Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

"This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it." 

Director

Charles Chaplin

Cast

Charles Chaplin - Henri Verdoux 

Mady Correll - Mona Verdoux

Allison Rodan - Peter Verdoux

Martha Raye - Annabella Bonheur

Isobel Elsom - Marie Grosnay

Margaret Hoffman - Lydia Floray

Marilyn Nash - The Girl

Back in April, I claimed my fandom of the legendary Charlie Chaplin and his work as a actor, producer, director, writer, and composer all while criticizing his film A King in New York. I said, in so many words, it's a movie made by a jilted Chaplin. 

Back in 1947, Chaplin made a movie called Monsieur Verdoux which doesn't seem to be talked about as much when it comes to his talking films. However, to me, it sticks out above the rest of his work, even more so than his first all-talking picture, The Great Dictator (1940). 

The Great Dictator is a satire on fascism with Chaplin in duel roles as a Jewish barber resembling his famed "Little Tramp" character, as well as a mocking portrayal of Adolf Hitler, named "Hynkel." 

But Monsieur Verdoux is significant for a few reasons. It's his first movie in which he plays a character that in no way resembles his "Tramp." It's also labeled as a "dark comedy" since Chaplin plays a man who murders his wives for their wealth. It's worth mentioning that actor William Frawley (Fred from I Love Lucy) has a role in this movie as well. So, there's that. 

As per his usual genius and impressive skills, Chaplin wrote, directed, starred in, and scored this film. The story is based on real life French serial killer, Henri Landru, who's nickname was "the Bluebeard of Gambais." 

Between 1915 and 1919, Landru is believed to have murdered at least seven women in the Gambais area of France. It's also believed he murdered three other women and one man in a house he was renting in the town of Vernouillet.

Actor and director, Orson Welles, is credited for writing the story for Monsieur Verdoux. The circumstances leading to the movie's production fall victim to testimony between Welles and Chaplin, and is one crazy story in itself. 

When it comes to media outlets versus an audiences' reception of movies, very little has seemed to change between 1947 and now. Even today, media critics tend to love what general audiences hate. It's a common trend on rottentomatoes.com.

At the release of the movie, film critic Richard Coe of the Washington Post called Monsieur Verdoux "a bold, brilliant, and bitterly amusing film." 

Writer Evelyn Waugh, who generally loved Charlie Chaplin, seemed torn about the movie. He said it's a "startling and mature work of art" while also saying he thought "there is a 'message' and I think a deplorable one."  After all, this wasn't the same Chaplin whom Waugh admired during his childhood.

Meanwhile, Monsieur Verdoux sparked protests and bans in various parts of the U.S. By the 1940s, Chaplin's public persona and popularity was marred by scandals and political controversies that were deemed un-American.

That's not to say all critics back when Chaplin's movie was released were praising it. 

Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune wrote "Chaplin has composed what he likes to term 'a comedy of murders' with a woeful lack of humor, melodrama or dramatic taste."

I first watched this movie more than 25-years ago. It wasn't the Chaplin I was accustomed to back then so my teenage self found it boring. I haven't seen it since until a few nights ago.

Chaplin plays Henri Verdoux - a man who doesn't let beauty go ignored, appreciates the innocence of youth, and takes pleasure in murdering his wives. 

Charlie Chaplin as Henri Verdoux in Monsieur Verdoux (1947).

Having worked as a bank teller for thirty years before being laid-off, he has turned to a life of marrying wealthy women, and then killing them for their wealth. He does this for the sake of caring and supporting his real wife, Mona (Mady Correll), and their young son, Peter (Allison Roddan). Of course, Mona is unaware of Henri's double lives and crimes while he's away.

The family of one of his wives, Thelma Couvais, immediately grow suspicious after she withdraws all her money from the bank and then disappears just two weeks after marrying Verdoux whom they think is named 'Varnay'. All they have is a picture of him.

Verdoux is introduced to the audience in a rather grim scene. As he's trimming roses from his garden, black smoke billows from his chimney. Some of his neighbor ladies complain to themselves how they can't put their laundry out as he's been burning for the last three days. Of course, the audience catches on that one of his wives is in that furnace.  

Verdoux is trying to sell Thelma's home when a wealthy widow named Marie Grosnay (Isobel Elsom) drops by to take a look at the house. 

