Raimu Chaplin

Whereas the Well Digger's Daughter may not be able to compete with the splendour, homever artificial, of contemporary American, and to a lesser degree British, productions as, a spectacle, it undoubtedly presents a refreshingly new technique in film making.

This technique may not become obvious to those not possessed of any photographic knowledge as it manifests itself not so much in the scenario and oral presentation, but in the method of behind the scene pro-production.

The script is spoken entirely in French, which while tending to confuse some, with all due respect, gives a much better effect than garbled English passed off as French in an endeavour to convey the idea intelligibly as well as realistically.

Whilst the use of French throughout gives the desired realism, many have expressed the opinion that the script appearing in writing on the screen would tend to divert, one's attention from the pictorial sequence. But I found that one could regard the film concentrating little or no on the script and be deluded into imagining that one could actually understand what was being spoken without having to juggle one's intelligence between script and screen.

The producer chose to direct the theme along the well tried girl-meets-boy principle employing he usual irrevocable repercussions and melodramatic partings and reconcilations.

The film may appeal to a certain social strata who would seem, at least from the number of undesired births they produce, to conduct their erratic relations on a hit and miss basis, as a graphic example of the inefficiency of present-day contraceptives. However, apart from a certain unintended amusement value the film was a flop, in as far as although the impression of French peasantry was excellent, the players were merely required to blunder along in their acustomed manner. If however, American players were required to produce the same effect, they would immediately be at the disadvantage of being obliged to render their lives in a pseudo-Flemish accent liberally polluted with the indescribable nasal noises peculiar to them. Regarding the film with as a technical bias as my limited technology will permit, I should say-that it was horribly over-exposed, which effect was permissible in portraying a glaring summer's day but was rather incongruous within the confines of a dimly-lit peasant hovel almost devoid of windows.

Another aspect of this, was that the heroine was given an almost etherial appearance which seemed to imply that she was either an albino or had inadvertently splashed a little more peroxide on her hair than usual. The poor photography can be perhaps offset by one shot in particular in which the over-exposure constituted a distinct advantage. This portrayed a large backside thrust in sweaty abandon at the camera as the owner vainly tried to crank a broken-down old car which in itself constituted a change from the usual run of flashy movie-cars.

In short, the film was a hotchpotch of poor acting, where acting became evident, rendered tolerable only by the following scene. This portrayed the father of the sinful adolescent, as the advocates of proprietry would probably dub the daughter, making a peace making speech framed between the contours of his daughter, and the capacious paunch of her father-in-law.

Monsieur Verdoux—the major work of one of the supreme artists of our time, has evoked in America a bitter spate of hostility.... Never has Chaplin been forgiven for his retention, despite long residence in Hollywood, of British nationality, and for his espousal of progressive causes. The venal writers and broadcasters of the American-directed press and radio have striven to decry "Monsieur Verdoux" as dull—which it certainly is not—as "poor entertainment" (the last word of abuse in the vocabulary of the show business). Opposition has extended even as far as sabotage of projection, light or sound reproduction, at key runs.

Even at his trial, after he has been convicted of murder, Verdoux makes no excuse for, nor justification of his murders. But what he says about the relative nature of good and evil is of the utmost importance, At one sweep he demolishes the myth of absolute standards set up by society and religion. In the condemned cell he confounds a bewildered reporter, who is looking for a story with a moral, by stating that his only crime was that his murders had not the sanctification of numbers. Perhaps, if Verdoux had been a mercenary general with thousands of deaths to his credit, he would have been a national hero.

Verdoux is a charming, industrious little man who avoids treading on caterpillars and feeds starving kittens. His victims are not depicted as people who should be murdered. They are quite pleasant or neutral characters (except perhaps Martha Raye—but then he never succeeds in killing her). Perhaps it is an attempt to blacken Verdoux's character that the scene has been cut in which his first wife, who he supports by killing others, is killed in an accident. The implication of this cut is that he killed his crippled wife and child.

Unfortunately the real meat of Chaplin's idea is much too concentrated. The final scenes of the film are crowded with many statements all of which cannot be understood in full implication without a great deal of thought.