With Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Charles Chaplin tried to write a comedy, or at least a comic tragedy (which I distinguish from a tragicomedy). The humor and the dark elements of the film do not gel, however, and that is just the beginning of its problems. To support his crippled wife and young son, Henri Verdoux (Chaplin), a laid-off bank clerk, marries and murders, for their money, middled-aged women. Granted, the movie is thought-provoking, but contains no sympathy for the women—and one man—Verdoux kills. Just as bad, and tasteless, near the end it attempts to give the serial murderer the high moral ground in a wicked world. The attempt is unsuccessful. Really, Verdoux is remarkably foolish, a failed comic tragedy. Moreover, unlike co-stars Martha Raye and Isobel Elsom, who are credible, Chaplin is monotonous in his performance.