Monsieur Verdoux

1947 black comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Following economic depression, the charming title character loses the bank job held for 30 years. Forced to find a way to support his invalid wife and young son, Verdoux starts a new business--find wealthy women, persuade them to put their finances in a vulnerable position, and then kill them. He travels via train, juggling his actual family and his numerous financial possibilities, and tries to outwit captors.

Written by Charlie Chaplin based on an idea given to him by admirer Orson Welles, this is a pretty tightly structured dramatic comedy. There are some old timey slapstick moments (rarely involving Chaplin himself and mostly involving the family of one murdered woman), but for the most part, this has the feel of something a lot more modern. The plot is similar to Kind Hearts and Coronets, possibly a superior film, but fractured in that the murderer has to drift back and forth between those he's interested in killing. The characters grow a little bit instead of just popping into the movie as props to be killed. There's not a laugh-out-loud moment in this. Instead, the humor depends on dramatic irony where a large part of the dialogue between characters takes on double and even triple meanings. Initially, I suspected Verdoux's character would suffer from being too flat, but there was room for growth, and it's brilliant how it's easy to feel both hatred and empathy for the man. I believe this is the first Chaplin movie in which he isn't the Little Tramp, and he made it pretty easy to forget that it was him in the first place. My wife didn't know when I asked her. Aside from two spots when he sort of winks at the audience through that fourth wall, there's not much Little Tramp in this at all, and his performance as the title character is really good. I also liked the photography, in particular a shot involving a staircase and another involving a door, a hallway, and a window and another involving a greenhouse. There were also a few extended scenes that managed to maintain both humor and suspense. The only gripe I have is a little preachiness at the end with an attempt to thematically tie in Chaplin's ideas (pacifism mostly, but also some really pessimistic ideas about politics and humanity including possibly his opinions on dropping the twin big ones on those poor Japanese women and children). Seemed a tacked-on stretch to make Monsieur Verdoux too much of a symbol, and the lack of subtlety was unnerving. Chaplin, by the way, was booted out of the country for his views in the early 50's, and Monsieur Verdoux flopped majestically.

Look! I watched this movie with an unpleasant stain on the front of me!