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Post by solgroupie on Aug 27, 2010 14:07:32 GMT -5
1947the story of monsieur verdoux begins with the couvais family at their home somewhere in france. tensions are high within the family over one of their own - a sister who recklessly married a man she had only known for a very brief amount of time. they have not heard from her in a long time and her sisters are beginning to worry that something could have happened to her. the family bickers over the possibility that her new husband might have something to so with her mysterious absence, adding how suspicious it was that the new husband talked her into letting him take over her finances. after another letter they sent to the missing sister is returned, they decide they will contact the police soon. curiously, they stare at the picture they have of the new husband. chaplin, in monsieur verdouxwe then see the husband, monsieur verdoux (but as his alias, monsieur varnay) busy in his small villa's garden. as he works, he makes a point to carefully remove a caterpillar from the path so he will not accidentally kill him. as he does this, you can see thick black smoke rising from the incinerator. two servants comment on how it has been burning for two days, non stop. chaplin takes advantage of sound by using a gag with verdoux taking a few minutes to furiously play the piano. he stops when he hears a knocking sound that he presumes is coming from the piano, but realizes that it is someone knocking at the door. immediately, his jovial mood is replaced by tense suspicion. but it is only a maid he requested to begin working on packing up everything in the villa. he puts her to work at once. another knock on the door produces a delivery man with a certified letter for the lady of the house. since verdoux is not allowed to sign for it, he runs up the stairs and loudly tells his "wife" that she must sign for the delivery, making the postman believe she is taking a bath and cannot come downstairs. verdoux signs for it himself and returns it to the waiting postman, who is satisfied. it is money that once belonged to verdoux's wife. he immediately gets on the phone with his bank and makes arrangements to buy stocks, lowering his voice to use his real name. yet another knock at the door introduces us to marie grosnay and her real estate agent, anxious to look at the villa, which is for sale. chaplin with isobel elsom and arthur hohlchaplin had considered using edna purviance for the role of marie grosnay. it wasn't a large part, but one that was important to the movie. chaplin and edna had not seen each other in twenty long years, though chaplin generously kept her on the payroll until he left the states with his family to live in switzerland. chaplin kept the reunion light, though they were both clearly emotional at seeing one another again. he said she read the part well, but in the end he decided not to use her. chaplin said her presence depressed him for he associated her with his early success and a more uncomplicated life. also, the role of madam grosnay required a "european sophistication, which edna never had." at any rate, he said he felt she was relieved at his decision. the good old daysas soon as verdoux sees madam grosnay, he automatically turns on the charm. he comes on strong, flattering her, but also alarming her a bit. he shows the pair around the villa, claiming he and his wife were very happy together there and only acknowledging the real estate's sympathy to her passing as an afterthought. when the agent takes a phone call, verdoux begins aggressively wooing the flustered madam grosnay and leaves with her indignant agent. verdoux seems almost indifferent after they leave. like - that one got away - oh well. chaplin with isobel elsommeanwhile, the couvais family visit the police department to inform them about their sister thelma, who has not contacted them since her hasty marriage to the man they believe is monsieur varnay (verdoux). unfortunately, they have little information to provide, and they don't even have the picture anymore, as it was accidentally burned. but a sister and brother to thelma say they would know the man if they ever saw him again. after they leave, the two detectives discuss the possibilities. one of them, a detective morrow, is convinced that the man the couvais family told them about is a bluebeard - a serial killer who marries women who have a little money or real estate and then kills them for it. the other detective tells him he better get a few facts before he goes public with his hunches. verdoux takes a train to paris. he is sitting in an outdoor cafe, watching the busy sidewalks. ever on the alert for a new wife, he spies an attractive woman sitting at a nearby table, wearing diamonds. taking an old gag from the gold rush, verdoux tips his hat and smiles at the woman, who appears to be smiling at him. but she beckons to a man behind verdoux, making his way to her table. verdoux gives that same oh well - maybe next one - shrug. two men approach verdoux as he is buying a flower from a pretty flower girl (you can't help but think of the blind girl from city lights). verdoux used to work with one of the men at the bank, and they exchange pleasantries. the man spies verdoux's fat bankroll and says verdoux must have made a killing in the stock market. verdoux hesitates with a slight laugh before he agrees and takes his leave. the man fills his friend in on verdoux's back story - how he had been a loyal employee at a bank for thirty years before he was laid off unexpectedly. chaplin in monsieur verdouxverdoux goes to his "business" he has in paris - a furniture and antique store that is joined with an apartment. he kindly gives a stray cat some leftover food from his lunch before going in. the phone rings and it is verdoux's broker, telling him if he doesn't send him fifty-thousand francs, he will be wiped out. sighing with annoyance, verdoux goes through his address book and looks up a wife. "ah, lydia," he says. with the time it will take him to get there, he realizes he will only have half an hour to get the money he needs, killing lydia in the process. he gets on the train. up next: the dark side of verdoux, his real family and meeting annabella chaplin with martha raye on the set of monsieur verdoux
