The Cat's Meow

Very similar to Robert Altman's GOSFORD PARK, the new film by Peter Bogdanovich is certainly not a film for everyone. The film takes its time in developing the characters (quite slowly, I might add) and really takes a while for the story to get moving.

There are some very well-written scenes, and the costume designs are very well done. And, yes the acting is great also. I was very surprised at Edward Herrmann's performance, he did a splendid job. I was not as happy with Eddie Izzard playing Charlie Chaplin as I wanted to have been, but he was still acceptable. Kirsten Dunst was also very good. The film is, as I said, very slow as it really takes quite a while for things to finally fall into play, and the film is only for serious film fans, as your casual movie watcher will find it hard to watch.

The setting of the film is a tale that Hollywood seems to have forgotten, as the year 1924 and the story of the murder aboard William Randolph Hurst's yacht is not a commen topic of conversation. But surely a film like this, is bound to become a conversation starter for many film buffs. It is a must-see for anyone who enjoys dramas and romance (I really wouldn't call this a romance movie though). Not as much of a mystery as I was hoping, but this film is a comeback for Peter Bogdanovich. Surprisingly enough, this melodic drama did not earn itself any Oscars, or even any nominations, which usually a film of this sort is typically a top-contender. Not a big hit in theaters, and not a big sell-out on video, this is a movie for the more serious of film fans.

I was quite enthralled with the story in many parts, but I also found it hard to sit through as it was very slow in some parts. Very good costume design and acting are the main highlights of this delightful period piece. Definetely calls for a second viewing.

THE CAT'S MEOW gets 3/5.

Cat's Meow, The (2001)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely well acted and marvelously directed drama tells the story of the legendary producer Thomas Ince (Cary Elwes) who boarded a ship owned by Willam Randolph Hearst (Edward Herrmann) and a couple days later was dead. While there are various reports as to what happened, this film follows the most talked about which is that Ince informed Hearst that his girlfriend Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst) was having an affair with Charles Chaplin (Eddie Izzard). Later that night, in a rage, Hearst went to kill Chaplin but instead shot Ince in the back of the head. I'm sure many people have heard this story but director Bogdanovich has done a marvelous job at putting the story into a film and deliver something that is quite intense but at the same time it will also get your blood boiling. The director was a personal friend of Orson Welles and considering Hearst pretty much ended his career, I'm sure Bogdanovich was happy to show Hearst as a evil S.O.B. and that's pretty much what happens here. The entire movie isn't a hate piece aimed at Hearst because most of the time the director is taking a look at the power of not only Hearst but the media in general as well as Hollywood. The opening sequence showing everyone arriving was great fun as we get to hear the Hollywood gossip, which a lot focuses on Chaplin and his recent film, THE WOMAN OF Paris, and people joking about it bombing due to him not playing a part in it. There's also a lot of goofing on him in regards to THE GOLD RUSH costing so much money and him getting the 16-year-old star pregnant. This type of stuff was great fun to hear. In the end we see Hearst using his power to keep everyone quiet and to pay off Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly) who would eventually get a lifetime contract by Hearst. These scenes will certainly get your blood boiling and you can't help but feel a strong hatred for Hearst and a certain sadness for his mistress. The performances are all quite remarkable with Herrmann really standing out as the media magnet. Dunst and Elwes are also quite good as is Izzard in the role of Chaplin even though he doesn't come close to Robert Downey, Jr.'s performance in CHAPLIN. The entire look of the film from the sets to the costume design are wonderful and everything is brought together perfectly by Bogdanovich. Seeing this wonderful gem just makes you rather sad that he hasn't been able to make more films over the past couple decades because he's clearly very talented.

No one will ever know what really happened aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht on that fateful weekend in 1924. Director Peter Bogdanovich recreates it based on rumors in "The Cat's Meow," a 2001 film starring Kirsten Dunst, Edward Herrmann, Cary Elwes, Eddie Izzard, Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Tilly. The weekend in question is a celebration of producer Thomas Ince's birthday aboard Hearst's yacht with a guest roster that included Hearst, Marion Davies, Ince, his mistress, Margaret Livingston, Louella Parsons, writer Elinor Glyn, Charlie Chaplin and others. Thomas Ince was removed from the yacht, supposedly ill, and died in his home several days later, supposedly of heart failure. Rumor has it that Hearst, suspecting an affair between Davies and Charlie Chaplin, shot Ince by accident, either mistaking him for Chaplin or because Ince happened to be on the dock at the same time and got in the line of fire. Morning newspapers (not Hearst papers) claimed that Ince had been shot; the evening papers did not carry that story, nor did the Hearst papers. No one who was on board the yacht ever spoke of the incident except in the most ambiguous of ways. Louella Parsons' column became syndicated in over 600 papers, and she worked for Hearst until she retired; Ince's mistress Livingston received a whopping increase in salary. She finally retired to manage her husband Paul Whiteman's band.

That's the story Bogdanovich goes with, and it makes for a meandering but intriguing story. The "meandering" part is not so much a fault of the film but done on purpose - it's a weekend yacht party, after all, and Bogdanovich shows us the parties, the conversations and the intrigues of various guests. He captures the atmosphere of the '20s and the splendor of Hearst's yacht very well.

