This dark comedy seems very unlike Frank Capra's socially conscious films like MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN or MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON. While his films had dark elements before, this one is more in line with the British comedies of the era. Capra brings the same madcap screwball quality he brought to his Oscar winners IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU. This Capra-corn is laced.
Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant, A PHILADELPHIA STORY) was a devoted bachelor. He even wrote books about the horrors of matrimony. But that's before he meet the preacher's daughter Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane, SABOTEUR). Before heading off to Niagara Falls for his honeymoon, he drops in on his kindly elderly aunts Abby and Martha (Josephine Hull, HARVEY, & Jean Adair, THE NAKED CITY), who run a boarding house for lonely old men. They look after their crazy nephew Teddy, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt. Mortimer stumbles over a corpse in the window seat and believes Teddy has done it this time, but as his aunts explain it's another one of their charity cases, but a poor soul out of his misery.
That is just that start of the insanity that Mortimer must contend with. Later his psychotic brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey, EAST OF EDEN) shows up running from the authorities. He's accompanied by the alcoholic plastic surgeon Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre, M) who transformed his into Boris Karloff horror film. Jonathan brings more bodies to the party. In trying to keep his innocent wife away from madness, Mortimer wonders if these are his relatives whether he might be mad too.
The film has its droll moments and then it's over-the-top antics. Each element works on its own, because it all comes together into the central premise of Mortimer shielding his new bride from his insane family. Teddy is bonkers. Every time he goes upstairs he screams, "Charge!" as if it were San Juan Hill every time. Abby and Martha are the sweetest ladies you might meet… unless you're a lonely old man. They explain their mission to send these men to heaven as if it makes complete sense. They enlist Teddy to bury the bodies in the basement by telling him that yellow fever has hit.
Working from a script adapted by the CASABLANCA duo of Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein, Capra keeps the story moving with conflicts that naturally build one upon another. The theatrical origins are evident, but Capra keeps the film cinematic with good shot construction and lighting that changes as the situation gets direr for Mortimer.
Part of the humor comes from tension. Who will be the next elderly fellow to drink that elderberry wine? Will Mortimer get caught before he can find a solution? Will his brother decide to add him to the corpse collection in the basement? What's Elaine going to think of all this?
At first Teddy seems like a "zany" element injected into a script for comedy purposes only, but as the film develops he plays a key role and actually adds a dose of innocent insanity to mix with the darker insanity that surrounds Mortimer. Grant is a master of facial slapstick. He plays it just right, never too over-the-top. He goes for laughs, but he never begs for them. He lets the scenarios carry the comedy. There is also a post-modern element too that funny. Mortimer references his brother's physical resemblance to Karloff's Frankenstein's monster. A joke that probably worked even better on the stage where Karloff played Jonathan. Mortimer, as a play critic, also has a speech where he slams a recent thriller that could have been right out of SCREAM.
Normally I'm critical of comedies that have different types of humor like this film contains. But it all works because each element serves the manic nature of the story. Grant brings a suave screwball style of comedy. Teddy is broad humor. Hull and Adair play it naturally. Massey and Lorre are the straight men that everyone else plays off. Cops, a judge and an insane asylum doctor all add their own elements to the plot as Mortimer tries get his family committed. There might be a butterfly net for him in the end as well.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
