Charlie Chaplin never quite adapted to the sound era. Modern Times (1936) was the last truly great Charlie Chaplin film, and although made several years into the sound era, it was silent.
The Great Dictator (1940) was the first Chaplin talkie. It was a very good film, but towards the end Chaplin forgot that he was making a satire. It became a bit preachy, with Chaplin making a lengthy closing speech.
Chaplin's next film, made seven years later, has a similar problem. For its first three quarters, Monsieur Verdoux is mostly on track as a black comedy. But then it loses its way, with Chaplin's character adding commentary on the evils of fascist war machines and their capitalist suppliers.
All that may be true, but it doesn't provide an excuse for being a misogynist con artist and serial killer. Besides, any nation that doesn't have a 'war machine' will be dependent upon other nations for its own defense. These other nations may not be willing to go to war to protect it.
Chaplin's pacifist politics not only muddled his two black comedies of the 1940s. They also damaged his career. By 1947, the cold war was already in force, with the Soviet Union occupying Eastern Europe. Anti-communist hysteria was already brewing in the United States. Like many independent thinkers of the era, Chaplin was accused of having communist sympathies.
He was also plagued with scandals involving younger women. It didn't help matters that his latest film cast him as a complacent murderer of dowagers. His public relations problems led to a boycott of his films, effectively blacklisting him in the U.S.
But if the moviegoing public never had much of a chance to see Monsieur Verdoux, it was really their loss. While its balance of droll humor and social commentary ends up tilted towards the latter, there are many entertaining scenes.
Most of these involve Martha Raye. Just as Jack Oakie stole scenes from Chaplin in The Great Dictator, Raye does the same in Monsieur Verdoux. Her brash, foolish character provides a spark that is lacking in Chaplin's somewhat stiff performance.
Chaplin is Verdoux, a middle-aged French bank clerk who loses his job during the Great Depression. To support his idealized (if wheelchair-bound) wife Mona (Mady Correll) and their son Peter (Allison Roddan), Verdoux turns to crime. He seduces, weds and murders widows, meanwhile taking their property.
He finds his match in Raye, a stupid but extraordinarily lucky lottery winner. On his trail is Detective Morrow (Charles Evans). He also befriends an attractive young woman (Marilyn Nash) who is struggling to find her way. William Frawley, later of "I Love Lucy" fame, shows up as a clueless wedding guest.
Monsieur Verdoux was not the only comedy from the 1940s with a story of a man plotting to kill his wife. Suspicion (1941) preceded it, and Unfaithfully Yours (1948) would follow it. But Chaplin's character is much more creepy than Cary Grant's spendthrift rogue, or Rex Harrison's jealous schemer.
In Monsieur Verdoux, there seems to be a correspondence between a woman's beauty and her grace of character. Correll and Nash are both lovely and charming, while Verdoux's would-be (and unattractive) victims include a vain socialite and a humorless complainer.
Chaplin was the producer, director, writer, composer and lead actor for Monsieur Verdoux. Despite his contemporary unpopularity and the film's box office stiff, it did receive an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. (61/100)
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