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MONSIEUR VERDOUX
1947
Director
Charlie Chaplin
Starring
Charlie Chaplin
Martha Raye
William Frawley
Runtime
124 minutes
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Anyone who accuses Charlie Chaplin of too much sentimentality clearly hasn't seen MONSIEUR VERDOUX, arguably the crown jewel in the Chaplin canon. Years ahead of its time, this "comedy of murders" is his most audacious and atypical film and remains one of his most underappreciated. James Agee took three columns to write about it, even though it had already left theaters by the time the third column was published. Jonathan Rosenbaum named it "one of the greatest American films of all time" and railed when the AFI left it off their "Greatest Comedies" ballot. Luminaries such as critic Lotte Eisner and filmmakers Federico Fellini, Jacques Rivette and Luchino Visconti have named it one of the ten best films of all time.
Chaplin plays a twentieth-century bluebeard, an enigmatic family man who goes to extreme lengths to support his wife and child, attempting to bump off a series of wealthy widows (including one played by the indefatigable Martha Raye, in a hilarious performance). This deeply philosophical and wildly entertaining film is a work of true sophistication, both for the moral questions it dares to ask and for the way it deconstructs its megastar’s lovable on-screen persona.
“Part of what is so complex and exciting about MONSIEUR VERDOUX is that it shows Chaplin, perhaps for the first time in his career, using his writing and directing to question his acting. Or, if not quite that, at least to put quotation marks on both sides of his charisma, to present a potentially dark meaning to his charm. Known to the world at large as a ‘ladykiller’ because of his amorous offscreen exploits at the time he made VERDOUX, Chaplin dared to link his own appeal as a movie star to both capitalism and murder, and then to examine in some detail what ironies and contradictions arose from these linkages.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chaplin plays a twentieth-century bluebeard, an enigmatic family man who goes to extreme lengths to support his wife and child, attempting to bump off a series of wealthy widows (including one played by the indefatigable Martha Raye, in a hilarious performance). This deeply philosophical and wildly entertaining film is a work of true sophistication, both for the moral questions it dares to ask and for the way it deconstructs its megastar’s lovable on-screen persona.
“Part of what is so complex and exciting about MONSIEUR VERDOUX is that it shows Chaplin, perhaps for the first time in his career, using his writing and directing to question his acting. Or, if not quite that, at least to put quotation marks on both sides of his charisma, to present a potentially dark meaning to his charm. Known to the world at large as a ‘ladykiller’ because of his amorous offscreen exploits at the time he made VERDOUX, Chaplin dared to link his own appeal as a movie star to both capitalism and murder, and then to examine in some detail what ironies and contradictions arose from these linkages.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum