2 thoughts on “Insanity runs in my family”

  1. Ah, Arsenic and Old Lace. I first experienced it in the 1980s as a cassette tape version of a radio show where Boris Karloff still played the killer nephew. They edited the original play to add a meta joke to say that the drunk doctor who changed his face had been watching old horror films and made him look like Boris Karloff! 🙂

    A quick search shows a January 5, 1955, version of the play aired on the CBS Television series The Best of Broadway. It starred Boris Karloff, recreating his stage role as homicidal maniac Jonathan Brewster. Helen Hayes and Billie Burke played his not-so-innocent aunts, Abby and Martha. Peter Lorre and Edward Everett Horton repeated their roles as Dr. Einstein and Mr. Witherspoon, which they had played in Frank Capra’s film version. John Alexander, who created the role of Teddy Brewster on Broadway and reprised it in the film version, returned once more to play the role in the broadcast. Orson Bean played the role of Mortimer Brewster.

    I wouldn’t have said it was Peter Lorre as Einstein though. But Orson Bean was awesome. The radio version cut out the fiancee except in spirit. I still remember the opening where Mortimer is describing a play he’s goign to called Murder Will Out, where he expects there will be a body early on, maybe in the window seat.

    It hooked me on old radio shows for a while. The versions are all available on YouTube now. 🙂

    Thanks for the nostalgia…

    PolyWogg

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