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Post by solgroupie on Aug 30, 2010 13:43:58 GMT -5
monsieur verdoux, part IIverdoux rings the doorbell at the home of one of his wives, a stern looking woman named lydia. she is not happy to see him, as she has not heard from him in months. verdoux must try to appease her and convince her to withdraw all her money from the bank before it closes in thirty minutes. he goes into a speech about his "work" - as far as lydia knows, he was in indochina, building bridges. he tells her of difficulties they had with the design, which caused his extended stay. he rattles it off so quick and efficiently, you can tell it is a script he wrote and memorized for her benefit. however, lydia is unmoved by his explanation and she is not flattered by his affection. chaplin with margaret hoffman in monsieur verdouxverdoux tells her one of the reasons he had to come back was because of the financial crisis about to descend. he eyes the clock as he nonchalantly tells her there will be a run on every bank the next day. when lydia tells him every penny she has is in the bank, verdoux becomes panicked and urges her to take it all out before she loses it. flustered, lydia obeys and they leave for the bank, just in time. later, we see lydia moodily holding her safety deposit box as verdoux plays the piano, waiting for the perfect moment to murder her. she grumbles about how crazy it was to take all her money out and she should have her head examined, listening to his advice. smoothly, verdoux patronizes her concerns about locked doors and windows and escorts her upstairs. to every one of her questions, verdoux replies, "yes, my dear." in the schickel documentary, charlie: the life and art of charles chaplin, martin scoresese says of that yes, my dear - "he's like a snake, just coiling around her." verdoux pauses at a window in the hallway to gaze up at a full moon and recites a bit of poetry from john keats. when lydia crossly asks him what he is talking about, verdoux dreamily replies, "endymion, my dear. a beautiful youth possessed by the moon." lydia says, "well, forget him and get to bed." verdoux turns to the bedroom, knowing it is time to kill her and says, "yes, my dear." as he walks in, he recites more of keats works, ....our feet were soft in flowers.the music violently changes, but the viewer sees or hears nothing of lydia's murder. day comes and verdoux is busily going from room to room, making preparations. he stops to phone his broker, telling him he has the money and has "one or two more matters to clean up here." he takes lydia's money and counts it expertly like the banker he once was, and sets off. now we get a glimpse of verdoux's actual home and his real family. we meet his small son, peter and wife, mona, who is confined to a wheelchair. they are all happy to be together again, and mona is thrilled when verdoux presents to her the deed to their home as an anniversary present. mona is happy, but tells verdoux how worried she is about him - he seems so desperate. verdoux seems tense and dark as he is remembering his murders, telling mona these are desperate times. but he adds when the world seems grim and dark, he remembers another world - one with her and peter - "all he loves on this earth." chaplin with mady correll in monsieur verdouxwe see effectively verdoux can suppress and even forget his violent side as he scolds his son for pulling the cat's tail. he tells peter he has a cruel streak in him and he doesn't know where he gets it. while mona is reading about the depression in the newspaper, she comments on how fortunate they are the verdoux has a job. "yes," he says tonelessly. "i have a job. and if i lose it, i can always find another one." verdoux leaves his family the next day to another wife, annabella, who he married shortly after she won a lottery. annabella is loud, incredibly annoying and quite in love with her husband, "captain bonheur," a captain of a cargo ship, but she doesn't trust him yet with her money. she is partial to feather boas, flowery hats, drinking and loud, annoying laughter. it is hard for verdoux to be around her - his impatience to kill her and get her money is evident. while together, she brings up the time he tried to convince her the banks were going to fail and how she needed to take all her money out, and how that turned out to be wrong. she tells him she hid the money in the house and no one will find it, not even him. verdoux changes his plans to leave that night and decides to stay, which thrills annabella. chaplin with martha raye in monsieur verdouxthey go out and verdoux gets into an argument with a man annabella intends to give money to for some far-out venture involving making electricity out of the ocean. while they are out, verdoux slips into a pharmacy and buys some chloroform - you know, back when you could just do that. chaplin with martha raye in monsieur verdoux - i read that martha raye was intensely nervous about working with chaplin, so she did things no one else did - she called him "chuck" and once told the crew when they could dismiss for lunch before he did - but it worked - they ended up being good friendsbut his plans to kill annabella that evening fall apart because of the maid. annabella fired her, but agreed to let her come back and spend the night since she had nowhere else to go. verdoux realizes he will have to come back and try again when he can get rid of the maid. up next in monsieur verdoux, part III: verdoux heads back to paris to begin his seduction of madam grosnay.
