Monsieur Verdoux
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Movie Reviews of Monsieur Verdoux
Movie Review: Still sorely underrated
Summary: 5 Stars
Many people seem to have a hard time stomaching this movie, I think in large part because, despite all possible warning to the contrary, people go see this movie with the idea that it will be like Chaplin's earlier movies, with him playing a character that either symbolizes human virtue or directly espouses Chaplin's views. These people are sorely dissapointed, because Chaplin's character, Monsieur Verdoux, is neither virtuous, nor does he express Chaplin's personal ideology. In fact, sometimes people come out of this still holding the point of view that this is just a regular Chaplin movie and are disgusted with Chaplin's apparently murderous tendencies!
The basic plot has been oulined here many, many times, and I don't think anything can be gained from going over it again; I will simply provide my views on what the characters mean so that those who watch this movie for the first time can at least go into it without drastic misconceptions. Verdoux is a French bank clerk layed off as a result of the depression, he sees no alternative but to marry women, obtain their assets, and murder them, in order to support his family. He loves his family (son and invalid wife) dearly, but despite this is cynical about the world, viewing it as a hostile place where one has to be hostile in return to survive in it. NOTE: Chaplin is NOT Verdoux (although they have some similarities: more on this later), at least, Verdoux is not Chaplin's vision of an ideal human being. In fact, Chaplin's ideal, which in earlier films took the form of the Tramp, is most nearly expressed by a female ex-con that Verdoux runs into. I forget exactly what she says, but one essential point is that a little kindness can make the world a wonderful place. Her optimistic world view is at direct odds with Verdoux's cynicism, and in fact Verdoux tells her that her optimism is corrupting his philosophy. There is much else that I could say about the themes of Monsieur Verdoux, but it is better if you simply see the movie, which I highly recommend.
Looking at the film in a fair and balanced way, however, it does have flaws. The only one of real importance to me is that Chaplin makes the character of Verdoux too sympathetic, especially at the end, with his statement to the court, which comes off, at least partly, as an excuse for his atrocities, rather than as purely an indictment of the hypocritical, inhuman world he lives in. My view of Verdoux is that he is a product of the mechanized, impersonal, ungrateful world so briliantly satirized in Modern Times, as inevitable as the Sun rising in the East, and not that he is a wise person (not that his statements at the end are what I would call wise, but they contain elements of wisdom that invite one to place trust in what Verdoux says). Perhaps at least part of this half-sympathetic portrayal is that Verdoux's disillusionment, his lashing out at a world that has turned his back on him, were traits that Chaplin at this stage in his career deeply identified with, and perhaps he couldn't help but put a little of himself into Verdoux. At any rate, these minor quibbles are no reason, I think, to deny the film the status of a classic masterpiece.
Movie Review: A film ahead of its time
Summary: 5 Stars
It's hard to believe this film once had such an awful reputation and was considered extremely politically dangerous. Times have really changed for the better since 1947. This is Chaplin's first full dialogue film, even though 'The Great Dictator' was his first sound film. As is pointed out in the documentary, that film seems to go back and forth between dialogue scenes and silent scenes. This film was the first film he wrote expressly as a dialogue film, with much less of the pantomimic scenes hearkening back to his earlier work. It's also just as funny and brilliant as his earlier masterpieces.
We know right from the opening shot of the film what the fate of Henri Verdoux was, since we see a grave bearing his name and the years he lived. The film that follows tells us the story of just how and why he got there. Monsieur Verdoux is a bluebeard (an old-fashioned slang word for a man who marries and then murders one woman after another), something he never foresaw himself as. For much of his adult life he worked as a successful bank clerk, but then came the world Depression, and he lost his job. Society didn't seem to have any other use for him, at least not anything that would enable him to make as much money as he needed to support his young son Peter and his disabled wife Mona. I suppose this story was considered controversial in its day because Monsieur Verdoux is portrayed as sympathetic, charming, and intelligent, with understandable reasons for what he's doing. He's not shown as a cold-blooded killer who murders these women for their money for the fun of it or because he's a sadistic monster. He does what he feels he has to do because there is no other way. And as we see, he isn't incapable of having a change of heart, such as when the young woman he was going to use as his test subject for the new poison he mixed reveals that she is in much the same situation as he is. He decides to spare her and help her. There are also the hilarious scenes in which he's trying and failing to murder Annabella, which are among the film's highlights and illustrative of why the subtitle is 'A Comedy of Murders.' The ending scene of the film (which was the first scene Chaplin shot, wanting to get the hardest part out of the way first), an attack on a system that rewards mass murderers and capitalist robber-barons but condemns people who are driven to murder because that very system cheats them, instead of celebrating them as they do people who go to war, almost made me change my mind about supporting the death penalty. Since I share many of Chaplin's political views, I didn't find this film to be overly preachy or like the comedy were ruined by working in a moral and political message as well. I felt it was seamlessly worked in instead of totally dominating the story, and besides, the reason so many people in 1947 hated this film was because it challenged what they believed and held as absolute truth, and that offended them. Instead of listening to a different viewpoint with an open mind, they chose to boycott and trash this film instead.
Movie Review: Murder is Murder, Whether Done for Duty, Profit or Fun; Chaplin Attempts to get the Beast to Acknowledge Its' Reflection
Summary: 5 Stars
I expected to be somewhat bored, or at least lulled into a trance, viewing this black-and-white "talkie" from an aging Charlie Chaplin. However, this film slowly drew me in, until I was thoroughly engrossed by "The End".
A comedy of wit and foible, married to one of the greatest moral questions ever put forth to the human race and its' overlords, with a snap and pazzaz far ahead of its' time; Chaplin's work here is trully a two-fold story.
