Monsieur Verdoux

In 1947, Chaplin released a dark comedy of murders.  It was decades ahead of its time, and is by a long way his best sound film.

Henri Verdoux makes a business out of marrying and murdering wealthy widows, but is defeated by the indestructible Martha Raye as his latest attempted conquest, as well as the loss of his family.  That may not sound funny, but the film is.  There’s slapstick as well as some very dark humour and imagery, and if you’ve never seen this, whether or not you are usually a Chaplin fan, we recommend that you watch it.

It was the first time that Chaplin bore no resemblance to his Little Tramp character (the barber in The Great Dictator at least looked the same as the Tramp), and the advertising stressed that this was a new and dapper Chaplin.

This original British Quad poster does just that, stressing the New, and with a great image of Chaplin as Verdoux.