A sobering thought occurred to me while rewatching Charles Chaplin’s once-controversial comedy “Monsieur Verdoux”: “Juno” and Judd Apatow’s crudely terrific movies notwithstanding, I hadn’t seen a comedy this good, this trenchantly intelligent, this unabashedly entertaining in, well, a long, long time.
Eventually embraced as a classic, the 1947 comedy that virtually ended Chaplin’s American film career is proving itself yet again, thanks to the circulation of a new 35-millimeter print.
This deliciously dark comedy — about a Parisian dandy (Chaplin) who marries wealthy doyennes and murders them for insurance money — is arguably funnier today than it was 61 years ago, when it was a critical and commercial disaster.
Chaplin’s silent-comedy chops are on glorious display (as when Verdoux counts stacks of money with nimble- fingered velocity), but this is the high-pitched talking Chaplin whom many once-loving fans couldn’t warm up to, so they missed the qualities that still work like magic: the brisk, literate dialogue (written by Chaplin from an idea by Orson Welles), flawless execution of sophisticated sight gags and, most pointedly, the lacerating social criticism (hardly subtle, yet eternally relevant) that observes how a laid-off bank clerk like Verdoux is readily punished while the institutionalized murder of war is perpetually justified. (“As a mass killer,” says Verdoux, “I am an amateur by comparison.”)
Perfection? Arguably not. “Verdoux” has clunky moments and some flat casting, but with an able assist from the great comedian Martha Raye, Chaplin’s latter-day greatness is readily apparent.
“Monsieur Verdoux”
Not rated. Suitable for general audiences. 1 hour, 23 minutes. Written and directed by Charles Chaplin (this is a talkie made in 1947); starring Charles Chaplin, Martha Raye, Mady Correll. Opens today at Starz FilmCenter.
