Arsenic and Old Lace

The Best of Broadway • Season 1 • Episode 5

About this episode

Comedy that concerns the Brewster sisters, Abby and Martha, who put lonely old men out of their misery by serving them poisoned elderberry wine. Their nephew Teddy buries them in the basement. He thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt and that the bodies are Panama Canal workers that died of yellow fever. Another nephew is Jonathan, an escaped criminal looking for a hideout. He's had plastic surgery to change his looks and now resembles movie actor Boris Karloff. Into this madness comes nephew Mortimer, a drama critic, who tries to set things right.