Charlie Chaplin (1951)

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"Monsieur Verdoux" 301 must have slipped!" On leaving, Mme. Grosnay is presented with his bouquet of roses. Train wheels (this shot, a sort of leitmotif, recurs during the pictue as a symbol for a transition to another locale or for lapse of time.) Verdoux in a Paris street cafe meets two men, former bank clerk associates. When Verdoux pulls a roll of bills out of his pocket, one exclaims, "You must have made a killing!" Verdoux replies, "Yes!" When he leaves, one of the men explains that Verdoux got a raw deal — was with the bank over thirty years, but with the depression, was one of the first to go. Verdoux enters his office, goes upstairs to the telephone. The market has dropped. Unless he produces fifty thousand francs he will be wiped out. Pulling out his address book, he comes across the name of Lydia Floray. He mutters to himself that the banks in her town close at four. Train wheels. At the door he is greeted by the acidulous Lydia: "I thought you were in Indo-China! What do you want?" The clock strikes quarter to four. "Let us not argue. We are not young. In the sunset of life we need tenderness." Looking at his watch, he takes her hand. She repulses him, "I'm getting too old for all that." Then he explains that he was tipped off that the banks are on the point of collapsing; tomorrow there will be a run on them. "Good heavens," she screams, "get the money out — seventy thousand francs!" He hurries out. The scene dissolves to Verdoux at the piano as Lydia stuffs her money in a box. As they retire upstairs, Verdoux, from the balcony, exclaims, "What a night! How beautiful this pale Endymion hour. . . . Our feet were soft in flowers!" Lydia snarls, "Get to bed." He enters the bedroom. The camera remains on the hall as night changes to morning. Verdoux comes out with the box. Downstairs he