! Haven’t watched it in forever, but I remember thinking it was so hilarious…and creepy.
I don’t watch a lot of Halloween movies because they tend to be horror…and that’s not a genre I enjoy. Hello, nightmares!!
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Sometime when you come to Iowa, we can have a mega movie marathon and re-watch this one since it’s been forever for you. 🙂
I STILL laugh at this movie. Another of my favorites:) I am loving your classic movie reviews!
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Thanks, Susan!
Watched it again today but it was nephews first time seeing it. He laughed so hard and said “why is this supposed to be scary?” This is one of my favorites. I love Cary Grant and a lot of classic films.
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Haha…well, I’ve never really thought of the movie as all that scary. But I do remember being startled a few times when I saw it on stage. So. Good. 🙂
Thanks for all the great details about the actors. Love this movie! I’ve used it at school with my older students & they really enjoyed it. You mentioned Harvey—another great film. (And I think I’ve seen that Pooka hanging around once or twice in my life!)
I’m not sure what you covered in your earliest gushes. Have you done Hitchcock? Rear Window? That’s a fun film . . .
Have a great day, Melissa & Clay!
Renee, I love Rear Window! Just watched it about a month ago. 🙂 Good suggestion!
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Rachel and Renee, I just rewatched Rear Window a couple months ago! There’s something about the sound in that movie that’s beyond cool…just the way you get to hear the noise of the street and the buildings around Jimmy Stewart as if you were in the room with him…awesome.
Oh and we did do a Hitchcock film a little earlier, Renee…Suspicion. It’s still on my personal YouTube channel…should get it moved over to the new one sometime.
Hi Renee,
We’re gonna beef up our YouTube channel eventually. In the meantime, I’m trying to keep this page updated to catch all the videos we’ve done so far.
Love this movie, although I always thought Cary Grant a bit odd in it. 🙂 One of my favorite Halloween movies is Hocus Pocus with Bette Midler–almost a classic now!
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Well, he sorta has to be odd to fit the story. Haha! Oh man, Hocus Pocus…true story: I can’t remember anything about the actual movie but I can picture the front of the VHS case. I sorta feel old just typing “VHS.” 🙂
Love this movie! I love how crazy Cary Grant is and how there are so many spoofs and inside jokes. But Teddy Roosevelt is definitely my favorite. I also love Peter Lorre in it, too. Especially the end when he’s trying to escape from right under the policemen’s noses and Cary Grant asks him to sign the paper. =) One of my other favorite parts is when the lonely old man comes in to ask about renting the room until Cary Grant saves him at the last minute.
Mortimer Brewster is really the best name ever for that character in a film like this. =) Also, I had almost forgotten that it was directed by Frank Capra….he is such a genius!
I think this is probably my favorite Halloween movie. I always have to watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! around this time of year, too, though.
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Yes! I love spoofs and inside jokes in movies…love it. Oh, your comment about the lonely old man reminded me of a little fun fact I forgot to throw in: so in the original play, the head of the sanitarium is actually poisoned by the aunts’ wine. But the preview audiences had a negative reaction to that…so he got to live in the movie version. But for fun, the guy who played that role in the movie posed for publicity photos holding a glass of wine. 🙂