Monsieur Verdoux

Charlie Chaplin is "Monsieur Verdoux" in this 1947 film based on the real-life serial killer Henri Landru.

Verdoux is a bank clerk who is laid off late in life and turns to marrying and killing women for their money in order to support his invalid wife and child.

Sounds brutal, and when you think about it, it really is, but Chaplin as usual manages to couch his message in comedy. While we see that he is successful in knocking off a couple of women and getting their money (though we never actually see a murder), Verdoux has a couple of failures as well, and there the fun begins.

One of his women, Annabella Bonheur, is played hysterically by Martha Raye as a vulgar loudmouth eternally suspicious of Verdoux, who is posing as a boat captain. He tries some different ways of killing her, but no matter what he does, nothing works.

He then turns his attention to another woman he's been chasing for some time, Marie Grosnay (Isobel Elsom). He's about to walk down the aisle when who does he see as a guest at the wedding - Annabelle. His attempts to get out of the house are priceless.

Despite some genuinely comical scenes, the speech that Verdoux makes gives its deeper message - Verdoux was in it for the money. To him, the women were business propositions to be exploited.

His point is that what he has done on a smaller scale is being done by dictators worldwide; people are not treated as human beings but merely for economic gain, for power and for exploitation.

Though Verdoux's argument doesn't absolve him of responsibility or justify his actions, the warning is a good one - people need to care more about each other and about what's going on in their world, and put their attention on really important matters like suppression of the masses.

Why, he asks, are the headlines full of Verdoux and not of what is going on around the world? (The film's ending takes place in 1937.)

It's interesting to consider what would have happened to this story in the hands of Orson Welles, whose idea it was originally. He wouldn't have made it a comedy. It would have been a drama or a detective story.

Only Chaplin would think of making the story of a serial killer into a comedy of sorts. Certainly 1967's "No Way to Treat a Lady" takes a page or so from this script.

"Monsieur Verdoux" wasn't well received by the public - at all - and by 1947, people were questioning Chaplin's politics instead of reveling in his genius. It possibly was ahead of its time; it certainly wasn't appreciated as it is today.

The movie is not without some problems, the biggest one being, what the heck happened to Verdoux's wife and child? It is never explained.

"Wars, conflicts - it's all business. One murder makes a villain; millions a hero. Numbers sanctify." Charlie Chaplin as Verdoux said that 61 years ago.

A brilliant and funny film. Some have even called this Chaplin performance the greatest acting in the history of film. This film came out long before the term serial killer was even a thing. Here the term is mass killer, and it's also hard to argue with his character's assessment that governments of the world are truly the biggest of all mass killers, (Now referred to as serial killers.). In typical Chaplin fashion, this film often challenges and questions the integrity of various powers/authorities and even capitalism itself. Truly though this is sort of a sweet film at it's heart, as most Chaplin films are. A dark comedy with heart, but in truth I feel this film is much more than a dark comedy. There is a much grander subtle narrative in this film. Many a well known critic even have often drastically underrated the writing, the in fact brilliant storytelling of Chaplin. He was in truth one of the first great master storytellers in the history of film, and he really doesn't often get the credit he deserves in this regard. He is more known for his comedic brilliance and comedic writing, but overall the man was extremely brilliant and talented beyond measure. Storytelling itself was really Chaplin's greatest talent in my view. Not just in the comedic sense, but in an intellectual sense. To me, this is definitely an intellectual film even much more than it is a dark comedy, and overall one of Chaplin's greatest films.

"Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference." - Henri Verdoux (Chaplin)

If you like mature classic films at all, then you definitely should see Monsieur Verdoux. It's simply a brilliant piece of 1940's art. 9/10.

This movie is a fine example of a genre which attained enormous popularity during and in the decade after World War Two. These so-called "black comedies" (a term perhaps alluding to the funereal subject matter, ranging from fluffy (Noel Coward's "Bithe Spirit" - on stage in 1941, filmed in 1945) to darkly absurd (Ealing's "The Ladykillers" in 1955), turned death into situation comedy. Falling out of favour in the 60s, black comedy returned somewhat in the work of Robert Altman, before being brought back to full glory by the Coen Brothers.