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Post by solgroupie on Sept 15, 2010 14:45:40 GMT -5
monsieur verdoux III verdoux wastes no time in trying to seduce madam gronay, the widow he overwhelmed with his advances at the beginning of the movie, when she and her realtor came to see his late "wife's" villa. he arranges to run into her, seemingly by accident on the city streets of paris. madam gronay is clearly flustered to see verdoux again, and politely rejects his advances once again. determined, verdoux heads to a flower shop, where he makes a hefty order of flowers to be sent to her home every day for two weeks. chaplin with allison roddan who played the part of peter in monsieur verdouxback at home with his real family, verdoux discusses a poison that does not leave a trace in its victims with a pharmacist friend of his. they have just finished dinner and their post-dinner cozy chat turns a bit disturbing as verdoux easily imagines a plan to make millions with a scam involving the poison. mona seems surprised and quite taken aback at her husband's easy words of murder. verdoux laughs it off, but manages to scribble down a missing ingredient to the poisonous formula his friend unwittingly supplied. chaplin with robert lewis, plotting murder for fun in monsieur verdouxback at his apartment above his furniture store, verdoux mixes the appropriate ingredients to make the untraceable poison. after he corks the bottle containing the poison, he looks directly at the camera and announces: now for the experiment. it is his intention to find someone he can try the poison out on - someone who will not be traced back to him. the next scene finds verdoux walking down a dark street in the rain. he spots a lovely young girl standing alone in a doorway. he almost passes her, but then stops and remembers his plan and automatically smiles at her and asks if he might escort her anywhere with his umbrella.... of death! (he didn't really say that, that was mine) the girl gladly accepts. i love old hollywood, when you had to be jaded enough to spot a prostitute. the first time i ever saw waterloo bridge, i couldn't for the life of me figure out how everyone was supposed to know vivien leigh was a prostitute when no one actually came out and said it. i remember when she confessed it to her love's mother without saying anything - just a knowing look and suddenly the mother gasps in shock. i was like, duuuh... huh? chaplin and marilyn nash, who chaplin once described as "incredibly naive," in monsieur verdouxbut that is exactly what this young woman is doing to support herself since she was released from jail - arrested for trying to pawn a rented typewriter. verdoux takes her to his apartment, where they discuss this and the ups and downs of life. verdoux knows she is hungry, so he offers to fix her dinner. the girl is bewildered by verdoux's generosity, but accepts his offer not realizing he intends on serving her wine laced with the poison. he brings her scrambled eggs, toast and red wine. she begins to eat as he watches her, coldly, just hiding his nervousness. it is a tense scene without music - ah, how chaplin knew exactly when and when not to use music in his films! she picks up the glass, but then sits it down again, without drinking it. verdoux notices her schopenhauer book and asks what she thinks on his theories of suicide. the girl says it would not interest her. speaking almost in a hypnotic way, verdoux asks wouldn't she do it if she knew there would be no pain? "it's the approach of death that terrifies," verdoux says. the girl considers it and answers, "i wonder...i suppose if the unborn knew the approach of life, they'd be just as terrified." i love that bit of writing. the girl continues, saying that life is still wonderful and speaks of love, which makes verdoux turn colder. when the girl says, "you don't like women, do you?" verdoux says (and remember where chaplin was at this time in his life - his troubles) "on the contrary, i love women. but i don't admire them. they're of the earth, realistic. dominated by physical facts. once a woman betrays a man, she despises him. in spite of his goodness and position, she will give him up for someone inferior, that someone, we shall say, is more attractive?" the girl laughs and says, "how little you know about women." ...drink it...DRINK IT!!she then describes her late husband, who was an invalid. verdoux is struck dumb for a moment to learn this, and his coldness melts away as she talks of her love for her husband and how she would have killed for him. she reaches for the wine at last, but verdoux quickly takes the glass from her hand and tells her there is a bit of cork in the glass and will get her another one. he pours her a glass of poison free wine and as they toast together and drink, he cannot help but to laugh at the irony. he gives her a wad of bills before she leaves and she bursts into tears, for she was about to give up on life before his act of random kindness that has made her believe again. he almost pushes her out of his apartment, wanting to protect both of them. up next in part IV - madam gronay finally gives in
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Post by solgroupie on Sept 17, 2010 12:52:47 GMT -5
