Recorded at the Historic Camelot Theater, Palm Springs, CA on March 3, 2024
TRANSCRIPT
(LAUREN WOLFER:) Steven C. Smith is a film historian, national speaker, author of the definitive Max Steiner biography, “Music by Max Steiner, The Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer”.
Also, he is an expert on Bernard Herrmann and author of “A Heart at Fire’s Center, The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann”.
Which was especially fascinating, the insights that he provided us with at our screening of “Vertigo” (1958).
And Steven C. Smith is a four-time Emmy-nominated producer of over 200 documentaries.
And an all-around great guy who we’re happy to have today.
(STEVEN C. SMITH:) Thank you. “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944) is not only a great Screwball Comedy, but it’s unusual in the way it mixes Slapstick Comedy and rapid-fire dialogue we love from this genre, with dark humor, especially for 1941 when it was shot.
And the manic energy that Cary Grant brings to the screen is partly a reflection of what was going on behind the scenes, which I will talk about.
In 1941, the director of this film, Frank Capra, was the best-known director in America.
He had already made such classics as “It Happened One Night” (1934), “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939).
He had won three Academy Awards for Best Director in the 1930s. And one of those was for an adaptation of a Broadway hit called “You Can’t Take It With You” (1938).
In August of 1941, after making a lot of message-themed pictures, Capra again turned to Broadway for the film we are about to see. Which appealed to him partly because it was not a message picture. It is a pure “fun” picture.
“Arsenic and Old Lace” had opened as a play on the Great White Way in January of 1941.
The credited playwright is a man named Joseph Kesselring.
The play was actually heavily rewritten and revised, and greatly improved, by its producers, the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse.
And if those names are familiar, it’s because they had already written the Broadway smash “Life With Father”, later to become a Warner Brothers film as well.
As for what this is about, I think most of you know. If you don’t, I will just say that the original name of Joseph Kesselring’s play was “Bodies in Our Cellar”.
The screenplay for this movie was given to two brothers, Philip and Julius Epstein. They would follow this with another Warner Bros movie you may have seen named “Casablanca” (1942).
They had a great sense of humor and they did a terrific job retaining the Lindsay and Crouse Kesselring play.
Anytime they go outside the setting of the house, that’s pretty much the material they added.
Cary Grant, surprisingly, was reportedly, according to some sources, Frank Capra’s third choice to star in this film.
Anyone want to guess who was first or second?
Bob Hope and Jack Benny.
Cary Grant was the hottest leading man in Hollywood without question, after a string of hits, like “The Awful Truth” (1937), “Holiday” (1938) and “His Girl Friday” (1940), the year before. But he was very expensive, and a freelancer.
Frank Capra got him for this movie at a salary of $160,000, which doesn’t sound bad until you realize that in 1941, the equivalent today is $3.5 million.
The British-born actor donated about 2/3 of that salary to World War II charities.
That was not only a very patriotic act; but it was a shrewd business one.
By donating money, he got to keep more of it for himself.
He had made so much money that year.
It was a great production, as well as a good thing to do for the war effort.
Of course, this was before America was in the war.
It was Britain leading the fight at the time.
So that was a substantial contribution to the war effort.
In the film, he is joined on screen by three members of the original Broadway cast.
Those would be Jean Adair and Josephine Hull as the “Aunts”, and John Alexander, who plays “Teddy”.
Do you know who “Teddy” is?
If you don’t, you’ll find out.
Eight weeks were scheduled for the shoot, which was a tight schedule.
But the play’s producers Lindsay and Crouse insisted that the three actors borrowed from the Broadway play had to be back in that play on Broadway in eight weeks.
Because, in the stage version, Jean Adair and Josephine Hull were the stars.
They had the most important roles.
Lindsay and Crouse made it clear there would be no extensions for them. They wanted to keep this play running while the movie was being made.
Right from the start there was conflict on the set. A lot of it was between Frank Capra and Cary Grant.
Capra wanted Grant to play things “big”.
Very big.
Grant wasn’t comfortable with that.
He later said, “I tried to explain to Capra that I couldn’t do that kind of comedy.
All those double-takes.
I’d have been better as one of the old aunts.” Which is a curious remark when you think of the great double-takes he had just done in “His Girl Friday”.
Anyway, Capra believed he could not play a farce too broadly.
And he assured Cary Grant that they could do all the retakes they wanted once principal photography was done, and they put the film together and looked at it.
So, fine.
Well, things did not get smoother.
Filming started later than expected on October 20, 1941. And the shoot started slipping behind schedule.
