Monsieur Verdoux
January 16, 2014
Writes a reader about a black comedy I had never heard of: “You might want to watch an anti-war movie by Charles Chaplin “Monsieur Verdoux” – a ‘comedy of murders’. Chaplin plays a guy who murders old ladies for their money but also befriends a young destitute girl who later becomes a millionairess by marrying a weapons manufacturer … In the last 7 minutes of the movie, he explains that he was an amateur and that “numbers sanctify” [e.g. mass murder vs. small murder]. You might wish to watch it.”
Wow, listen to Chaplin beginning at 1:52:12 as he says he is an amateur killer compared to mass killers in war.
Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of The Free Society; War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism; War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy; King James, His Bible, and Its Translators, and many other books. His newest book is The U.S. Proxy War in Ukraine.
Another Reason to End Welfare