Continuity mistake: After Mortimer picks up Elaine and literally throws her out the front door, he locks it to make sure she doesn't just open the door and walk in again. When Aunt Abby goes to open the door for Mr. Gibbs less than a minute later, she doesn't have to unlock it.
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Directed by: Frank Capra
Starring: Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, Jack Carson, Priscilla Lane
Continuity mistake: When Mortimer discovers the body in the window seat his hair changes from being flipped over his forehead to being neat and then back again without any obvious motions that would have changed it.
Factual error: The movie opens on Halloween in Brooklyn. To show how crazy things were in Brooklyn, they show a baseball game being played by the Brooklyn Dodgers that day at Ebbetts Field and a big fight breaks out. The baseball season is and was over (including the World Series) well before Halloween. So there is no way they could be still playing on Oct 31st The only exception was in 2001 when games were postponed due to the 9/11 attacks and the season didn't end until November.
Trivia: The character of Jonathan is referred to several times in the film as a thug who "looks like Boris Karloff." This was an in-joke referring to the fact that Karloff played the role of Jonathan in the original Broadway production of Arsenic and Old Lace..
Aunt Martha: For a gallon of elderberry wine, I take one teaspoon full of arsenic, then add half a teaspoon full of strychnine, and then just a pinch of cyanide.
Mortimer Brewster: Hmm. Should have quite a kick.
Mortimer Brewster: All I did was cross the bridge and I was in Brooklyn. Amazing.
Elaine Harper: But Mortimer, you're going to love me for my mind, too.
Mortimer Brewster: One thing at a time.
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