monsieur verdoux, IV despite mixing up poison and almost murdering young women, verdoux still has time to check in with the florist to see if there has been any word from madam gronay. the florist tells him no, no word as of yet, and verdoux leaves - unaware he is being followed by a man. it is detective morrow, the only one who is on to verdoux. the doorbell instantly alarms verdoux, who sees the man through a window. he lets him in graciously as detective morrow introduces himself and says he has a few questions for verdoux. verdoux asks the detective if he would care for a glass of wine ( heh heh heh...) but he refuses. verdoux pours a glass anyway, and sits it on the table. the detective asks verdoux if he has ever heard of a woman named thelma varnay. verdoux feigns ignorance and says no, he has never heard of her. the detective then asks about the recently murdered lydia. again, verdoux professes no knowledge of her, either. he admits he is married and has a child, but then goes blank when the detective asks about annabella. detective morrow laughs and basically tells verdoux the jig is up and he is on to what he has been up to. he tells verdoux that he has been shadowing him for weeks and plans to charge him with bigamy and fourteen counts of murder. it seems it’s all about to fall about for verdoux, until the detective slips up in two significant ways. first, he drinks the wine. second, he tells verdoux no one else knows what he knows. verdoux tells morrow they will never find the bodies, but morrow chuckles and tells him they will. verdoux then tells him if morrow will allow him to see his wife first, he will sign a full confession. detective morrow agrees and they leave for the train together. on the train, morrow becomes very sleepy and decides to take a nap after handcuffing he and verdoux together. seconds later he is a deep sleep, allowing verdoux to quickly and quietly find the key to release himself from the handcuffs and escape. in the next scene you see a headline in a newspaper, announcing the death of detective morrow, from what appears to have been a heart attack. verdoux smiles at his victory and as he is walking down a busy paris street, he runs into the girl he almost poisoned. she lets him know with a flip comment that she is still on hard times, and he pushes another wad of money into her hand, saying he can’t keep this up. she protests, honestly saying she wasn’t trying to get him to give her money again, but he insists that she keeps it and coldly walks away from her. she watches him go, hurt and puzzled. verdoux mixes up some more poison and goes to annabella, determined this time to kill her. she is overjoyed to see him again and excitedly agrees when he suggests they let the maid go for the night and have supper alone. now, verdoux has put the poison in a bottle marked as peroxide. as annabella prepares dinner for them in the kitchen, he takes it into the bathroom, but realizes he needs a corkscrew if he is going to pour some of the poison into a bottle of wine for annabella. as he is searching for one downstairs, the maid goes into the bathroom, looking for peroxide to finish bleaching her hair. she finds the fake bottle verdoux left behind and pours what she thinks is peroxide in a bowl for her hair. but then she accidentally drops the bottle and it shatters on the floor. she quickly takes another bottle from the medicine cabinet and sits it where verdoux left his bottle - cleans up the broken remains of the poison and returns to her room. chaplin with martha raye in monsieur verdouxverdoux returns with a bottle of wine, which he opens and pours what he thinks is poison in, but is actually peroxide. but of course, it does nothing to annabella. much like the night he attempted to poison the young girl, verdoux coldly watches annabella go through almost the entire bottle of wine, waiting for her to die. he sips sarsparilla, which disgusts annabella. as she clumsily sits on his lap, she accidentally turns the lazy susan around so that her glass of wine is what verdoux picks up to drink, thinking it is his sarsparilla. when she takes a sip of his drink, she makes a face and claims he is drinking her wine. when verdoux realizes it is true - well, it is one of my favorite scenes in the movie. he completely freaks out. meanwhile, the maid has used the poison on her hair in her room and is also freaking out as it begins to come out in handfuls. verdoux’s panic increases once the maid comes into the room with half of her hair missing. the doctor is summoned, and he tells annabella that her husband should be fine since they pumped his stomach. he recommends she take him to the country to rest. verdoux, furious that he has failed again at attempting to murder annabella, lethargically agrees. the next scene is one of the best in monsieur verdoux. it reminds us of how funny chaplin is and how well he worked with martha raye. they are in a small rowboat. verdoux rows them out into a large lake, where annabella excitedly takes in the scenery and talks of how they should go fishing. she gets so excited when she sees a fish she nearly capsizes the boat. verdoux is beginning to lose his patience with her as she snaps at him to give her a fishing pole to use. as she holds the pole, constantly talking, verdoux takes his handkerchief and soaks it with chloroform. but when annabella gets too excited again, she causes him to fall backward and drop the handkerchief on his own face, nearly knocking him out. then he decides to try and strangle her with a noose. he quietly stands up with it and when annabella asks him what he intends to do with the noose, verdoux replies, "lasso him," meaning the fish. annabella scoffs, but verdoux insists it can be done and will show her - slipping the noose around her neck. before he can proceed, they hear something in the distance. it is yodelers. one, then many. as they all chorus together, ruining his latest attempt to murder annabella, verdoux finally gives up for the time being, announcing he is going back to his ship. to add insult to injury, thanks to annabella’s jerky movements, she causes him to fall into the water. up next: wedding bells for verdoux in part V of monsieur verdoux
