Aunts Martha & Abby Brewster

Aunts Martha and Abby Brewster/“Arsenic and Old Lace” (movie)
(Jean Adair and Josephine Hull)

Oh, who doesn’t have a soft spot for two sweet, generous, homicidal old ladies whose “very bad habit” is to spike elderberry wine with arsenic, strychnine and “just a pinch of cyanide” and serve it to lonely, old bachelors to end their suspected suffering? I know I do!

I mean this was community service, people, if you really think about it. At least it was in the minds of aunts Abby and Martha. Because aren’t all unmarried men unhappy? And these charming women just didn’t want any aging single man to be forlorn.

If you haven’t seen the movie, you must—the acting and writing are great. It’s sort of wrong how funny it is—being it’s about two elderly women who murder. But as one reviewer said, “It manages that delicate balance between morbidity and hilarity without effort.”