Chaplin's War Trilogy

<p> The book examines Charlie Chaplin's evolving perspective on dark comedy in his three war films, <I>Shoulder Arms</I> (1918), <I>The Great Dictator</I> (1940), and <I>Monsieur Verdoux</I> (1947). In the first he uses the genre in a groundbreaking manner but yet for a pro-war cause. In Dictator dark comedy is applied in an antiwar way. In <I>Monsieur Verdoux</I> Chaplin embraces the genre as an individual in defense against a society out to