Arsenic and Old Lace

A closer look into genre and character archetypes.

Mytheme: Fish out of water. (Mortimer Brewster is forced to sort out his family's life.)

Genre: Screwball Comedy.

Character Archetypes (Vladimir Propp):

The Princess- Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane) * The Hero- Mortimer Brewster (Carry Grant)

The Villain/The Shadow- Jonathan Brewster (Raymond Massey)

Dispatchers-The Aunts. (played by Josephine Hull and Jean Adair)


Introduction:

The story begins on with an author (played by Carry Grant) who has made a name for himself by writing "The Bachelors Bible" is going to get married.

He tries to do this secretly but when a few reporters see him he thinks about calling the whole marriage off.
Calling marriage a superstition,and talking about how senseless it is for him to be married is quickly silenced by one look into his sweetheart's eyes.

They are married, and the only thing left to do is to break the news to his aunts.


1Preparation:

He and Elaine intend to visit briefly, and continue on to their honeymoon. Mortimer goes to his aunts house while Elaine visits her family who live in the neighborhood.

Mortimer comes back to his old home to tell his aunts about what is happening, everything is going well until Mortimer find a body in the window seat; thinking that his younger brother Teddy(Who thinks he's Theodore Roosevelt) is responsible. He tells his aunts only to find out that They have killed eleven other men and have had Teddy bury the bodies in the cellar, which they call the 'panama canal'.

Mortimer figures the only way to cover this up is to have Teddy take the blame, since Teddy is crazy he can't be charged with anything. Mortimer now has to try and get Teddy to 'Happy dale' Sanatorium as soon as possible.


2Complication:
Mortimer now has to get a psychiatrist to examine Teddy and a judge to sign approval of Teddy's admittance to happy dale.

In one of the more brilliant moments of dialogue in film history, Mortimer somehow manages to convince Teddy to use the code name Brewster instead of Roosevelt, his "real" name.

Mortimer and the psychiatrist leave the house to get the Judge's approval.

The Aunts have Teddy bring the body down to the cellar, so they can have a funeral for him.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Brewster, Mortimer's older brother who is also a serial killer, shows up at the Aunts house. Jonathan has had massive plastic surgery to hide his identity (Making him look like Boris Karloff) and is trying to have another operation because the police are looking for him.

The body of Jonathan's latest victim is in the trunk of his car, he has it moved to the window seat to keep it hidden.


3Transferance:
Mortimer comes back from visiting the judge, and finds Jonathan's latest victim in the window seat.

Shouting "Ye gods, there's another one!", Mortimer brings the aunts downstairs and confronts them again.
They don't recognize the body, and tell him it must be Jonathan's.

Mortimer meets Jonathan again, they quarrel briefly but Mortimer is too distracted with getting Teddy to the insane asylum to pay close attention.


4The struggle:

Mortimer tells Elaine that he can't marry her because "Insanity runs in this family, it practically gallops!"

Mortimer, while talking about the stupidity of characters in plays he has critiqued outlines how character was captured, while he is saying this Jonathan does exactly what he says!

The police show up and Jonathan starts to fight them after misunderstanding what they were talking about.


5The return:
Jonathan is subdued by the police and taken into custody. The aunts agree to go to happy dale with Teddy.


6Recognition:
Mortimer finds out that he is not a Brewster at all!

He can marry Elaine!