Verdoux sees this visit as another potential source of illegitimate income. So, he attempts to woo her right away.

Grosnay declines his advances, but Verdoux doesn't give up that easily. 

He orders flowers to be sent to Grosnay regularly over the next several weeks, hoping she'll change her mind.

While this is taking place, Verdoux realizes he is low on money. He needs more to invest. 

So, under the pseudonym of M. Floray, he pays a visit to his "wife" Lydia (Margaret Hoffman). 

Though she's bitter with him because his "engineering job" keeps him away for long periods of time, Verdoux convinces her to withdraw her money and valuables from her bank. He claims her money will be safer in the home lest in the financially troubling times, the powers that be help themselves to what she has in the bank.

Lydia reluctantly agrees, and is left second-guessing her actions.

That night, just before she becomes Verdoux's next victim, he stares out into the night through a large window at the end of the hallway.

"How beautiful this pale, Endymion hour," he says.

"What are you talking about," Lydia shouts at him off-screen from the bedroom.

"Endymion, my dear - a beautiful youth possessed by the moon."

In Greek mythology, Endymion was an attractive boy who spent his life in perpetual sleep. And Verdoux finds some beauty in murder. 

With more money in hand, Verdoux returns to his real home to visit his Mona whom we find is wheel chair bound. 

Later that evening, they have a dinner party at their house with some friends of theirs, one of whom is a chemist. 

During dinner, the chemist chats a bit about a formula he has created that puts animals to sleep without any pain.

Verdoux is intrigued by this. But the chemist tells him that he had to cease working on it after the pharmaceutical board banned it. 

Verdoux suggests he could test this chemical himself on a vagrant off the street, much to the horror of the chemist. But Verdoux blows off the comment as a joke. 

When he gets a chance later in his office at a furniture store, Verdoux attempts to recreate that chemical.

Walking home in the pouring rain, he runs into a young lady (Marilyn Nash) who's sheltering herself inside a doorway.

Verdoux is curious to see if his chemical will work. He befriends this girl, who tells him she was just released from prison.

He invites her back to an apartment he's renting, and offers to make her dinner which she accepts. 

Back at his place, he offers her a glass of wine which he laces with the drug he brewed.

As they chat over their meal, the girl says her husband, who was a helpless invalid, died while she was in jail. He starts feeling pity for her, and claims her wine has some cork floating in it. 

He dumps it out before she consumes any, and gives her a fresh glass.

Little does Verdoux realize that the disappearances of the women he's married have attracted the attention of the police to him. 

Detective Morrow (Charles Evens) visits Verdoux to question him. But Verdoux isn't going to surrender so easily.

I wonder if it was uncomfortable for audiences then to watch a comedy about wealthy women murdered

I think my wife's reaction to the movie sums up Chaplin's role adequately. When I told her what I was watching and what the plot was, she said "Charlie Chaplin as a murderer? Seriously?" 

Chaplin has a way of inserting his true self into his roles, and this movie is no exception.

Watching Monsieur Verdoux now, I can't say this role of his is really that surprising.

Chaplin was married four times, starting with his first wife Mildred Harris. He was 35 when he married his second wife, 15-year old Lita Grey. It caused quite a scandal in the day.

His third wife, Paulette Goddard, was 26 when she married then 47-year old Chaplin. And his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill, was 18 when she married Chaplin who was 54. So, needless to say, he loved younger women. 

Those first three marriages ended in divorce. So, I sense the impression there's some bitter sentiment within Chaplin that comes out in Henri Verdoux. 

Chaplin stars alongside and Margaret Hoffman in Monsieur Verdoux

In one particular scene where he's having a conversation with the young girl he brings home for supper, he says, "...I love women. But I don't admire them."

When she asks why, he says "Women are of the earth. Realistic. Dominated by physical facts."

"What nonsense," she says.

"Once a women betrays a man, she despises him. In spite of his goodness and position, she will give him up for someone inferior. That someone is more, shall we say 'attractive." 

"How little you know about women."

"You'd be surprised." 

It's all speculation, of course.

Chaplin often depicts his Tramp character in conflict with the system, or the ruling class. This is the comedy behind the Tramp, and goes back a long way. 

