Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

Vasquez argues that the film remains urgent and essential, with its bleak humor still strikingly contemporary. He praises Chaplin’s blending of comic inventiveness with a blackly poetic critique of capitalism and moral confusion.

Murray finds the film an assured blend of suspense and pitch-black comedy, with a sharp argument about society’s moral contradictions. He especially praises the scenes with Martha Raye, whose character gives Chaplin’s visual-gag skills room to shine.

Hutchinson calls it Chaplin’s greatest later sound film and praises its chilling black comedy. He singles out the final speech for linking the killer’s actions to those of major political powers.

The review considers Chaplin’s film a work of real greatness, though its dark comedy is not always laugh-out-loud funny. It praises the carefully choreographed gags, especially Martha Raye’s repeated failures to die.

Brody presents the film as an elaborate, sharply subversive work that dismantles Chaplin’s familiar screen persona. He singles out the elegant irony linking Verdoux’s refined manners and murderous ruthlessness to Chaplin’s attack on hypocritical morality.

The accessible page confirms this is a review but does not reveal the critic’s verdict. Its metadata describes Chaplin’s film as a self-styled “comedy of murders” about a man who marries wealthy women.

The review finds the comedy’s fundamentals unsound and says Chaplin generates little sympathy. It singles out Chaplin’s score as above par, while criticizing the direction as occasionally disjointed.