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Post by solgroupie on Sept 30, 2010 9:30:42 GMT -5
monsieur verdoux, part V meanwhile, while madam gronay is having tea with her friend, yvonne, more flowers arrive from verdoux. gronay tells her friend about him, and yvonne thinks he sounds like a catch and madam gronay should give him a chance. she suggests to her friend that she contact the flower shop to find out how to reach him. just as verdoux visits the flower shop to order more flowers, he finds a letter waiting for him from madam gronay. he uses the florist’s phone to call her and lays some super heavy sweet talk on her to get an invitation to her home right away. as he compares her to distant stars and "wonders who she is in the dark," the florist gets quite flustered. i always thought the girl who played the florist was so beautiful - surely she was handpicked by chaplin for the scene. verdoux rushes into madam gronay’s home, ready to seduce - he first mistakes the maid for his target, then yvonne. when he finally is alone with his latest conquest, he pours it on thick and it must work, for the next thing you know the couple is about to be married. this is another very funny scene in monsieur verdoux. naturally, verdoux is not thrilled to have a big wedding; there is too much at stake for him to be recognized. yvonne apologizes to him, but still she tries to introduce him to everyone in sight. one great bit of casting here is the part of jean la salle, yvonne’s husband, played by william frawley. he tries to calm verdoux’s nerves, but all is lost once verdoux hears a woman’s laugh - very loud, very distinct and very annoying. once he realizes annabella is at the wedding, he darts into a greenhouse to hide. he will not leave, despite the combined efforts of yvonne and her husband - who later teams up with annabella herself to try and find the nervous bridegroom. verdoux just barely escapes with his secret identity - but it costs him a new wealthy wife. as he’s making a run for it, he spots his bride, ready to begin the ceremony. "beloved! see you later!" he calls, before jumping a fence and fleeing. william frawley, who played jean la salle in monsieur verdouxit has been said that though chaplin did not use edna purviance for the role of madam gronay, she was used as an extra in the wedding scene. it has become a "where's waldo?" of chaplin fans. i spent many frustrated minutes pausing and re-pausing during that scene, looking for what i hoped would be edna, but never could decide for sure if i'd found her. i had no idea what edna looked like by then, so no one else has been able to positively identify her. but it's cool to know she might have been there - somewhere. events begin to conspire against verdoux as the spurned madam gronay joins forces with the late thelma varnay’s family. they go to the police, determined to bring him to justice. things continue to go badly for verdoux, as we see spinning headlines of the market crash causing chaos across the country. a montage of scenes pass of riots and men jumping from tall business office widows as the panic escalates. verdoux calls his broker to check on his situation and realizes the truth when his broker bluntly tells him he was wiped out hours ago. it was all for nothing - all the murders and lies were all for nothing. he has lost everything. for a wealthy man who never lost his fortune, chaplin did a very good job at showing us verdoux’s shock and utter despair. more headlines detail the war with images of hitler (I always think it would have been kind of funny if instead of hitler, chaplin had shown shots of hynkel instead) and mussolini. time passes. next we see verdoux, back at an outdoor café, but a much different man. no more big wads of cash. he has aged and lost much of his vitality. by chance, he runs into the girl, no longer a prostitute, but a wealthy woman who married well. she is genuinely happy to see him and invites him into her car to talk. she tells him how much her life improved after meeting him, and takes him to lunch. chaplin with marilyn nash in monsieur verdouxI love the beginning of the scene where verdoux and the girl dine. we see an upscale restaurant that focuses on a man and woman dancing a slow tango to a beautiful song. I always imagine chaplin directing this scene, probably showing the couple step by step how to dance. but as the man dips the woman, the focus shifts from them to verdoux and the girl at a table. beautifully done. verdoux has given up, it is clear to see. the girl notices and I love what she says - "you seem to have lost your zeal for bitterness." he explains to her that he lost his wife and child to the war - it is the only mention of mona and peter’s fate. he tries to tell the girl what he went through, saying he was a bank clerk for a number of years, but after he was let go, what followed was a "numbed confusion," where he lived in a half dream world. the girl is moved to tears by his broken explanation and tells him life is beyond reason - that we must go on, even if it is just to fulfill our destiny. verdoux finds bitter humor in this and laughs. meanwhile, two members of the varnay family enter the restaurant. brother and sister sit as they wait for the rest of the family to join them, and decide to dance while they wait. the sister almost immediately spots verdoux and goes rigid with panic. her brother is astonished when he also recognizes him, and tells his sister to keep an eye on verdoux while he goes to call the police. the woman tries to be cool, but the harder she tries, the more she draws attention to herself. verdoux walks the girl to her car and takes her card, promising to call her soon. he tells her he is going to fulfill his destiny and rips up her card after she leaves. he recognizes the brother and sister and realizes it is time for him to stop running. he manages to lock the pair in a closet, but when the police arrive, they open the door - and punch out the brother, thinking he is verdoux. a large crowd gathers as the sister is nearly hysterical - she sees verdoux and faints. he solicitously helps her to her feet, and when she comes to she points him out to the police, where he is finally arrested. up next: part VI and the conclusion of monsieur verdoux