As I mentioned in my review of A King in New York, his silent movie The Immigrant has a scene in which the Tramp (i.e. the immigrant) kicks a pushy U.S. Customs Official in the ass. It was a bold scene to film at the time, especially with Chaplin being a foreigner and making a mockery of the U.S. immigration system. 

At the end of Monsieur Verdoux, as he walks his last mile on death row, a priest visits Verdoux to prepare his soul for death. 

"I've come to ask you make your peace with God," the priest says.

"I am at peace with God," Verdoux replies. "My conflict is with man."

Verdoux is a man without a conscience, who lacks peace with other men because, perhaps, they also lack a conscience. All the while, he isn't presented in too villainous a way.

That conflict is the cynicism often seen with the Tramp,  After all, the Tramp has a reason to be wary and cynical of the world around him as it turns a blind eye to him while pushing him around. It carries over into his later films of the 1930s and 1940s, so Monsieur Verdoux shouldn't be any different.

I would love to explore the character of Verdoux much more, especially as he feels justified in his evil ways.

Chaplin is well known for being a humanist who very often took part in various efforts to assist mankind. On film, he very often plays a character doing just that in some way or another. He helps a gypsy girl in the 1916 film The Vagabond. He rescues the small child in The Kid (1921). He helps a poor, blind flower girl regain her sight in City Lights (1931). He helps the gamin start a new life for herself in Modern Times (1936). And he practically preaches a sermon about wanting to help mankind in The Great Dictator (1940).

So, Chaplin throws in "the girl" character whom Verdoux decides to help. Why? Is it to show that Verdoux does actually have some good qualities about him? Is it to entice a little pity for Verdoux, the wife killer? Why should the audience take any sort of pity on him? Being laid-off from a job someone has been at for years can be devastating and emotionally crippling. It's no justification for the middle class to take down the upper class. This is a story about a struggling middle class guy who feels mistreated, and sticks it to the wealthy class all while justifying himself. "These things have to be done" he claims in the movie. It's a common situation in Chaplin movies, and is likely why Monsieur Verdoux was met with a lot of protest and claims of his being un-American. Or, maybe I'm looking too deeply into this, and it's all just a dark comedy.

Kate Cameron of the New York Daily News sums up well how I felt after watching this movie when she wrote, "[Chaplin] has built his comedy on the Bluebeard theme and has tried to make the business of wholesale killing of prosperous, silly, aging women a sly, rib-tickling joke as he postures and poses before the camera.

But the joke, I'm afraid, is on him....Chaplin has attempted, with inconspicuous success, to mix sentiment, slapstick, comedy and horror."

I wonder if it was uncomfortable for audiences then to watch a comedy with Chaplin killing wealthy women. That's where the horror aspect comes in - obviously.

With Monsieur Verdoux, the comical, familiar Tramp persona can't seem to hide. 

In one scene, Verdoux attempts to sneak up and strangle another wife, Annabella (Martha Raye) while they're both alone on a small boat fishing. Each time she looks back at him, he flings one leg over the other and smiles like nothing's happening. It's typical Chaplin.

Cameron from the New York Daily News claims the heavy laughs are really furnished by Martha Raye, and I agree.

The art of Chaplin's comedy and drama is relatability and emotion. His genius is evident in how he captures emotions both in imagery and music. 

Some of his soundtracks are among my favorites, specifically that of The Kid, Modern Times, and The Gold Rush. 

In this movie, much of the humor is subtle. For instance, in the scene following Lydia's murder, Verdoux sets the breakfast table for two. Then... oh, yeah... he remembers he killed her during the night. So, he puts the second setting back. It's those small details that Chaplin is known for. It calls to mind the scene in his earlier movie City Lights where the slam of a limousine door is all it takes to make a blind flower girl think the Tramp is a wealthy individual rather than his actually being the poor little fellow he is.  

I suppose the humor in this dark comedy is that murder is funny when the right people die, and the guilty party is an otherwise gentle and friendly person.

While the captivation in the story is narrow, but present, the movie drags on in its two hour and four minute run time.

As the tagline reads, "Chaplin changes!" In so much as playing a brand new character, then sure. Chaplin changes. Monsieur Verdoux is worth appreciating in that regard, aside from the story itself despite its semi-slow pace. At the same time, even in this black comedy, he can't hide the Tramp, nor the true Charles Chaplin.