Like humanity and humans, humor is universal but jokes degrade over time. For an example, go back and watch your favorite Dane Cook routine, that one you loved sophomore year of high school and had forgotten about until you read this. Maybe WATERBOY? Even (gasp) KEENAN AND KEL? Yeah, what were you thinking, huh?
However, this degradation is not the rule. By hook or by crook, or by possessing a timeless sense of wit both ahead of and grounded in their time, some comedies manage to escape the slow crush of the ages. One of those comedies is the ever brilliant Frank Capra‘s ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. It was released in 1944, making it almost certainly older than you, dear reader. That’s OK though, cause unlike your grandma, this thing from 1944 is still hilarious today.
Based on a 1939 play by the same name, the film follows drama critic Mortimer Brewster (the ever affable Cary Grant) on a visit to his old New England extended family following his wedding ceremony to his child neighbor (Priscilla Lane). With a name like Mortimer, though, you know something must be up with the Brewster clan, and sure enough, it is: not only are the bunch of wackos and spinstresses, they’re also a bunch of elderberry wine toting homicidal lunatics. Go figure.
Things go from bad to worse for dear old Mortimer, and the comedy goes from light to as dark as the censors back then would probably allow (there was a war on, you know), but that only keeps it all the more fresh. After all, it’s 2014 and we like our humor black, damn it.
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, DIR. FRANK CAPRA. 118 MIN.
MAY 10 @ 9pm
$ome Co$t
Harvard Film Archive
Carpenter Center
24 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
