![[box cover]](../../reviewimgs/m/monsieurverdoux.jpg)
Monsieur Verdoux: The Chaplin Collection
Charlie Chaplin's mordant satire from 1947 flopped both
critically and commercially, and it sure proved that he had put his Little
Tramp character to rest for good. Chaplin plays Henri Verdoux, a dandified
Parisian bank clerk who loses his career in the Great Depression. Verdoux
devises another means to care for his dear wheelchair-bound wife and the
young son he loves — he woos rich widows in other cities, marries them,
then murders them for their money. Chaplin used Monsieur Verdoux's
climax to indict the corrupted ethics and power politics of bourgeois
society, a move that brought the full force of the Cold War red-baiters, who
were already gunning for him, down on his head. It's a film that's more
famous for what it spurred publicly than for its inherent merits as
filmmaking (which admittedly are few). But the DVD, part of The Chaplin
Collection from MK2 and Warner Bros., is first-rate. The print is excellent
and the supplements really load on the sociology surrounding Chaplin's first
all-out failure. Dual-DVD keep-case in paperboard sleeve.
—Mark Bourne