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Post by solgroupie on Oct 1, 2010 15:46:48 GMT -5
part VI and the conclusion of monsieur verdoux a newspaper headline tells us that the verdoux trial is nearing its end. the next scene is in a courtroom, where verdoux is facing up to his crimes. the prosecutor speaks of how evil verdoux is and demands that everyone look at him - LOOK at him! everyone does - there is a comical moment when verdoux innocently turns to look behind him for a moment. the lawyer emphatically states that verdoux should meet his end through the guillotine for his business of robbing and murdering women. chaplin in monsieur verdoux after the verdict is read, the judge asks verdoux if he has anything to say for himself. verdoux stands up and tells the crowd that for 35 years he was a bank teller and used his brains honestly. but after he was let go, he was forced to go into business for himself. "as for being a mass killer," verdoux says, "does not the world encourage it? is it not building weapons of destruction for the sole purpose of mass killing? has it not blown unsuspecting women and little children to pieces - and done it very scientifically? as a mass killer, i am an amateur by comparison." verdoux finishes with, "upon leaving this spark of earthly existence, i have this to say - i shall see you all very soon....very soon. he raises his eyebrows and laughs a little. that was pure chaplin, the peace lover, the one not willing to die or support anything that might kill others. again, chaplin was speaking his mind, but by this time, america was about through listening to him. the girl is in the courtroom - now knowing his whole story, knowing she was befriended by a murderer. she listens to him, perhaps his only sympathizer, with tears in her eyes. another headline announces verdoux to be guillotined. we see verdoux on his back, staring up at the ceiling from his prison cot as a reporter enters for one last story. after some back and forth about good and evil and where man fits into all of it, the reporter remarks verdoux was an example for society - robbing and murdering. verdoux looks at the reporter and coldly says, "that's business." laughing a little, the reporter says others don't do business like that. verdoux replies, "that the history of many a big business - wars, conflict - it's all business. one murder makes a villain; millions a hero. numbers sanctify." outside his cell door, the guard announces that the priest has arrived. verdoux acts as if he is receiving guests in his home, not a man who is facing execution in a matter of minutes. "by all means, show him in," he says amiably. before he leaves, the reporter asks verdoux if he has anything else to say and verdoux says, "yes, goodbye." remember those words - chaplin himself would be using them very soon. chaplin with fritz leiber, who played father fareauxthe reporter laughs and shakes hands with verdoux and leaves. the priest comes in and verdoux, almost acting as if he is speaking to someone entering his furniture store, asks what it is he can do for him. the priest says nothing - he only wants to help verdoux if he can. he says he has come to ask verdoux to make his peace with god. verdoux says he is at peace with god - "my conflict is with man." when asked if he does not have remorse for his sins, verdoux answers, "who knows what sin is? born as it was from god's fallen angel. who knows the ultimate destiny it serves?" he casts an almost laughing eye on the priest and adds, "after all - what would you be doing without sin?" the priest asks verdoux if he can pray for him. verdoux bows slightly and says, "as you wish." when the priest says, "may the lord have mercy on your soul," verdoux almost shrugs. "why not? after all it belongs to him." the men come into the cell for verdoux and announce it is time. verdoux politely turns down the offer of a cigarette and shot of rum, but then changes his mind on the drink, saying, "i've never tasted rum." he takes it and drinks it deeply - the last new experience of his life. as his hands are cuffed behind his back and they lead him out of the cell, the priest begins to pray. verdoux takes a deep breath and shuffles out out, surrounded by the men to the guillotine. a gate opens outside and you can barely see a crowd in the distance. the music takes over as you watch verdoux end what he had begun. and it is over. in charlie: the life and art of charles chaplin, martin scorsese talks about monsieur verdoux. though he laughs at how absolutely no one liked the movie at the time, he soberly talks of that final scene - how if you watch verdoux as he is being led out of his prison cell, he almost resembles the tramp- the way he is walking because of the restraints - and it is true. it is actually a bit eerie. scorsese says it really is like the death of the little tramp we are seeing. chaplin was always monsieur verdoux's biggest supporter. it is true - at the time no one liked it. war veterans, war widows, conservatives - they all hated it and combined with all of chaplin's troubles with joan berry and the rumors of him being a communist - for many it was the final straw. but i think monsieur verdoux was a very funny movie - dark, yes. pretty tame by today's standards. but for years chaplin had been pestered to do something different - he was too old fashioned - so he comes up with a funny black comedy that everyone just hated. not me. i watch verdoux once or twice a year, usually and i always find something else to admire about it with each viewing. up next: chaplin's final movie in america, and one of his best: limelight
