MONSIEUR VERDOUX: the Little Tramp speaks - and murders!

I've never been a fan of Charlie Chaplin's work. It's an opinion based on copious exposure to the Great Man's work. When I was growing up my memory is that the BBC screened his silent movies relentlessly. Being a film fan I watched them, but they never made me laugh.

So I was interested to see MONSIEUR VERDOUX because it marked such a big departure from his earlier work. Originally released in 1947, twenty years after the introduction of sound, this was - amazingly - Chaplin's first proper 'talkie.' It was also a considerable change in style for him.  His Little Tramp character was replaced by a semi-suave, grey-haired ladykiller, the Monsieur Verdoux of the title, who literally killed a series of ladies in 1930s France after marrying them for their money.
A few minutes into the film I realised that this was the first time I had ever heard Chaplin speak in a movie. It was a rather weird experience seeing this star who had become etched in my memory as the baggy black suited, bowler hatted tramp with the cane and Hitler mustache, pantomiming through numerous comic adventures, looking much older, sporting a pencil mustache and speaking in perfect - very British accented - English.
It was fortunate that I had this transformation to fixate on as the plot moved at the speed of an arthritic donkey. I felt as if I was watching a very creaky stage drama. The acting, the pacing and the sets all seemed very old fashioned, even for 1947. The pace does pick up a little as the story unfolds but it remained too leisurely to hold my undivided attention. Verdoux's constant shuttling between his different wives and lovers became rather repetitive when it should have been engaging.
Chaplin hasn't entirely abandoned his past. There's moments of humour - this is a black comedy after all - with routines reminiscent of his silent work, and glimpses of the Little Tramp, mostly in the expressions which flit across Verdoux's face. Chaplin works best when paired with Martha Raye as Verdoux's loud, crass, seemingly unkillable American wife, but otherwise he's in a different league to the rest of the cast. They're playing rather stiff drama while Chaplin's got a loose, go-with-the-flow attitude, although it's considerably easier when you're the film's writer-director-producer-star and - therefore - creator of the flow.
Unfortunately this dominant position also allows Chaplin to indulge himself in the last reel at the film's expense, getting onto his soapbox and going off on a preachy tangent about the evils of society, which is just boring and - well - preachy.
Unsurprisingly the film bombed on its release in 1947 although Chaplin reportedly regarded it as "the cleverest and most brilliant film of my career." I'd say "The Great Dictator", "Modern Times" and "City Lights" all have a greater claim to that description than MONSIEUR VERDOUX which could, more fittingly, be labeled an interesting oddity.