Mortimer Brewster (Bob Crane) has just gotten engaged to his girlfriend Elaine (Sue Lyon), and he wants to tell his aunts Abby (Helen Hayes) and Martha (Lillian Gish) all about it - when he very casually finds a corpse in the aunts' window seat. And when he tells them about it, he finds out they have not only the gentleman in the window seat but another 11 who are already buried in the basement. To save them from arrest, he decides to have his brother Teddy (David Wayne) committed to an insane asylum then put the blame on him - after all, Teddy is indeed insane, thinking he's Teddy Roosevelt and acting alike. While he's making all the arrangements though, his other brother, professional serialkiller Jonathan (Fred Gwynne) arrives at the aunts' house, his private alcoholic plastic surgeon Dr. Salk (Jack Gilford) in tow as well as a recently killed corpse. And Jonathan thinks the aunts' place is the ideal place to put up camp, after all the basement's big enough to not only bury their corpse but also a few more. Of course, the aunts don't want Jonathan there as they need the basement for their "charity" (which is what they call poisoning lonely and sickly old men) and won't accept just anybody in their basement. And also of course, Mortimer and Jonathan do not see eye to eye. And when a totally incompetent cop (Bob Dishy) with a talent for misinterpreting situations shows up as well, everything's set on disaster ...

Now of course it's fair game to adapt Joseph Kesselring's play Arsenic and Old Lace for the small screen, especially in front of a live audience (with some previously shot exterior scenes spliced in for a more cineastic feel though), and with a stellar cast like this - and taken by its own merits, this sure has turned out to be a fun TV movie, not only but also thanks to the source material. However, one can't but compare it to Frank Capra's 1944 film Arsenic and Old Lace, which is considered by many (me included) to be one of the most perfect comedies ever made - and here the 1969 adaptation comes in a distant second, and for several obvious reasons: Robert Scheerer sure is no Capra when it comes to style, subtleties, details or whatever, and recording the film live sure doesn't help here as it only brings further limitations. Bob Crane, however charming in his own right, can't live up to Cary Grant, and Fred Gwyne can't totally make one forget that he's loveable Herman from The Munsters, and plays it for laughs rather than menace like Raymond Massey, while Jack Gilford as his sidekick remains disappointingly pale where Peter Lorre delivered a layered performance for a second tier character.

That all said, taken by its own merits, this is still fun, it's just the comparison that makes it tank.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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