Konterr Brilliant and touching

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Rexanne It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

grantss France, early 1930s. After working for 30 years at a bank, Henri Verdoux is laid off. The world is in the middle of a depression and work is hard to find. To support his wife and child, Verdoux takes to a life of crime - marrying rich women, murdering them and taking their money. After a while the police start to piece the puzzle together...A dark comedy-drama from the great Charlie Chaplin. Not a laugh-a- minute, unlike his best works, and a bit uneven. The first hour is quite dry and contains very few laughs. In addition, the drama is slow- paced and the movie doesn't seem headed for much. However, things pick up considerably in the second half with some hilarious scenes and some interesting dramatic themes developing.The main reason for the better second half is the performance of comedienne Martha Raye, who plays one of his wives. Wonderfully over the top, she provides most of the best comedic moments and breathes life into what was otherwise a fairly stuffy, play-like affair.

Ross622 "Monsieur Verdoux" is unlike any other Chaplin film that I have ever seen before for two reasons only, reason 1 the story is much different than Chaplin's stories to his other films for example The Kid (1921),and The Gold Rush (1925), reason 2 because Chaplin doesn't usually play villains in his movies and in this movie he does play the bad guy for the first time ever in his career and as a result he was deliberately snubbed for a best leading actor Oscar as well as an Oscar for best director but only got a screenplay nomination. The movie tells the story of a killer named Henri Verdoux (played by Charlie Chaplin) who murders women in order to support his wife and son (that is a true idea for Orson Welles to give to other filmmakers that were working around the time he started working in Hollywood), this movie is not only one of the best movies of 1947 it is one of Chaplin's best movies period alongside The Kid and the gold rush.

Sergeant_Tibbs Although Limelight is the only Chaplin film that I consider a top favourite, as a director he has a solid position in my top 10. His wisdom and wit are always wonderfully integrated into his brilliant simple storytelling. Here in Monsieur Verdoux, it's perhaps his oddest film. It's a great idea for a contradiction, who's the last person you'd expect to play a serial killer? Chaplin himself. His own face is a mask of an innocent and he's instantly a fascinating character. This might be one of the earliest cases of an anti-hero I've seen as Verdoux is very nonchalant about his immoral actions. There's an odd tone about the film. Whilst in the same style as Chaplin's previous lighter films, its script is pitch black and cynical. It's a shame that the movie plods along with a relatively slow pace and not much momentum as its moments of satire and slapstick are hilarious, if rarely as over-the-top as his Tramp outputs. This is a truly black comedy and that makes it a challenge to decipher how you feel about it. It's a film about how desperate people will reach for desperate measures and the hypocrisy in the punishment system. It critiques those in power who are nonchalant about their own immoral actions who don't face the same punishment. It's an interesting idea, but one I wish was more fleshed out. Wickedly entertaining film either way.8/10

gudpaljoey-677-715384 I saw this film as a child and found it amusing. I watched it last night on TCM, and was happy that I was no longer a child. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this picture seems to condemn the traditional moral structure of our civilization. It justifies the murder of innocent women by a spurious comparison with the murder of innocent people that result in war between states. Gulp. The makers of this film are positing the idea that everybody's doing it so it must be alright. Everyone has a right to amorality or even immorality, but they shouldn't expect murder of any sort to be acceptable behavior that should go unpunished by society.