MONSIEUR VERDOUX

US, 1947, 124 minutes, Black and white.
Charles Chaplin, Mady Correll, Martha Raye.
Directed by Charles Chaplin.

Monsieur Verdoux is Charles Chaplin’s only film of the 1940s. After his successful career in Hollywood in the early part of the 20th century, he began to make feature films in the 1920s including The Kid, The Circus and The Gold Rush. With the coming of sound, he did little to adapt his techniques to the new era, incorporating dialogue, sound and silence in his City Lights as well as Modern Times.

At the beginning of World War Two he satirised Hitler and Mussolini in The Great Dictator. After Monsieur Verdoux, he made Limelight in 1952 (but, because of American antipathy towards him, it was released only in 1973, winning an Oscar for best original score). He made A King in New York, a critique of his treatment by the United States in 1957, and the final film was the failure, A Countess from Hong Kong, with Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren (1965).

Monsieur Verdoux was nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay and won the National Board of Review best film award for 1947.

Chaplin plays a bank clerk with an ill wife and a young child. He is unable to support them – and goes the way of Bluebeard, marrying rich women and then killing them for their money.

The film has an ambiguous moral framework. Audiences can sympathise with Henri Verdoux and his plight. There is compassion for his family. However, there is a cynical perspective as he goes about courting and murdering the women.

The film, released soon after the end of World War Two, shows a study of a survivalist in the world of big business. The film also condemns big business for the pressures it puts on ordinary people. This is reminiscent of the images that Chaplin used as the man in the cog in Modern Times.

While the style is distinctly Chaplin, and of its period, its relevance is still important in a world of globalisation.

1. The place of this film in Chaplin's repertoire? In the middle of the 20th century considering Chaplin's films in the early stages of the century and the emphasis on comedy and the Tramp? As a signal for his films for the next two decades? As a film of the forties, its impact now?

2. The association of the Blue-beard idea with Chaplin? The attribution to Orson Welles? The creative ideas in Chaplin's mind and the transition from the little fellow? The French atmosphere chosen by Chaplin?

3. Comment on the cinema techniques: the old style black and white photography, yet the fluid movement, the decor and costumes, the introduction of comedy routines in a black comedy with serious intent?

4. The qualities of Chaplin's style as Monsieur Verdoux? Personal manner, clothes, grey hair and dapper presentation, his style of speech, the epitome of good manners? The irony as the style of the murderer?

5. The significance and impact of the opening: Monsieur Verdoux as dead, the cemetery, the importance of his explanation? The remarks that Von Clausewitz said that war is the logical extension of diplomacy; Monsieur Verdoux feels that murder is the logical extension of business? How was this illustrated during the film especially the explanations at the trial sequence?

6. Audience familiarity with the Blue-beard theme and their expectations of it, of Chaplin's treatment of it?

7. Comment on the particular character traits of Monsieur Verdoux, how were they credible in relationship to the fact of his murders? The impact of this kind of black ironic comedy in the forties, in later decades?

8. The background of money, Monsieur Verdoux’s skill at business, his motivation, his real family and the sentiment and pathos there with wife and children? The callousness with which he signed cheques to get the money from his dead wives, his concern for a caterpillar in the garden?

9. The importance of the sequence of showing the widow round the house? The comedy techniques and routines, his overdoing it and imposing himself on her, her reaction? The gallant style, the satire on the elegant gentleman? How important was this when it paid off and he communicated with the widow later, marriage?

10. The importance of the locations and the homes in the film - the country estate, his own family home, his Paris home and the scene of his work? The houses of his other wives? Annabella's home? The particular adaptations of his character to match, the various disguises and ways of employment? The importance of the ironic chorus of the train wheels moving him from one place to another?

11. Comment on the irony and the contrast of the suspicious family who were wondering where their sister was, their reappearances throughout the film, seeking the police help, their arrival at the end and the important sequence of the identification at the hotel - the serious climax of the film and yet some traditional Chaplin comic routines?

12. Lydia, Monsieur Verdoux's courting her, age? The piano sequence?

13. Annabella as different from the other wives? Martha Raye's style? Noisy, bumptious, friendly? Her background, friends? Her love for Monsieur Verdoux? The build-up to the scene in which he tries to kill her, the outing, the lake and its atmosphere, the mishaps? The irony of her being a guest at his wedding and the comedy routines in his trying to evade her?

14. The sub-plot of the despairing girl? A typical Chaplin heroine from the past? Her pathos, his evil intent in trying to experiment with poison on her? His being moved by her story - and the audience moved by it? The extent to which he went to help her? The irony of their later encounter? Her helping him? Her going to the trial and being his support? (The irony of her being the mistress of a munitions manufacturer and/or as the occasion on which Monsieur Verdoux lost his wealth?)

15. The social background of the thirties: the Depression, Hitler and war, the closing of the banks, Monsieur Verdoux’s losses - the desperation and pace of these sequences in contrast with the others for example his desperation on the 'phone, trying to recoup his money?

16. The build-up to his arrest, the family and their identification, the girl and her pity?

17. The quality of dialogue during the trial? The style of the court sequences with the pros and cons of Monsieur' Verdoux's character? The drawing together of the themes of murder and greed? The accusations? His speeches and his justification of himself? His reference to the world situation and business-like murder on a grand scale and his declaring he was merely an amateur? How much criticism of social behaviour of the 20th century?

18. The build-up to the execution, his readiness to die, the words of the chaplain and his attitude towards prayer and God having his soul?

19. The quality of the film as a witty comedy? A mixture of
humorous routines and sentiment and black observation? The acuteness of its observation on human nature?