Fall Film Series features Cary Grant movie

The Churchill Arts Council presents its Fall Film Series, beginning with “Arsenic and Old Lace” on Friday at 7 p.m.

The box office, art bar and galleries open at 6 p.m.

The other two films in the series are Being There on Sept. 11 and Pulp Fiction the following Friday, Sept. 18. The arts council is located at 151 E. Park St.

For members, the cost is $7 or $18 for the three movies. Nonmembers are $10 for each showing or $27 for three. Tickets are available at Jeff’s Copy Express, ITT at Naval Air Station Fallon or call the Churchill Arts Council at 775-423-1440.

The theater is following state and county COVID-19 requirements, which include social distancing and face coverings. Call the arts council to find out the latest requirements.

Director Frank Capra’s spin on the classic Joseph Kesselring stage comedy, which concerns the sweet old Brewster sisters (Josephine Hull, Jean Adair), beloved in their genteel Brooklyn neighborhood for their many charitable acts. One charity that the ladies don’t advertise is their ongoing effort to permit lonely bachelors to die with smiles on their faces – by serving said bachelors elderberry wine spiked with arsenic. When the sisters’ drama-critic nephew Mortimer (Cary Grant) stumbles onto their secret, he is understandably put out.

The film version was produced in 1941, but Warner Brothers delayed its release for three years until the stage version finished its run. Frank Capra was chosen by executive producer Jack Warner to direct the film. Because of the Production Code in Hollywood, a few scenes or dialogue present in the stage version had to be changed or omitted for the film. The Production Code only allowed acts such as murder to be shown if the perpetrators were punished by the end of the film.

The arts council is also featuring selections from the permanent collection through Nov. 14 in the E.L. Wiegand Gallery & Kirk Robertson Galleries.