

Arsenic and Old Lace
She Passed Out On Cary! No Wonder . . . She's just discovered his favorite aunts have poisoned their 13th gentleman friend!
Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets married; but when he makes a quick trip home to tell his two maiden aunts, he finds out his aunts' hobby - killing lonely old men and burying them in the cellar!
TMDB
7.6/10
1,087 votes
IMDb
Not rated yet
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- Status
- Released
- Budget
- $1.1M
- Box office
- —
- Language
- English
- poison
- cemetery
- insanity
- cellar
- marriage
- murder
- serial killer
- writer
- corpse
- critic
Top billed cast


















Behind the camera
Director
Produced in
United States of America
Where to watch
All optionsAvailability for United States. Provided by JustWatch through the TMDB API.
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Videos
Release dates
United StatesUS
- Theatrical (limited)New York City, New York1 Sept 1944
- TheatricalNR23 Sept 1944
CanadaCA
- Theatrical31 Dec 1944
AustriaAT
- Theatrical1217 Oct 1952
BelgiumBE
- Theatrical141 Sept 1944
BrazilBR
- Theatrical144 Dec 1944
DenmarkDK
- Theatrical5 Aug 1948
FranceFR
- TheatricalU20 Dec 1946
GermanyDE
- Theatrical1212 May 1952
GreeceGR
- TheatricalΚ-1212 May 1952
ItalyIT
- Theatrical26 Jun 1945
- TVByoblu31 Dec 2022
JapanJP
- TheatricalG28 Sept 1948
NetherlandsNL
- Physical12DVD6 Mar 2008
Frequently asked questions
Arsenic and Old Lace was released on 1 September 1944.
Audience reviews
3- J9/10
John Chard
7/1/2019
Frenetic roller-coaster ride - Capra style! The Broadway show this film is based on ran for something like four years, such was the yearning for riotous rompathons in the 40s, and thus here the Capra adaptation is pretty much non stop mania. Led by the perfectly cast Cary Grant, the film barely pauses for breath, stopping only briefly to put a bit of creepy menace into the otherwise insane plot. Oh yes the plot, t…
- B10/10
barrymost
1/19/2020
There are thirteen bodies in the cellar! Oh, piffle. Drama critic Mortimer Brewster has just gotten married. But his newfound wedded bliss is interrupted by the disturbing discovery that his sweet old spinster aunts have been murdering lonely old men with their homemade elderberry wine, and burying the bodies in the cellar. This demented screwball comedy was the film that introduced me to Cary Grant. The utter…
- F10/10
Filipe Manuel Neto
12/3/2023
**An extraordinary comedy that stands out for its unpretentiousness.** I didn't have high expectations when I decided to watch this film, and I think this increased the impact it ended up having even more: based on a successful play, the film is an extraordinary comedy full of bizarreness and mischief, without a single dead moment and full of twists and turns that make us laugh and amuse us. The script begins w…
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