Frank Capra's wonderful comedy 'Arsenic and old Lace' (1944)

Most of the now days comedies makes me cringe, they lack charm and intelligence, bad taste jokes about bodily functions and most intimate situations are overwhelming. The other thing that annoys me is how dim witted most of the characters in those movies are, maybe I'm strange but I don't find stupidity funny, I personally fear stupid and get really embarrassed seeing what people are willing to do for cheap laughs. Finding a funny movie that doesn't make your brain want to commit suicide is tricky, therefore I often go back to the golden years of cinema, to the times when scripts were witty and sharp, when the acting was so superb that you didn't have to use sex and bad language to lure people to watch a movie, when people still had imagination and could do without all the flashy sets and computer generated visual images.

One of my favourite comedies from that era is 'Arsenic and Old Lace' ", it was first a successful stage play on Broadway written by Joseph Kisserling, in 1944 it was adapted to screen by Julius and Philip Epstein team and directed by great Frank Capra. The plot is deliciously crazy: Mortimer Brewster (excellent Cary Grant, it's amazing how someone so handsome can be so extremely funny at the same time) a newspaperman gets married, when he goes to inform his beloved aunts Martha and Abby about his nuptials, he discovers a body in the window seat and finds out that dear old ladies have a rather peculiar hobby: they poison old lonely men and consider it an act of charity. The situation gets even more bizarre when Mortimer's long lost, mad brother Jonathan (looking very much like Frankenstein's monster) shows up. The hilarity ensues.

Gary Grant is brilliant, his facial expressions are priceless, apparently later in life he disliked his performance claiming it was over the top, but I absolutely love it. Josephine Hull and Jean Adair are fantastic as homicidal but good hearted and lovable aunts, the rest of the cast is also exceptionally good.
The whole movie works perfectly and is a true joy to watch, so if you are tired of the bubblegum for eyes shown on TV and crave for something of quality to watch go for 'Arsenic and Old Lace'.