Although the most enduringly successful example of black comedy is perhaps "Arsenic and Old Lace" (stage 1941/film 1944), two of the very greatest filmmakers blessed it with their contributions. Alfred Hitchcock to some extent incarnated the essence of it every time he introduced an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", but his definitive statement - "The Trouble with Harry" - just preceded the TV shows in 1955.

Charles Chaplin's dark vision, "Monsieur Verdoux", was released in 1947, just before the anti-Communist cries against him were to drive him out of America. A political backdrop is either entirely absent or implicit in the other examples of the genre I've mentioned, but Chaplin makes it explicit, and some might say that, to some extent, this unbalances the last reel of an otherwise utterly brilliant film. Others perhaps will be more sympathetic to the historical context. For me, while completely supporting Chaplin's observations concerning the business of war, the heavy underlining of his message does seem a flaw when viewing the film today.

All the same, "Monsieur Verdoux" is a magnificent achievement, not least in its wonderful gallery of characters, many played by character actors rarely seen on screen. Two in particular stand out, both playing wives of the much-married Verdoux: dour, unsmiling Margaret Hoffman, who goes to her death in an extraordinary scene of darkness followed by sudden light; and Martha Raye, in her best cinematic role, as the wife Verdoux fails to kill. Raye is such an explosion of energy and personality that the screen can barely contain her. To watch her and Chaplin in their scenes together is sheer joy.

The script is witty, the photography excellent, and Chaplin's penchant for sentimentality is held well in check. It is, except for the end, an unusually subtle movie, its tone completely in keeping with its French setting.

A suave but cynical man (Charles Chaplin) supports his family by marrying and murdering rich women for their money, but the job has some occupational hazards.

This film is brilliant, because it is not just entertaining, but also has a strong message. On the surface, it is a man who marries women and kills them in order to get their money. This in itself makes for a good film (and is somewhat risqué for the 1940s). But then, it is also a metaphor for society -- capitalism, imperialism, war... Chaplin takes on the Great Depression and the war industry.

Most people know Chaplin for his silent films and tramp character, but he really became a strong filmmaker in his later years. This film, along with "Great Dictator" and "King in New York" are among his best works. It is a shame that for whatever reason he is not remembered for the second half of his career.

As Charlie Chaplin put it when the tramp finally talked in The Great Dictator the magic was gone. Chaplin felt he had to come up with another character in order to continue his career and he got away from the lovable Little Tramp as far as he could with Monsieur Verdoux.

A whole lot of people were shocked when Monsieur Verdoux came out and instead of the Tramp we got a Bluebeard murderer. Black comedy was not a genre popular in the USA at that time and a lot of people hated this film. None more so than Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper who as a good conservative Republican cheered on the coming blacklist and beat the drums for Chaplin's deportation. No accident that Chaplin was hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee at the time Monsieur Verdoux came out.

Based on the famous French mass criminal Henry Desire Landru, Monsieur Verdoux tells the story of a bank clerk who lost his job and to support his family started marrying and murdering rich women. Verdoux keeps quite a schedule because he's marrying several of them at the same time. But always returns to wife Mady Correll and son Allison Roddan.

Funniest marriage is to Martha Raye who not only is he unsuccessful in killing, she nearly does him in on a couple of occasions strictly by accident. That raucous laugh might elicit sympathy from a jury if anyone ever heard it and was condemned to live with it even part time.

With the marriage to Raye comes the film's funniest sequence Chaplin trying to kill Raye when they were in a boat on a lake in Switzerland. It will not escape your attention that the sequence is borrowed from Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy which was already filmed in 1931 and would shortly be filmed again in 1951 as A Place In The Sun. Ironic indeed how the same plot gambits can be played for laughs or deadly serious.

Second funniest is Raye showing up at Chaplin's wedding to Isobel Elsom whom he has targeted. It forces him to leave her at the altar not knowing at that time how lucky she was.

Truth be told some of Chaplin's left wing political views are grafted into the film somewhat forcibly. It's what got Hedda Hopper's undergarments in such a twist. Still this an amusing film and not fairly judged by a lot of people at the time it came out.