Monsieur Verdoux's Birthday
On April 11, 1947, Charles Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux" premiered in New York.
It is difficult to say with 100 percent certainty who was the author of the script for this film. Orson Welles claimed that he allegedly wrote the script and invited Charlie Chaplin to play a major role in it. But, allegedly, Chaplin himself wanted to act as a director. Welles could not agree with this, because, in his opinion, "as an actor Chaplin was a genius, and as a director - so-so." (In other words, not equal to Welles himself.) And then, allegedly, Chaplin simply took over the script.
Chaplin presented this story differently. According to him, Wells had no script, but only the idea of making several documentary film sketches (what is called "reconstruction" today) about the adventures of the famous wife-killer Landru, the real French Bluebeard. And Chaplin, indeed, was offered the role of this Landru in these reconstructions.
Chaplin did not like the proposal which he evaluated as too small for him. He decided to make a feature film. And for the idea, he, by mutual agreement, paid Welles five thousand dollars (today it is about 60 thousand dollars). Judging by the fact that Welles’s name appears in the credits of the film as the author of the idea, and there is no information about any legal claims against Chaplin by Welles, everything was exactly as Chaplin described.
However, who could understand them, these great ones? But anyway, the next Charlie Chaplin's cinema masterpiece was born as a result. On April 14, 1947, the premiere of this film in New York. But! To say that the audience took the film coldly is to say nothing. Demonstrations of the film were accompanied by pickets, protests. In some states, local censorship committees simply banned the film. Catholic organizations demanded to send Chaplin out of the country.
Some positive reviews of film critics were extremely rare, because under the current conditions they required a certain civil courage and did not promise any material benefit. As noted by contemporary American filmmaker Alfred Eaker
"James Agee, Kenneth Anger, and Bosley Crowther were among scant few notables who went against the tide and sang the film’s praises, declaring it a masterpiece."
What to say, if even Roger Ebert and even much later, in the early 70s, dared only casually, in a review of another Chaplin’s masterpiece, to mention “Monsieur Verdoux” and just - as an example of the failure of the great Master from critics. In short, soon after the premiere of the film it's demonstration on screens of the USA was stopped. For long 17 years.
Taking all these circumstances into account, we can understand why the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences dared to nominate a masterpiece of Charles Chaplin in only one category - for the best screenplay. But only to nominate: an Oscar in this nomination was awarded to Sidney Sheldon for the script for the film "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer". Good movie? Honestly, I have never heard of it before.
However, it is impossible to speak about the failure of the film, since at the same time in Europe, especially in France, the film was very successful. And in Denmark, the film received the prestigious Bodil Award for Best American Film.
The famous French film critic Jacques Lourcelles wrote in his review of Chaplin’s film:
"Monsieur Verdoux" is filled with brilliant black humor, close to caricature, culminating ... Of course, "Monsieur Verdoux" is primarily committed to be a bloody attraction. And yet, the inescapable Chaplin the tendency to humanity manifests itself even here, like a faint glow that rises from the depths in the middle of an ocean of cynicism and ridicule."
Already in the 21st century, one of the most famous and prolific American film critics (author of reviews of 10 thousand films over 17 years), Dennis Schwartz noted:
“Monsieur Verdoux remains an unusually provocative satirical black comedy that’s subversive and gives one a greater sense of Chaplin’s political breadth from his previous work. (meaning "The Great Dictator" - FG)».
What is the reason for such an ambiguous perception of the same film masterpiece in different countries? As many people know, shortly before the release of the film, Winston Churchill, who was in the United States, announced the "Iron Curtain" and thereby laid the foundation for the "cold war". And almost on the eve of the film’s premiere, US President Harry Truman, speaking in the US Congress, formulated the US foreign policy program (“Truman Doctrine”), according to which the United States should support everyone who opposes aggressive attempts by totalitarian regimes. In the USSR, this doctrine was described as an overt program of building a unipolar world and containing the USSR.
Charlie Chaplin, in the opinion of the American establishment, represented pro-communist forces sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Many in America could not forgive Chaplin for the fact that since 1942 the great actor and director had been actively campaigning for the opening of the Second Front in order to provide real assistance to the Soviet Union in its fight against the Nazi plague. Many senators and congressmen were ready to support the aforementioned demands of some radical Catholic organizations to expel Chaplin from the country. And only the fear that they might turn out to be the characters of the next satirical cinema masterpiece of the great Master kept them from making the corresponding official decision. However, five years later, the American establishment realized its dream and tricked Charlie Chaplin out of the country - the "stronghold of democracy."
17 years after the first premiere, in 1964, after the end of the "McCarthyism era", Charlie Chaplin's film was again released on the screens of American cinemas. The review, published in The New York Times the day after the second premiere, outlines the main idea of the film, which is far from clear to everyone at first sight: "This is that the individual murderer — “the small businessman in murder,” as the protagonist says — is regarded as a criminal, but the big businessman, the munitions manufacturer, and the professional soldiers who contribute to murder on a mass scale are given great honors and monetary rewards".- Charles Chaplin in ‘Monsieur Verdoux’ Returns for First Time Since '47 - The New York Times, July 4, 1964 It is very characteristic that, despite the "freedom of the press", the author of this review did not dare to publish his name.
However, despite all the sympathies of Charles Chaplin for the Soviet Union, the film was not shown in the USSR. Apparently, the conclusion of the protagonist "Kill one - and you are a killer. Kill millions - and you are a hero" could not please the communist leaders.
But despite all the problems that accompanied the rental of the film in different countries, film viewers rated the film very highly. 69% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users worldwide rated the film 8 or higher.Thanks to this indicator and the above, the rating of Charles Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux" according to FilmGourmand is 8.186, thanks to which the film takes 498th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
