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Monsieur Verdoux, in its New England premiere at the Harvard Square theater, is a "comedy for murderers" made in 1947 by Charlie Chaplin. It played in several cities this summer, but before this year it had had almost no exposure in the U.S. It came out when the witch hunts and blacklisting within the movie industry were just beginning, and Chaplin, a British citizen was one of the first people attacked.

A black comedy full of social comment, Monsieur Verdoux is not at all like the Chaplin's silent films. Don't expect to be doubled up in laughter.

Nights of Cabiria, many people believe, is Fellini's finest film. Giulietta Masina, who played the peasant girl in La Strada, stars as the prostitute in Nights of Cabiria.

All The King's Men is based on Robert Penn Warren's fictionalization of Huey Long's career. A famous wit once remarked of Long's fall that no one could put him together again because he was dead.

Finally, there is Potemkin, (1926), by far the most important of all these films. In it Sergei Eisenstein developed editing montage to its highest degree, brilliantly manipulated a cast without stars, developed a spirit of revolution on film. Several international polls of film critics have named this film about revolutionary Russia the greatest film of all time.

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