Contrary to the way most movies are made, especially at a thrifty studio like Warner Bros, Capra insisted the movie be shot in sequence.
So there’s a cab driver you see.
Most studios would have shot the cab driver’s part in two days.
Capra had him on for just about the whole movie because he keeps popping up.
And because Frank Capra was “Frank Capra”, Warner Bros just said “Okay, that’s the way you’re going to do it.” The other problem was these ongoing debates between Cary Grant and Capra about how “big” to play the role of “Mortimer”, Cary Grant’s role.
Then things really changed, after December 7, 1941.
After Pearl Harbor, the very next day, Frank Capra enlisted in the military, even though the movie was not yet finished.
And he just wanted to get into the war effort and do whatever the government wanted him to do. Which ended up being to make propaganda films.
He tried to postpone the rest of the filmmaking, but the Brothers Warner said, “Absolutely not.
We want to open this movie the day after that play closes on Broadway.
So we need to finish this now.” And that was a great motivator for Capra to pick up the schedule. And he rushed. He moved fast.
He moved so quickly that this movie finished production, finished shooting, on December 13th of 1941, under budget.
But, with no time for those promised retakes with Cary Grant.
Because Cary Grant had to go to another movie. And Capra was going to war. And the ladies were going back to the play.
So the movie was the movie that they shot.
The editing and the scoring also had to be done at light speed. The film had to be finished by a certain date for Warner Bros to make a tax deadline.
And trust me, you do not need to know about movie tax deadlines.
A reason that a lot of movies then had to be finished by a certain date.
This had to be wrapped up fast.
And that deadline meant that the film’s Oscar-winning composer, the great Max Steiner, had to race to write his score. Something he was very used to doing, and doing well.
And his score is really wonderful in balancing the sinister aspects of the movie with the comic ones.
And even the romantic ones.
Comedy music is the hardest to write, in my opinion.
Because you don’t want to be funny.
As soon as the music is funny with a funny scene, it tends to kill it.
Steiner brings a lightness to those scenes that very much reflected his own buoyant, joking, pun-loving personality.
I want to give you a couple of things to listen for in the score, if you so choose.
He had a good starting point, in that there’s a song sung in the film called “There is a Happy Land”.
You’ll understand why when you see the film, if you don’t recall.
That was an actual song from the 19th century.
And Max uses it as a theme for the two aunts.
He has another charming theme for them, but he uses “There is a Happy Land” throughout the score, including the main title.
And he does something very clever with the characters of Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane.
It’s no spoiler to say that they are married in the film.
It’s in scene-two of the movie that they get married.
At first we hear the Wagner Wedding March in the underscore (vocalizes).
Then, as Cary Grant gets enmeshed in all the things he gets enmeshed in, and Priscilla Lane keeps popping up and trying to get back in his life again, Max gives them a romantic theme and it goes (vocalizes) That’s the Wedding March turned upside-down.
I think it’s brilliant.
Not only does it subliminally remind us that this is an eager bride and groom trying to get away, it’s also a clever concept. Their wedding has been turned upside-down by the circumstances.
I bet he didn’t even…intellectually think that.
He just came upon that intuitively.
The last thing I’ll say about the music is that for the more sinister horror scenes, he plays those straight. His music could be from the Film Noir titles he later scored at Warner Bros.
Although he does add, when the villain played by Raymond Massey comes in, he gives us a queasy version of “There’s No Place Like Home”, which is very sinister in this context.
I think it’s a wonderful score.
Lastly, look for Max Steiner’s credit in the opening titles.
He gets a very good one.
Well after all that rushing during filming and afterwards, when did “Arsenic and Old Lace” premiere?
It opened nearly three years after it was made.
Because Warner Brothers had made a deal that the movie would not open until the play closed on Broadway.
And in those days that meant a few months fine.
They figured it would be their big movie of 1942.
Well it turned out to be their big movie of September 1944.
By which time Priscilla Lane was almost out of the movie business.
She made two more films and retired.
Nevertheless, it was a great success.
As for Cary Grant’s performance, I leave it to you.
You can decide who was right, Cary or Capra.
I tend to agree with Cary Grant’s wonderful biographer, Scott Eyman, who wrote “Grant’s performance is a whirling dervish of ascending comic panic, inventive and dazzling in technique. I’ll have more to say about the film, very happily in conversation with Aliece.
But for now, sit back and imagine yourself drinking a nice glass of elderberry wine.
And enjoy “Arsenic and Old Lace”. Thank you.🎥
Film Society of Screwball Comedy®
Edited by Aliece Pickett
Copyright 2025