Chaplin's character keeps alive the unique mannerisms of his tramp character but projects them onto an even more explicit (seemingly) psycotic. As usual Chaplin-fares go, this leads to an ending on a political note, which would later get him condemned in Hollywood. Nevertheless, much cynical hilarity ensues at a steady pace and albeit most of it is derived from "silent" gags it deserves a place as a classic talkie.

An underappreciated gem.

When Chaplin started doing talkies, they were bold and often controversial affairs, as is the case with Monsieur Verdoux, a black comedy in which he plays a fictionalized version of French bigamist and wife killer Henri Landru. Monsieur Verdoux is certainly more prone to slapstick, and this "comedy of murders" includes a number of sequences in which he tries and fails to kill his most obnoxious wife played by Martha Raye. They make a fine comedy double act, and Chaplin's trick is to make Verdoux so sympathetic, you will be on his side. This criminal mastermind does, after all, have a real family somewhere for which he is doing all this, at least in his mind, and his justification, a bleak meditation on the corruption of the world in the Depression/build-up to WWII era, satirically juxtaposes his crimes to larger crimes committed by businesses and states. And then there's the touching relationship between him and a young woman he intends to try a new poison on. So tonally, this is a strange one. If you go with it, it will reward you. But the killing of women is not a joke that can easily be laughed at.