Oct 29 2008
Arsenic and Old Lace
Last night we did some more viewing of “classic” Halloween movies: we watched Arsenic and Old Lace, one of my favorites.
This is a classic stage farce adapted for the screen. Like many things adapted for the screen from the stage, the scenes they added so that it wouldn’t all take place in one room are kind of silly and unecessary - but it’s still an extremely enjoyable film.
It’s very funny, has classic lines and an excellent fast pace. It’s dark funny with a light twist. And it stars the inimitable Cary Grant. You definitely need to watch it if you haven’t already.
But I would like to take a moment to complain about the cover-art for the recent DVD release. Would you look at this and tell me if this looks like a dark comedy that takes place at halloween and features two (or, if you want to be strict, twenty-four) murders and psychotic dementia? I think not. 
It looks like some goofy romantic comedy about Cary Grant kidnapping girls.
Afterwards, in a totally non-Halloween move, we watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II. This sparked some very intelligent conversation about whether the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were too closely tied to the 1990’s to be successful now. And also some slightly less intellectual conversation about why they only eat pizza and why they don’t ever get tired of it, and how old the “teenage” ninja turtles actually would be. You know. Important stuff like that.
