Arsen und Spitzenhäubchen - von Joseph Kesselring
Abby and Martha Brewster are two lovely old ladies who couldn't harm a hair on anyone's head, at least that's what their nephew, the theater critic Mortimer, firmly believes. However, on the day of his wedding to the pastor's daughter Elaine, when he returns to the family home from the registry office to report on the successful ceremony and say goodbye before their impending honeymoon, he makes a horrific discovery: there is a body hidden in the window seat. Mortimer confronts his aunts and learns that they disguise their house as a room rental to lure lonely old men in out of pity, then kill them with a mixture of arsenic, strychnine, and cyanide-laced wine to bring them "closer to God." To dispose of the bodies, they manipulate Mortimer's mentally ill, delusional brother Teddy, who believes he is President Theodore Roosevelt and is known in the neighborhood and to the police for disturbing the peace as he loudly blows his bugle signaling an attack as part of his delusions. It's easy for the aunts to convince the unsuspecting Teddy to dig graves in the basement by making him believe he is digging the Panama Canal. They tell Teddy the corpses are victims of yellow fever and urge him to bury them quickly to prevent the spread of the disease. Meanwhile, while Teddy is once again busy digging the "Panama Canal" in the basement, Mortimer's long-lost brother Jonathan Brewster, the family's black sheep, returns to the house, a wanted serial killer. Jonathan, along with his partner Dr. Einstein, plans to hide out in the aunts' house and secretly dispose of his latest murder victim. When the criminals find out about Teddy's excavation activities in the basement, they see an opportunity to conveniently dispose of the body down there.
7:00 PM