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15 Q1 2017 / CINEMONTAGE THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY and, at the end, pessimistic. But he is never morbid." Indeed, as Verdoux states in the film, "Business is a ruthless business." Coming out soon after the war's end, the movie only played 2,075 dates in the US, earning a mere $325,000 over two years before Chaplin withdrew it from circulation. This despite being named the Best Film of the Year by the National Board of Review and nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar (which it lost to the Cary Grant/Shirley Temple comedy, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, written by Sidney Sheldon). American moviegoers, though, were not ready for Chaplin's black comedy at a time when the House Un- American Activities Committee (HUAC) was grabbing headlines to investigate Communist influence in the movie industry. The filmmaker's progressive social leanings became a critical factor in his eventual exile from the country that had been his home for over 30 years. Outside the US, where the war's violence had actually played out, Monsieur Verdoux grossed over $1.5 million, with over a half-million tickets sold in Paris alone. Denmark gave the movie its Bodil Award for Best American Feature, and Japan's two most prestigious film awards — the Kinema Junpo Awards and the Blue Ribbon Awards — both honored it as Best Foreign Language Film when it was released there in 1953. When the film came out in the United Kingdom, novelist Evelyn Waugh said, "The success or failure of Monsieur Verdoux in England will be a test, not of Charlie, but of us." The making of the film was sparked by a visit to Chaplin by Orson Welles, who was thinking of making a series of dramatized documentaries after Citizen Kane (1941). The first would be about the notorious French Bluebeard, Henri Désiré Landru, who was guillotined in February 1922 for the murder of 10 women and the son of one of them. Welles asked Chaplin to portray the serial killer and perhaps help write the script. Tempted by the challenge of such a role, but wary of collaborating on the writing, Chaplin refused. But, as he relates in his autobiography, he called Welles a few days later and told him that the proposal had given him the idea for "a wonderful comedy," a fiction not about Landru himself. Although the factual story was in the public domain, the movie pioneer was willing to give the young filmmaker $5,000 for suggesting the idea. Welles said he would accept only if he received a screen credit reading, "Based on an idea by Orson Welles." A formal agreement was signed on July 24, 1941. Welles then produced his adaptation of Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) while Chaplin wrote a screen adaptation of Paul Vincent Carroll's 1937 play of spiritual faith, Shadow and Substance. After shelving this project, the comedian began working on the Verdoux script late in 1942. Over the following three years, while crafting the screenplay, the events in his personal life seriously affected Americans' view of Chaplin. On June 16, 1943, the three-times divorced, 54-year old comedian married 18-year old Oona O'Neill, the estranged daughter of America's leading playwright, Eugene O'Neill. Chaplin had met his bride seven months earlier when he auditioned her for the central role in the aborted Shadow and Substance. The marriage produced eight children and lasted until the artist's death in 1977, but the press sharpened its criticism because of a paternity suit filed against him by actress Joan Barry two weeks before his low- profile wedding. Chaplin had screen-tested Barry also for the Shadow role and admitted to their friendship, but as she had had affairs with others — including oilman J. Paul Getty — the filmmaker had distanced himself from her. Despite blood tests proving he was not the father of Barry's child, and a 1944 acquittal on Mann Act Monsieur Verdoux. Charles Chaplin/Photofest