Monsieur Verdoux (1947) on Netflix
Passed19472h 4mComedyCrimeDrama
Laid off after thirty years as a bank teller, Henri Verdoux supports his wife and child by marrying wealthy widows and killing them for their money. Two of the widows prove difficult.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.8/1020,810 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
The bank where Henri Verdoux worked for thirty years has let him go, and work is hard to find during the depression. To support his wife Mona and their son Peter, he marries wealthy widows under assumed names, kills them and lives on their money, keeping several marriages going at once. The Couvais family grow suspicious when Thelma Couvais empties her bank account and vanishes two weeks into her marriage to a man called Varnay, whom they know only from a photograph. Verdoux courts Marie Grosnay, who refuses him, and a flower girl sends her flowers again and again at his request. Annabella Bonheur takes him for her husband Bonheur, a sea captain who is often away from home.
Cast
- Margaret Hoffmanas Lydia Floray
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Orson Welles wanted Charlie Chaplin to play a character based on the French murderer Henri Landru in a film Welles was developing. Chaplin agreed, then backed out at the last minute, not wanting to act for another director.
- After dropping out of Welles's Landru project, Chaplin decided Landru's story would make a good comedy and paid Welles $5,000 to "clear everything"; Welles accepted in exchange for a "story by" screen credit.
- In New Jersey, Catholic War Veterans picketed the film with placards calling for Charlie Chaplin to be deported; in Denver, American Legion protests stopped it being shown, and a Memphis censorship board banned it outright.
- Monsieur Verdoux was the first feature in which Chaplin's character bore no resemblance to his famous "Tramp"; even The Great Dictator's Jewish barber had some similarity.
- In 1948 a Parisian bank employee named Verdoux brought an unsuccessful suit against Chaplin, alleging that his coworkers had mocked him for his name during the period of the film's advertisement.
