In his 1947 film, Monsieur Verdoux, Charlie Chaplin plays a highly skilled killer/con-man/ladiesman/hand model. The title character, Verdoux, goes around France in the late 1920s marrying women, killing them, then running off with all their money. This movie was interesting due to some of the changes that Chaplin made in his style in 1947, but even more interesting because this movie was the reason why Chaplin was hated by Joe McCarthy.
The look and feel of this movie is unlike any Chaplin movie that I have seen before. The script was writen by Orson Wells, but Chaplin bought the script from Wells. Not that much of Chaplin's physical comedey is in this movie. Most os the humor comes from when Verdoux implies that he is about to kill someone. for instance, one of his wives kept nagging him about locking the doors before they went up to bed. Verdoux said to her "I took extra care this time." Another aspect that made this movie different was the sound. In this movie, the sounds of footsteps and doors closing could be heard. there were none of those creepy gaps in the sound like in the Great Dictator. Charlie Chaplin also changed his look after WWII. After WWII people named Adolf started to go by "Alfred" and Chaplin got rid of the mustach that made him look like Hitler. I did not recognize him in this movie without the Hitler-stach or any of the falling down all the time. I do not think that anyone would think this was a Chaplin film unless Wikipedia and Netflix told them so.
I do not know how McCarthy knew this was a Chaplin movie. It is not like he had Netflix or Wikipedia (Al Gore did not invent those things yet). Joe McCarthy blacklisted Chaplin for making this movie. At the end, Verdoux is captured and can not escape without breaking the Haze code. Under the Haze code, people who engage in acts of sex or violence in movies can not live happily ever after(ie they are "badguys"), unless they are disposing the "badguys." Verdoux killed a bunch of people, so he was a "badguy" and had to be brought to justice. As Verdoux is on trial, he makes a speach comparing himself to capitalists and arms dealers. This speach condemned "Merchants of Death" (arms dealers that got the US into WWI) and most capitalists. He called them murderers on a larger scale for making bombs that kill people. Shortly after we find out that Verdoux is a commie, he makes his walk to the gillotine.
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2 comments:
Very good post Ted. I still don't get why Chaplain was blacklisted by McCarthy for making this film. After all, the commie died in the end right? Does depicting the death of commies make Chaplain communistic? Anyway Chaplain got the right idea with murder plots -- if you're going to kill someone, do it with a smile on your face and light music in the background. :)
I liked the movie and great blog! Though sometimes the movie would get a little boring because there wasn't enough excitement. Also I thought that the plot of the movie was kind a flat because its all about a guy secretly killing women. Though at the end of the movie he final gets arrested and then executed.
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