All Slights Deserved

So Day 12 and probably not for the last time I'm struggling to know exactly what to say about a film. Are these the first signs of ennui? Is my resolve beginning to crack after less than a fortnight? Stay tuned to find out. After all today's choice Arsenic and Old Lace is an an undisputed classic, isn't it? Many years ago I picked up a book by Christopher Tookey called The Critics Guide to Film . I must have spent hours perusing it, but perhaps the most notable feature a chart of the 200 highest rated movies according to film writers. The top honours in fact went to another Cary Grant vehicle, His Girl Friday , but this one was well placed. Like His Girl Friday , Arsenic and Old Lace is sometimes labelled as a screwball comedy, but although it shares the high tempo pacing, the romance element is far less significant. Grant plays a newlywed who visits the family home with his bride only to discover his elderly aunts have developed a penchant for murdering old men as a...