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Post by solgroupie on Oct 28, 2010 10:58:07 GMT -5
first things first - chaplin at keystone: an international collaboration of 34 original films - the restored keystones are finally available!! after so many years of waiting - eight, i believe, to be exact, the tedious restorations of chaplin's earliest works are finally ready. i cannot tell you how anxiously i have waited for them. the set of keystones i had - and the ones other chaplin fans had - the only ones available - were such a strain to watch. i quit watching most of them, because they were so terrible. they would go from almost solid darkness to completely washed out so you couldn't tell one actor from another. they were jumpy, sometimes having the tops of the actor's heads cut off. as an early christmas present, calli completely rocked my world and blew my cracker mind by sending me a set of these gems. i have watched several already, and i tell you, i almost wept. they are sharp and clear and though you can still see the damage from the deterioration from the films in spots, it takes nothing away from the quality. it is like watching them for the first time - i can see expressions and mannerisms from chaplin i couldn't before. i applaud the team of dedicated people who made this possible. these films are almost 100 years old! think of the benefit they will bring to generations to come. it's a beautiful set - including a booklet on the films by jeffrey vance, which to any chaplin fan is a BIG plus - he wrote what some think is the definitive book on chaplin. there is also a documentary on the restoration project itself that i am looking forward to viewing. one more HUGE bonus - the thief catcher - a keystone short just recently discovered is included - i'm not sure if it is the whole thing or not, but at least some of it is there. it was in an old film can, bought at a yard sale - no one knew of it and film historians were blown away, i'm sure. anyway, here is a list of the films included: MAKING A LIVING KID AUTO RACES IN VENICE BETWEEN SHOWERS A FILM JOHNNIE TANGO TANGLES HIS FAVORITE PASTIME CRUEL, CRUEL LOVE THE STAR BOARDER MABEL AT THE WHEEL (2 reels) TWENTY MINUTES OF LOVE CAUGHT IN THE CABARET (2 reels) A BUSY DAY (split reel released with non Chaplin THE MORNING PAPER) THE FATAL MALLET THE KNOCKOUT (2 reels) MABEL'S BUSY DAY MABEL'S MARRIED LIFE MABEL'S STRANGE PREDICAMENT CAUGHT IN THE RAIN MASQUERADER THE ROUNDERS THE NEW JANITOR HIS MUSICAL CAREER DOUGH AND DYNAMITE LAUGHING GAS THE PROPERTY MAN (2 REELS) THE FACE ON THE BAR ROOM FLOOR RECREATION (split reel released with non Chaplin THE YOSEMITE) THE NEW PROFESSION THOSE LOVE PANGS TILLIE'S PUNCTURED ROMANCE (6 reels) GENTLEMEN OF NERVE HIS TRYSTING PLACE (2 reels) GETTING AQUAINTED HIS PREHISTORIC PAST (2 reels)
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Post by solgroupie on Oct 28, 2010 12:54:59 GMT -5
i found this on the msn news page today. totally bizarre.
Cell phone time traveler from 1928?
By Suzanne Choney
Is a woman in a 1928 film who appears to have a cell phone glued to her ear in fact a time traveler? That's what some conspiracy theorists think this eerie scene (video below) from Charlie Chaplin's 1928 film, "The Circus" is telegraphing, or rather phoning, and that the woman -- who looks about as time-traveler-ish as Martha Stewart, is indeed a voyager from the vortex of time and space.
Belfast filmmaker George Clarke, a Chaplin fan, says he was watching the "behind the scenes of 'The Circus' " and was "stumped" at what he saw.
"I kept winding it back, playing it; winding it back, playing it back, and I couldn't explain this," he says. "I want to get this out there to let people try and give me an idea, because right now the only conclusion that I can come to -- it sounds absolutely ridiculous, I'm sure, to some people -- it's a time traveler." Although, as Clarke notes, the "old woman ... looks like a man in drag ... on a mobile phone."
Some who have seen the clip and commented online say it's not a phone the woman is holding, that perhaps she's holding her hand up to her ear to shield the sun from her eyes, or to shield herself to stay out of the camera's gaze.
"Aside from some Star Trek time travel shenanigans -- could it have been some type of hearing aid ... or transistor radio or maybe even the fact that she might have been a nut bag and she was talking to herself?" said one person's posting on Gawker.com.
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i've watched it a few times, and i admit, it does look like a woman is walking while talking on a cell phone. who knows what the real explanation is. no one seems to notice that the guy walking in front of her looks like he's getting ready to pull a gun. weird, though, eh?
here's the guy who first discovered it. he REEEALLY wants us to believe it's a time traveler.
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Post by callipygias on Oct 28, 2010 13:30:35 GMT -5
That is hilarious. I haven't watched the bottom one, but the actual footage from the movie... how ridiculous.
