Monsieur Verdoux (1947), an American Black comedy, depicted by Charles Chaplin as the cleverest and most brilliant film of his career, is the story of a happily married father and former bank clerk who romanced to marry rich widows and spinsters and then killed them for their fortunes. The film, directed by Chaplin and himself appearing as the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru, nicknamed the Bluebeard of Gambais, who murdered at least seven women in the village of Gambais in France between December 1915 and January 1919 and justified his crimes, was an utter failure commercially upon its release. Moreover, Chaplin's popularity and public image was damaged as he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee to testify about his relations with the Communists.
Eventually, when Chaplin strongly denied the allegation and confirmed that he is not a communist and he is rather a peace monger, the chairman of the committee cancelled his proposed appearance, but barred him to be a part of publicity for the film.
In addition to that, Chaplin was deeply shocked by the generally unenthusiastic response at the premiere and by the attitude of the hostile journalists, who not only declined to discuss the film, but also insisted on asking him questions about his political sympathies, patriotism, tax affairs and his refusal to adopt American citizenship. Subsequently, the right-wing extremists also organised hostile pickets at cinema halls showing the film, even forced United Artists temporarily to withdraw it from circulation.
This was the beginning of Chaplin’s last and unhappiest period in the United States, which acted as a catalyst to take his decision to finally leave the country in 1952.
Originally, it was the ides of Orson Welles, best known for writing, directing and starring in the classic American film drama Citizen Kane (1941), to make a dramatised documentary on the infamous French murder Henri Désiré Landru, who was executed in 1922, for having murdered at least ten women, two dogs and one boy and wished to cast Chaplin in the leading character. Although Chaplin initially agreed, later he backed out as he did not like the idea of acting for another director.
However, later he offered to buy the script from him and accordingly paid Welles $5000 for it, with the written agreement that the film would carry the credit, Based on an idea by Orson Welles. Unfortunately, in later years Welles claimed that he had himself written a script for the film, which is unlikely, as the written agreement between the two makes no mention of it. Nevertheless, although the agreement was signed in 1941, Chaplin took four more years to complete the script, as by that time he was very much distracted by the much-publicised and ugly paternity suit filed by Oona O’Neill.
Monsieur Verdoux (1947) is the story of Henri Verdoux, an honest French bank clerk until the stock market crash of 1930, who turns to the business of marrying and murdering wealthy widows and spinsters to support his wheelchair-bound wife, Mona and their son. It all started with the worrying Couvais family, wine merchants somewhere in the North of France, who became anxious due to the three-months-long absence of Thelma, who married a man named Varnay, only after a two-week courtship and emptied her bank account, before proceeding for their supposedly honeymoon. The family knew Varnay only through a photograph and desperate to know the whereabouts of Thelma, they decided to take the man’s picture to the police, if she does not return in the next couple of days. However, by that time, in a villa in the south of France, Varnay alias Henri Verdoux, has burned Thelma's body in his incinerator, withdrawn sixty thousand dollars from her bank account, telephoned his stockbroker about investing the money and was trying to sell the villa, when a wealthy widow named Marie Grosnay, a wealthy Parisian widow, interested in buying the villa, came to inspect the villa. However, intending to make another business opportunity Henry immediately attempts to charm her, but frightened by his abrupt romantic overtures, Marie left the villa in a panic.
Verdoux adopted a variety of aliases to access his various wives and when he was informed by his stockbroker that he needs fifty thousand francs to invest by the morning, he visited one of his wives, Lydia Floray as M Floray, telling her that he had been building bridges in Indochina, but was forced to return to France because of a growing financial crisis which would cause a run on the local banks. He also convinced Lydia to withdraw all of her savings from the bank and then killed her that night after grabbing her money. The next day, Henri returned home to meet his first wife Mona, whom he loves and their devoted son Peter and then, took a train to Lyon the following day to see his impressionable loud mouth wife Annabella Bonheur, who had won the lottery and believed him to be a sea captain named Louis Bonheur. However, although Verdoux made several attempts to murder Annabella Bonheur, including by strangulation while boating and by contaminating her drink with a poison, developed by a chemist to exterminate animals painlessly, each time she curiously escaped death, without knowing of his cynical intentions, while putting Verdoux himself in danger or near death. Finally, he ransacked her room to find her money and left again for Paris.
Meanwhile, Henri had arranged for flowers to be sent to Marie Grosnay twice a week for a two-week period, which eventually softened her and she invited him to her residence. Henri Verdoux took the opportunity and convinced her to marry him, when Grosnay's friends arranged for a large public wedding, despite Verdoux's disapproval. However, as Annabella Bonheur unexpectedly showed up to the wedding as someone's guest, he panicked, immediately faked a cramp to avoid being seen and eventually deserted the wedding.
However, before Annabella, Henri Verdoux tried to use the poison on a beautiful Belgian refugee, just released from prison, taking shelter from the rain in a doorway as she had nowhere to go. Verdoux offered her shelter and prepared dinner for her, before offering her wine mixed with the poison. But the story of her life, about her helpless invalid husband, his death while she was imprisoned, which made her more devoted to him, influenced Verdoux to change his mind and he replaced the poisoned wine on the pretext of contamination and she thanked him for hospitality before she left. Now, years later, that girl, now well-dressed and chic, married to a wealthy munition executive, once again found Verdoux on a street corner in Paris and invited him to an elegant dinner at a high-end restaurant as a gesture of gratitude for his help when she was in distress. While dinning with her at the top of the Eiffel Tower, he told her that by this time, he had lost all his money, his family, even his will to live. During that time, members of the Couvais family, who were present at the restaurant, recognised Verdoux and attempted a pursuit and finally Henri was arrested. When Verdoux was sentenced in the courtroom, he took the opportunity to state that the world encourages mass killers, the makers of modern weapons, but in comparison to them, he is only an amateur. Later, before being led from his cell to the guillotine, he said to a journalist that the killing of a few, for which he has been condemned, is not worse than the killing of thousands in the wars, for which others are honoured.
Chaplin used the story of Monsieur Verdoux to make a satirical comparison between private and public murder, and condemn those profiting and encouraging the mass killing ramping up in Europe in the 1930s. While admitting his guilt, he laments that he is to pay for his crimes as a murderous businessman, while war mongers earn acclaim and massive wealth. But his murders were committed out of love, love for his wife and his son, and he strongly tried to justify his cold-blooded murders as mercifully ending the pain and suffering of the women, who feel isolated and abandoned to find love in the world. Despite its poor commercial performance, the film was nominated for the 1947 Academy Award for Best original Screenplay and also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Film. In addition, based on a poll of critics, Monsieur Verdoux ranked at 112 in the top 250 Best Films of the Century list of The Village Voice, an American news and culture paper, in 1999, and was voted at 63 on the list of 100 Greatest Films by the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma in 2008.