It's hard to say how accurate the actors were with their characterizations; for my part, I don't know what Charlie Chaplin, Hearst, Glyn or Parsons were really like. From seeing Marion Davies in films and in photographs, Dunst seems too young, though her acting is good. Herrmann I suspect captures Hearst beautifully - powerful, a good host, a sometimes brutal man and very much in love with Marion. (When he saw Citizen Kane, believing that Susan Alexander was based on Marion, he was most upset at the portrayal of Susan as a drunk.) Tilly plays Parsons as if she was an airhead - I believe externally in real life, Parsons did come off as a silly, ineffectual woman, all the better to gain your confidence; in fact, she was an ambitious person who wielded a lot of power. Tilly captures this; in her last scene, Parsons gets down to business and drops a lot of her act. Lumley's Elinor Glyn is elegant, intelligent and more of an observer (she narrates the film) - I suspect that is true as well. Cary Elwes doesn't register much as Ince, who is portrayed as a desperate man trying to get his career back on track with Hearst's help.

Eddie Izzard's Chaplin is problematic. Physically he seems all wrong - Chaplin was quite good-looking and much slighter than Izzard; Izzard hints at a British accent but doesn't really come off as very British or very graceful, which Chaplin definitely was. The writing of this character may be incorrect as well, as it's doubtful that Chaplin would have actually wanted Marion to leave Hearst.

All in all, though it's not an edge of your seat kind of film, "The Cat's Meow" is a good film about a fascinating piece of Hollwyood lore. It seems likely that Ince did not die of indigestion, heart failure, or suicide, but that something did happen and the guests were sworn to silence; it's also more than likely that the police and DA cooperated in covering it up. There is an interesting sidebar to this story - Davies' secretary Abigail Kinsolving, was considered a suspect in Ince's death (strange, since he supposedly died of heart failure). She claimed to have been raped by Ince, and it was noted by guests on the yacht that she had bruises on her body. She had a baby some months later and died in a car accident near San Simeon. Two suspicious things there: she was found by Hearst bodyguards, and there was a suicide note that wasn't in her handwriting. Her orphaned daughter was supported by Marion Davies. Did Kinsolving know too much? Whether she did or not, the rest of us know too little.

`The Cat's Meow' is a mildly enjoyable telling of a notorious tall story that has been told in Hollywood for nearly eighty years.

Super-magnate William Randolph Hearst (Edward Herrmann) invites a diverse mix of Hollywood biggest names and its oddest fringe dwellers to celebrate the birthday of famed director Thomas Ince (Cary Elwes) aboard his luxury yacht. Things begin to fall apart when Hearst suspects a guest - none other than Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard), the most famous man in the world - of having an affair with his actress girlfriend, Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst).

Although the film is entertaining, there is something underwhelming about it. Its stage origins are obvious - characters perambulate from plot point to plot point, spouting exposition, never appearing much more than caricatures, and thus failing to evoke much sympathy.

The casting of Eddie Izzard in the pivotal role of Charles Chaplin is a grave mistake, though the script saddles him with a most unsatisfactory characterisation of Chaplin to work with. Chaplin was not a serial romancer, as is implied in the film, but a serial seducer. He would have been the last person to urge a woman to run away with him on the basis of undying love. He spent his most famous years running from women who suggested exactly that, freely admitting to them that while sex was a pleasant diversion, his work came before any woman. It's a casting decision that is an obvious attempt to distance us from the Little Tramp as opposed to Chaplin the real man, but we never get a true sense of either. Ironically, Izzard actually resembles the real Thomas Ince far more than does Cary Elwes, and as a real-life cabaret performer could conceivably have brought the flamboyance and eccentricity of the real-life director to life better than Elwes does.

The film also takes an annoyingly facile view of women, perpetuating the dull cliche that all women spent the 1920s with a bad case of St Vitus' dance and addicted to laughing gas. The grating performances of Claudie Blakley and Chiara Schoras in particular throw the beautifully understated efforts of Kirsten Dunst into high relief. Dunst feels like the only real person in this cast of cartoon characters - beautiful, funny, and vital, she is the best thing in the film. Yet there is never any moment in the movie to suggest the true depth of her dedication and passion for Hearst (portrayed as a roly-poly father figure rather than the hard nosed businessman he was), nor any justification for leaving him for the roguish but uncharismatic Chaplin. Unfortunately, the more interesting conflicts in Marion's life, such as her growing alcoholism and her dissatisfaction with Hearst's insistence on casting her in leaden romances rather than the comedy to which she was so obviously suited, are only touched on lightly.

Though it could have been a thought-provoking and complex experience, as Joanna Lumley's poignant final statements imply (and like `Gosford Park' to which it has been compared), in the end `The Cat's Meow' doesn't feel much more substantial than your average game of Cluedo.

The Cat's Meow is a semi-true story of a murder that occurred on William Randolph Hearst's yacht one evening in 1924. While much of the screenplay is presumably speculation, it is interesting to see the effects the murder on some of his other guests, like Marion Davies, Hearst's mistress, Charlie Chaplin and Luella Parsons, among others.

This film couldn't fail for me – its subject matter involves William Randolph Hearst, a foe of my main obsession Orson Welles, and it contained one of my favorite entertainers in the cast, Eddie Izzard as Charlie Chaplin. However, while watching the film I had to consider whether the movie was a well-written drama or simply too slow in its development, making the climax more of a let-down than anything. If the film wasn't book-ended by compelling writing that made you both look deeply into the subject matter from the beginning, then reflect on the past events at the conclusion, I would have said the latter was true. And while Eddie Izzard was fantastic as Chaplin, and Kirsten Dunst wasn't her usual irritating self as Davies, it was Joanna Lumley who I thought was the breakout star of the film. Her role was small, but integral to the progression of the film – acting as narrator, analyst and the film's conscience.

While not a fast paced, action filled film, The Cat's Meow is pleasant to experience based on its dramatic merits. Bogdanovich is more of an actor as of late than a director, but this film's character-driven dramatic elements harkens back to his best known classic, The Last Picture Show. If you are a fan of film history as I am, you will find this film interesting and thought-provoking.

--Shelly