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Arsenic and Old Lace is a classic dark comedy play written by Joseph Kesselring in 1939. It became wildly popular after being adapted into a film in 1944, directed by Frank Capra and starring Cary Grant. The play is not quite the same as the movie.

The story revolves around the eccentric Brewster family, particularly two sweet old aunts who have a peculiar hobby of poisoning lonely old men with a concoction of arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch" of cyanide, disguising it as elderberry wine. The plot thickens when their nephew, Mortimer Brewster, discovers their deadly secret. What follows is a series of hilarious and suspenseful events involving another murderous relative, a drunk doctor, and the well-meaning but bumbling efforts of Mortimer to keep everything under wraps.