REVIEW: ‘Monsieur Verdoux’ (1947)
Posted On: Friday, June 12th, 2009 | Posted By: Alex Carlson
Review: B+
There is a moment in Charlie Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux when the protagonist replaces wine with a home brewed poison. As he finishes concocting, the writer/director/composer/star breaks the fourth wall, looks right at the camera and declares “it’s time for a little experiment.” This attitude seems to represent Chaplin’s attitude towards the film. He was experimenting to see if an anti-war film would have success in America two years after the popular WWII. He was also experimenting to see if he could get rid of his Little Tramp persona and approach a story with a dark and bitter attitude. Unlike the “little experiment” he performs in the film, Monsieur Verdoux is a success.
Set in the late 1930s France, the film is based on the true story of Henri Landru, a French serial killer who murdered various wives. Chaplin assumes the role of Henri Verdoux, a former bank clerk whose bad luck during the depression lead him to seek work elsewhere. Chaplin does everything he can to paint the murderer as an empathetic character – he has a crippled wife and son who he raises to be non-violent, he poisons his victims so they may pass away quietly, and he generously rewards his future victims with flowers and gifts.
With debonair and wit, Henri Verdoux travels around France posing as various occupations and convinces his many wives to remove their savings from the bank, where it is too dangerous to store money. He then comes up with an elaborate excuse for why he must be away and then takes his exit, on to the next unsuspecting woman. One of the family’s of a girl who has gone missing gets suspicious and before long the police are involved, tracking Verdoux across the country.
Despite the film’s subtitle “A Comedy of Murders,” it is rarely funny. It has a few moments of comic charm from the aging star including a quite funny boat scene where Verdoux unsuccessfully attempts to murder one of his more boisterous wives (best line of the movie “I’ll lasso him.”) As with other Chaplin talkies, he seems to find humor and message mutually exclusive. During the end of the film, Verdoux maintains his wit, but loses some of the humor as he seems to simply be speaking Chaplin’s political ideals.
Wherever you stand politically, the film does have a few undeniable flaws. Most specifically there is a shot of moving train wheels that is paired with an ascending violin piece that is used repeatedly in the film to signify a new location. This seems like a lazy and unnecessary simplification, particularly in a film where Chaplin depends on the viewer to be smart enough to pick up on his anti-war sentiments.
However, the brilliance of Chaplin’s satire distracts from the flaws in the film. He uses a more high brow comedy than his earlier slapstick and presents a despicable character in a charming, empathetic way. This was Chaplin’s most controversial film and the one that lead to his voluntary blacklisting. The fact that Monsieur Verdoux is still talked about years later and that it survived its initial backlash shows that it is truly a great film.