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Post by solgroupie on Oct 28, 2010 23:21:30 GMT -5
i know. she (or he - i do agree it was probably a man - take a look at the size of those feet) could have been scratching her head, pulling at a wig - some have suggested it was a hearing aid that was available back then that had a small, rectangular shape (not sure how it worked, though). i guess we're so accustomed to seeing that familiar image of someone holding a cell phone to their head, it's hard to imagine it could be anything else. odd, though, that she is talking. she could have just been some crazy old loon who was talking to herself. it happens. I'M NOT CRAZY!
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Post by callipygias on Oct 29, 2010 7:15:29 GMT -5
You'd think Future Manwoman would be advanced enough to go hands free.
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Post by GProopdog on Oct 29, 2010 9:50:56 GMT -5
My question would be....
if this is a time traveler talking on a cellphone......how would she be able to talk to *anyone* when cell phone technology wasn't even around at the time she was at?
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Post by solgroupie on Nov 14, 2010 14:28:42 GMT -5
two of my favorite people together - betty white and "chuck" chaplin.
what i love about betty is how continually surprised and grateful she seems to be for each award she receives. even though she's been at this for decades, she still comes off as genuine, and always with that exquisite timing of hers. what an honor for her - what a cool little chaplin statue, too.
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Post by angilasman on Nov 17, 2010 22:36:09 GMT -5
I just watched The Kid and The Pilgrim on TCM. The only other Chaplin I've seen is City Lights, earlier this year, and it didn't really grab me (I may have been just riding my high of descovering Buster Keaton and declaring everything else unworthy).
-But I loved these two films. Excellent. I see that Janus Films now has the rights. Is a Criterion set in the making?
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Post by solgroupie on Dec 4, 2010 2:30:55 GMT -5
i just now saw your post, angilasman. i have no idea about rights and criterion and how they apply to chaplin's films. i have several of his films, both shorts and features from the MK2 series. exellent quality with several bonus features. i just happened to catch both the kid and the pilgrim that night tcm ran them, and i was in just the right mood to watch. the kid felt like it was only about 15 minutes long to me - before i knew it, it was over. i came here tonight to say i have completed the restored keystones. i will be grateful to calli forever for surprising me with this long awaited set. i went through the first three dvds pretty quickly, watching one short after another with my mouth almost hanging open. they were beautifully done. while my parents were in town visiting last month, i put in the fatal mallet from my old set of keystones and showed them a couple of minutes of it - washed out, scratchy beyond belief, jumpy and just too difficult to watch for very long. then i put in the same short from the restored set and showed them the difference. they are clean - the contrast is even, they are no longer jumpy - the speed is more natural and the picture is just so much sharper. you can still see evidence of some of the damage from time to time, but it was never enough to distract me from the story. only one short, those love pangs (i think) was not as clean as the rest of them. but you could tell they saved it from complete deterioration. i saw gags and interaction with other characters from chaplin that i could not make out before. i saw facial expressions and subtle gestures that explained so much that i had missed. truly, it was an amazing experience. the star boarderonce i got to tillie's punctured romance, i began to run out of steam a little bit. aside from watching nothing but keystones, i also began taping and watching the thomas edison shorts tcm began showing, along with the wonderful george melies shorts. i think because tillie was never my favorite film, i just felt kind of o.d.'d on silent films for a bit, so i took a break. after about a dozen mst's i went back to tillie and finished. it was more enjoyable and i loved it at the end when marie dressler, mabel normand and chaplin all came out from behind a curtain to take their bows. i had never seen that before. tillie's punctured romancethen came the short animated cartoon from 1916 called charlie and the white elephant. it is a great example of not only how far film has come since chaplin, but animation as well. i finally saw the thief catcher, or the small exerpt of it. i was disappointed there wasn't more of it to show. it was only five or six minutes long, and most of it featured ford sterling, one of keystone's original stars, the man chaplin replaced when he joined. chaplin is only in it for a few precious seconds. i'll take what i can get, but i hope one day the whole short will become available. ford sterling chaplin in the thief catcherthe doc on the restoration project itself was very interesting, though i admit much of it went over my head. but it was amazing to watch how they cleaned it up - the before and after frames. it was truly a labor of love of many professionals who have now made it possible for many coming generations to enjoy films made almost 100 years ago. then came the short doc narrated by the author of silent traces, john bengston. it showed several locations all over l.a. where some of the keystones films were made - back then and what they look like now. it is sad that many of them don't exist anymore, but it was a thrill to see the ones that did- especially the park where so many of the tramp's funniest moments were filmed. then a really impressive photo gallery. it's hard to impress me with photos, because i tend to think i've seen them all. but there were a few i had yet to see here. even if you are not strictly a fan of chaplin, but you are a fan of classic comedy - if you are interested in seeing where real genius in film started - this set is a must have. i'm already ready to begin with the first short on disc 1, making a living, all over again.
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