"It is a masterpiece. See it."
– Andrew Sarris
Click here to read full review


There are few comedies as resoundingly defiant. Monsieur Verdoux is the spirit of modernity taken to its darkest extreme. It may be immortal."
– Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

"[A] deeply fascinating statement by the greatest star the movies ever produced."
– J. Hoberman
Click here to read J. Hoberman's piece
in The New York Times

"A pioneering black comedy...
A turning point for Chaplin as an artist.
If you haven't seen Monsieur Verdoux yet, it's about time."
– Stephen Whitty, The Star-Ledger
Click here to read full review

"One of the few indispensable works of our time!"
– James Agee

“One of the great films... Remains a masterpiece, unlike anything before or since.”
– Richard Roud

“True film fans should see the amazing and engrossing transition the supreme comic artist here makes... An audacious picture, in which Mr. Chaplin reveals an anguished soul. You shouldn't miss!”
– Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

"The apex of Chaplin's subversive humor... a daring move for today, and one unfathomable back in 1947. Verdoux transcends its original context and begs to speak to contemporary viewers."
– Cullen Gallagher, L magazine
Click here to read full review

(1947) “Chaplin’s changed. Have you?” (re-release tagline) Suddenly, the screen’s most beloved character changed: gone were the Tramp’s canal boat shoes, shabby genteel attire, the black curly hair, the oft-tipped derby, the twirling cane, the mustache square, the melancholy, shy-around-women vagabond. Now he’s a fastidious, elegantly attired seeming commercial traveler who’s obviously a devil with the ladies; but who, in fact, supports a family by marrying multiple women and then despatching them for their money. Based on an idea suggested by Orson Welles, himself inspired by the real-life serial killer Landru, Chaplin’s “Comedy of Murders” — its original title — ranges in mood from Hitchcockian suspense to knock-down, drag-out farce, especially with outrageously vulgar nouveau riche lottery winner and impossible-to-whack Martha Raye, in a scene-stealing performance as “the most vulgar woman ever created, chattering away with her mouth full of croissant and laughing not like one drain but ten” (Geoff Brown) — a takeoff on An American Tragedy’s drowning turns into a Chaplinian dunking. A theme and character of remarkable complexity, which garnered reviews ranging from personal attacks on the supposed Communist sympathizer, to measured judgments on character and plot inconsistencies, to James Agee’s impassioned three-part counterblast to the critics in The Nation. “Only Chaplin would have had the audacity to find material for a moral fable in himself, in the stock market crash, in the depression, as well as in the rise of Mussolini and Hitler and the beginnings of World War II.” – Vincent Canby, New York Times. “Among the great works of this century. . . Chaplin’s performance is the best piece of playing I have seen: [with a] dozen or so close-ups each like the notes of a slow, magnificent, and terrifying song, which the rest of the film serves as an accompaniment. Chaplin’s theme, the greatest that he has yet undertaken, is the bare problem of surviving at all in such a world as this.” – James Agee. Approx. 123 min.
A FILM DESK RELEASE.