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DVD Description
This blistering little black comedy was well ahead of its time when released in 1947. Originally, Orson Welles had wanted Chaplin to star in his drama about a French mass murderer named Landru, but Chaplin was hesitant to act for another director and used the idea himself. He plays a dapper gent named Henri Verdoux (who assumes a number of identities), a civilised monster who marries wealthy women, then murders them (as we meet him, he's gathering roses as an incinerator ominously bellows smoke in the background) and collects their money to support his real family. The Little Tramp is now a distant memory, though this was the first film not to feature Chaplin's beloved creation. Verdoux is largely viciously clever. Ultimately, Chaplin breaks character (much as he did in The Great Dictator) to preach to the masses, declaring that against the machines of war that grip the planet, humble killer Verdoux is "an amateur by comparison."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
In my opinion this is the very best film Chaplin ever made, I love his early silent film work and the Great Dictator is a very important, well made and influential film. However for me this film is the best of the best. It is both funny and dark, Chaplin was a genious before his time, America viewed him as a great threat because he gave an alternative view of society through this movie, and the message in this 50 year old movie is just as applicable today. Men like George Bush and Tony Blair have contributed to the deaths of thousands (hundreds of thousands) of people throught their actions and decisions yet they face no trial. In Chaplins words... One death makes a vilan millions a hero, numbers sanctify. Charlie Chaplin gave a very strong and valid message in this film and I believe he was very brave to do so.
A master at his very best, a fantastic film.
A master at his very best, a fantastic film.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This was the film that ultimately did Chaplin in, the one that made sure that he wasn't allowed back into the States, once he had left for a trip to England. 'Verdoux' is an elegant, slightly fuzzy, but well-meaning and well-scripted Bluebeard-comedy with Chaplin in the lead, killing off rich, middle-aged women that he marries, having lost all his money in the big crash of '29. "I am but an amateur when it comes to killing", he says, more or less, in his defense, implying very overtly that the big warfaring nations are the true killers. It is sad how little the world changes, if the Americans got a second chance to get back at Chaplin here and now, they would, with a vengeance. Chaplin thought patriotism was sheer stupidity, and look where we are now. Buy this film, it has historical and artistic significance, the transfer is excellent, and the DVD is crammed with enlightening extras.
7 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
According to the commentary included with this 1947 film, Chaplin considered Monsieur Verdoux one of his best films. It would be more accurate to regard it as one of the best for illustrating his enormous vanity and self-obsession. In his 1940 film, The Great Dictator, Chaplin found humor in Hitler, who resembled him slightly in appearance and more than slightly in ego. In this film he finds a similar humor in a French serial killer who woes and murders women for their money. For Chaplin, the central figure in all human history and the only person who matters is always himself.
A better man would have used the film as a launching pad for actors younger, poorer, and less well-established than himself. Chaplin, who also wrote and directed it, sees it as another opportunity to strut his talents. No other actor was given a major role. Even the pretty young woman (Marilyn Nash) who has the second most important role merely exists to inflate our opinion of M. Verdoux. We are supposed to be impressed that, intending to kill her to test a new poison, he takes pity and lets her live. Chaplin is that self-obsessed.
In a city park, I once had to tell a man throwing knives at a tree just a few feet from a busy walkway that he had to stop. He defended his actions by talking about all those who die in highway accidents each year. I told the deluded twit that he was talking nonsense, that there was no relationship between the danger that one of his knives would bounce off a tree, hitting an child's eye and far away car crashes. In this film, Chaplin, scriptwriter and actor, is equally deluded. He really does think he i's demonstrating a superiority morality when he compares his murders to the millions who die in wars: '"As a mass killer,"' a smug and smiling Verdoux tells us, "'I am an amateur in comparison.'"
This film may be sick as a comedy, but it is worth watching for what it tells us about Chaplin's politics and, by extension, the politics of similar celebrities today. When G. K. Chesterton warned between the wars that Germany would start another and still more horrible war, he explained why pacifists and militarists "are always in alliance, by a fatal logic far beyond any conscious conspiracy."' By defining every aspect of war as evil, he wrote, they equate the arsonist with the firefighter. Chaplin does just that in this film, equating the French and English, who certainly did not want the war that had ended two years before, with Nazi Germany, which did. M. Verdoux (and by extension M. Chaplin) is claiming to be above any criticism we might direct at him. He is that vain and that self-obsessed. That's the main message this film carries.
'Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II
A better man would have used the film as a launching pad for actors younger, poorer, and less well-established than himself. Chaplin, who also wrote and directed it, sees it as another opportunity to strut his talents. No other actor was given a major role. Even the pretty young woman (Marilyn Nash) who has the second most important role merely exists to inflate our opinion of M. Verdoux. We are supposed to be impressed that, intending to kill her to test a new poison, he takes pity and lets her live. Chaplin is that self-obsessed.
In a city park, I once had to tell a man throwing knives at a tree just a few feet from a busy walkway that he had to stop. He defended his actions by talking about all those who die in highway accidents each year. I told the deluded twit that he was talking nonsense, that there was no relationship between the danger that one of his knives would bounce off a tree, hitting an child's eye and far away car crashes. In this film, Chaplin, scriptwriter and actor, is equally deluded. He really does think he i's demonstrating a superiority morality when he compares his murders to the millions who die in wars: '"As a mass killer,"' a smug and smiling Verdoux tells us, "'I am an amateur in comparison.'"
This film may be sick as a comedy, but it is worth watching for what it tells us about Chaplin's politics and, by extension, the politics of similar celebrities today. When G. K. Chesterton warned between the wars that Germany would start another and still more horrible war, he explained why pacifists and militarists "are always in alliance, by a fatal logic far beyond any conscious conspiracy."' By defining every aspect of war as evil, he wrote, they equate the arsonist with the firefighter. Chaplin does just that in this film, equating the French and English, who certainly did not want the war that had ended two years before, with Nazi Germany, which did. M. Verdoux (and by extension M. Chaplin) is claiming to be above any criticism we might direct at him. He is that vain and that self-obsessed. That's the main message this film carries.
'Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II
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