Chaplin and Henri Landru: Planting the seeds for Monsieur Verdoux
It amuses me that many critics want to instantly
focus on the fact that Charlie's 1947 film,
Monsieur Verdoux seemed to be the
perfect vehicle for him at that time, given
his lifelong struggle with women and especially
his most recent experience in the American
legal system with Joan Barry-to include
two court cases and several years of stress
and character assassination. So, naturally,
they say, Chaplin would love doing a film
in which he could, fictionally anyway, do
away with one or more of those women. It
had to have been cathartic. Unfortunately,
these critics have missed the point entirely.
It was not the killing of women
that would have attracted Charlie to this
particular story, but the story of the criminal
himself. Charlie was a lifelong admirer
of what we now call "true crime" stories,
as well as their real-life counterparts.
Monsieur Verdoux simply allowed him
to live out one of these stories on film.
 Charlie's
affection for the crime story manifested
itself mainly in two ways. First, of course,
it made him a fan of the true crime rag.
As Charlie Jr. tells us in his book, My
Father Charlie Chaplin, Charlie had two
beds in his bedroom in the Summit Drive
house in Beverly Hills. Charlie, Jr. writes
that "my father usually slept in the far
bed, the one by the windows. I recall
the pulp detective magazines that were
always stacked by the bed. My father might
read Spengler and Schopenhauer and Kant
for edification, but for sheer relaxation
he chose murder mysteries" (71).
Second, and well before this incident
(before the Summit Drive house existed)
was Charlie's interest in prisons-visiting
them, talking to prisoners, that sort
of thing. It's hard to put a date on
the start of this particular interest
or to point to a specific catalyst.
Charles Dickens, perhaps, might be a
likely source, since he wrote quite
a lot about his own visits of houses
of incarceration, such as Newgate prison
in London-even making a point of visiting
prisons on his two tours to the United
States (see American Notes). However
he got the idea, the fact is that Charlie
engaged in this occupation frequently.
He visited Sing-Sing prison in Ossining,
New York for the first time in 1921,
just after the onset of his first trip
back to England since the start of his
fame in the States. He recounts the
experience a bit for us in My Trip Abroad,
but it is perhaps the account of his
guide, Frank Harris, in an article in
Pearson's Weekly that is more interesting.
Harris relates, for instance, that upon
leaving the visitors' room,
Read Chaplin Coincidences - Part I: Sadakichi Hartmann and The Last Thirty Days of Christ
Read Chaplin Coincidences - Part III: LIMELIGHT and the Hollywood Ballet Fad |
