No subject

this macabre thesis is sustained. How, then, could comedy be introduced
without disintegrating the whole structure into farce? The answer is
Chaplin. The comedy in this picture is unsurpassed, even in the movies of
the Chaplin of old. But the comedy never runs away with the picture. The
somber theme dominates the comedy from beginning to end.

The best comedy parts are those which depict the numerous and always
unsuccessful attempts of Monsieur Verdoux to liquidate one of his numerous
wives, a dizzy dame with a raucous, rowdy laugh and a lot of money she had
won in a lottery: She simply couldn't be liquidated. Luck was with her ever=
y
time. The unexpected always happened. This part is played by Martha Raye,
and she is terrific. The scene where Chaplin tries to poison her, and the
wine glasses get accidentally switched around, and he thinks he has poisone=
d
himself instead, is funny beyond imagining.

Another scene, where Monsieur Verdoux, in the course of business, has
finally arranged a wedding with another moneyed widow, after long and
arduous preparation, is a masterpiece of comic frustration. It was to be a
fashionable wedding. A host of guests were assembled. The preacher had
arrived. The bridegroom was nervously waiting, and the bride was descending
the staircase. At this point the proceedings were suddenly and violently
disrupted by a loud pistol-shot laugh on the edge of the crowd=97the
unmistakable laugh of Martha Raye. She had been brought to the party by som=
e
friends she picked up who were telling her a "rough" story, the kind she
dearly appreciated. The expression on the bridegroom's face when he hears
that unmistakable explosive laugh of one of his other wives, and his franti=
c
efforts to extricate himself from the impossible situation must be seen, bu=
t
may not be described. After all, it's Chaplin.