"No sense in being a grifter if it's the same as being a citizen..."

-Henry Gondorff, The Sting

This September join us at the Paradise for a film series dedicated to the hustlers, the swindlers, and imposters among us. The Paradise Presents: Scams on Screen! Eight films featuring a devious and/or delusional slew of con guys and gals getting through life one grift at a time. From September 4th to 19th come and see professional fakers portray professional (and amateur) fakers, and scam a few of your friends into come along with you!

Where better to start than the best professional faker of them all? This 1947 comedy features Charlie Chaplin at perhaps his least Charlie Chaplin-est, while still displaying the full extent of his on and off screen genius. Co-written with fellow on and off screen master Orson Welles, The Paradise Presents Charles Chaplin's brilliantly wicked masterpiece MONSIEUR VERDOUX!

Charlie Chaplin plays shockingly against type in his most controversial film, a brilliant and bleak black comedy about money, marriage, and murder. Chaplin is a twentieth-century bluebeard, an enigmatic family man who goes to extreme lengths to support his wife and child, attempting to bump off a series of wealthy widows (including one played by the indefatigable Martha Raye, in a hilarious performance). This deeply philosophical and wildly entertaining film is a work of true sophistication, both for the moral questions it dares to ask and for the way it deconstructs its megastar’s lovable on-screen persona.

(Courtesy of Janus Films)

Sunday September 4th 5:00 PM/4:30 PM Doors