On Halloween, confirmed bachelor and drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) shocks everyone—including himself—by marrying the girl next door, Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane). But before the newlyweds can escape to Niagara Falls, Mortimer makes a horrifying discovery in the Brooklyn home of the two sweet-tempered aunts who raised him: a dead man tucked inside the window seat.

Even more alarming, Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha cheerfully admit that the corpse is theirs—and hardly their first. Convinced they are performing acts of charity, the sisters have been serving lonely gentlemen their homemade elderberry wine, generously laced with poison. With Mortimer desperately trying to contain the situation, his brother Teddy convinced he’s Theodore Roosevelt, and murderous long-lost brother Jonathan arriving with sinister Dr. Einstein in tow, the Brewster household descends into a delirious mixture of murder, mistaken identities, and screwball chaos.

The New York Times — Bosley Crowther:
“Good macabre fun.”

John Lardner — The New Yorker:
“Practically as funny in picture form as it did on the stage.”