Those wishing to see a young Chaplin cut capers will be disappointed, but Charlie shows here that he is indeed a multi-faceted comedian, capable of bearing up under the duelling pressures of having to work outside of the "Little Tramp" persona, and in a "talkie".
We see ol' Chas., clad in upper-crust Parisian panache, bilk his way through the disenchanted aftermath created after being deposed from his thirty year stint as a bank teller.
(Bluebeard: A fairy tale charcter from the Charles Perrault collection. The character is a monstrous villian who marries seven women in turn and warns them not to look behind a certain door of his castle. Inside the room are the corpses of his former wives. Bluebeard kills six wives for their disobedience before one passes the test.)
We see him poison a bitter old broad with cool indifference, then fall victim to the guiles of a smart-mouthed, middle-aged, New Yawkish dame, played to comedic genius by Martha Raye, who roars through her scenes with typical flair and petulance. ( Their scenes together are some of the film's most overtly humorous, as Verdoux struggles like hek to bump off the feisty broad.)
We are allowed to see Verdoux's real family scenario, a young boy and his invalid mother, who is confined to a chair; but not really long enough to make any emotional bonds to these characters. Chaplin undoubtedly did not want viewers to be preoccupied with Verdoux's sorrow, as to take away from his larger points on the topic of governmentally controlled and instigated mass murder.
"I devoted my existence to you, o benevolent oversee-ers of Business and State, and you turned me out. I follwed your example, by surviving and profiting from the grim misfortunes of others, and now, you wish for my blood. I stand guilty, ready and willing to pay. Will you also pay?"
And of course the answer is always, "No. F*** no!" A message for deaf minds, and ears that cannot hear.
I highly recommend, thoroughly enjoyable family fun. Would recommend for your next visit with that elderly neighbor or shut-in, who will remember Chaplin from their youth, and smile, with the pale, transfixed, murky eyes of glue at the tube, for a couple blessed hours of companionship.
As the film philosophizes, "We need love when we are young, companionship as we grow old." Perhaps.
And also, "You can't always get what you want...but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need." Amen.
Charlie, you were great baby, you did not live in vain.
Movie Review: A Comedy of Murders
Summary: 5 Stars
Outrageously funny in parts, and heartbreakingly poignant in others, Charlie Chaplin's MONSIEUR VERDOUX is a masterpiece from a master artist. It is also Chaplin's most controversial film and was a notable flop at the American box-office. Often called "ahead of its time," it might more accurately be described as "coming at the wrong time," given the hostility that received it in a paranoid and red-baiting postwar America. Chaplin himself, however, described MONSIEUR VERDOUX as "the cleverest and most brilliant" film of his career. I concur.
Subtitled "A Comedy of Murders," this wry satire features Chaplin as Henri Verdoux, a cynical Paris bank employee who loses his job during the Great Depression. Faced with supporting his beloved invalid wife and the young son he adores, Verdoux effortlessly slips into a new career; faking a job that requires travel, he courts and marries rich widows in other cities and then murders them for their money. Verdoux remains fastidious and dispassionate in his new career, describing himself simply as "small businessman in murder."
The widows that are preyed upon are universally depicted as harpies and shrews and Chaplin clearly wanted the audience to sympathize, if not identify, with his Verdoux character. Verdoux is also not without compassion. When he meets a young convict (Marilyn Nash) on whom he wishes to test his latest poison, he is moved by her story, which parallels his own, and he becomes her benefactor instead. On the comedic side, Martha Raye is hilarious as the obstreperous, obnoxious lottery winner Annabella Bonheur, Verdoux's latest wife and potentially his next victim. Yet, she proves impossible to kill while remaining amusingly oblivious to Verdoux's various attempts at her life.
In the end, MONSIEUR VERDOUX becomes a "message movie," Charlie Chaplin's personal indictment of a world that has lost its innocence where there is a decreasing value placed on human life in the wake of two world wars and in the face of the ominous cold war looming on the horizon. The ending is, perhaps, that part of MONSIEUR VERDOUX that most inflamed Chaplin's critics and brought out the ugliest manifestations of American zealotry. Although the film was certainly created to be subversive and as preachy and even patronizing as it gets in parts, the harsh indictments of this film seem hardly justified today. I believe MONSIEUR VERDOUX to be one of the crowning achievements of Charlie Chaplin's career.
Jeremy W. Forstadt
Movie Review: Chaplin's best sound work, really memorable....
Summary: 5 Stars
The brilliant Charlie Chaplin only made five sound movies (well, five with sync sound), but 3 of them are masterpieces, 1 is a good movie, and one is awful (his final film, A Countess from Hong Kong). This one is the most fascinating, sinister, and acidic of the lot. In fact, it's Chaplin's darkest film, a stinging satire of capitalism and war. When it first appeared, most were shocked that the little tramp would play a murderer who killed to support his wife and children, who he really loved (the character is based on the infamous/famous Bluebeard). Chaplin's performance here is so good that you wish he had played more sound roles. His voice is quite commanding, and he commands the screen just like in his silent classics.
There are many great scenes here. My favorite one (and the most poignant one) is when Verdoux takes in a destitute woman. He plans on testing a new poison on her, but he is truly moved by her story, so he spares her life. It's quite a remarkable, moving scene, one of the best Chaplin has ever done. The dialogue, direction, and look of the film makes this one of Chaplin's most complex, artistic, and underrated films. It is a dark comedy made in an era that didn't appreciate dark comedies as much as they are today. Nowadays this film is considered one of Chaplin's best, and rightfully so.