It's a fascinating film about a jobless banker, who romanticizes women only to grift them for their money and then kill them. Rumor has it that Orson Welles initially wrote the film and approached Charlie Chaplin to play the lead role.
Chaplin balked at the idea. Either he didn't want to be directed or the film wasn't completely written and didn't want to mess with an unfinished project. Either way, he bought the script from Welles and made his own money, giving Welles credit only for the idea.
It's a new world for Chaplin, who actually talks and doesn't take on his "Tramp" character that made him a highly recognizable movie star the previous 20 years. It's Chaplin like he's hardly been seen before.
The film did poorly bombing in the United States mostly due to the timing of its release (amid the tumult of World War II) and his extremely dark theme of casually murdering women, not thinking it murder because it was done for money and saying a few dead women was better than war.
Verdoux is based on the real-life Henri Désiré Landru. He killed 10 women after putting an ad in the looney-hearts section of the newspaper. He also killed one of the women's sons. He, like Verdoux, was caught when a victim's sister came snooping around and was executed.
I'm sure it wasn't nearly as funny as the film, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment