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I saw this movie eleven days ago, I just haven't put a review together, until now...
The Cat's Meow is Peter Bogdanovich's first effort for the big screen since This Thing Called Love (1993). Overall it's a welcome return, though it falls a bit short of his own highwater marks from the '70s: Paper Moon, The Last Picture Show and What's Up, Doc?. But that may be an unfair measuring stick by which to judge.
Anyone familiar with Bogdanovich at all will know he befriended Orson Welles for the last fifteen years or so of that filmmaker's life, and the story of The Cat's Meow was one he originally heard from him. William Randolph Hearst, the billionaire newspaper publisher, was forever rumored to be linked to a 1920's Hollywood scandal. Silent film innovater Thomas Ince, a producer/director/writer/sometime-actor who was credited with popularizing The Western in the earliest days of cinema, died shortly after a trip from Mexico up the California Coast on one of Hearst's yachts. The official cause of death was "accute indigestion", but the story goes it was actually a gunshot wound to the head, from Hearst, which was hushed up by the tycoon's vast influence. The presumed reason for this shooting was an accident of sorts: Hearst was trying to kill Charlie Chaplin - yes THAT Charlie Chaplin, who was supposedly carrying on an affair with Hearst's mistress, actress Marion Davies, and was also a guest on the yacht.
Nobody will ever know what really happened at this point of course. There's no way to separate the rumors, innuendo, legend and fact, but that is a rather infamous scandal that was talked about (quietly) since the '20s. The Cat's Meow is a good dramatic supposition of what might have occurred during that fateful voyage.
Edward Herrmann, the familiar character actor you may know from The Lost Boys, Overboard, The Purple Rose of Cairo, The Paper Chase and many other supporting roles in film and television, stars as William Randolph Hearst. Hermann plays him as a rather insecure man, obsessed with control and power, but foiled by his love for Marion Davies. Kirsten Dunst is Davies, a successful actress of the day that everybody 'knew' was Hearst's mistress. Though it's easy to assume some of that success was attributed to Hearst's connections, by most accounts she was indeed a talent in her own right, with a natural gift for light comedy rather than straight drama. Flamboyant English comic turned actor Eddie Izzard is Charlie Chaplin, the screen legend who was also a legendary womanizer. Cary Elwes is Tom Ince, the producer who may or may not have met a foul end on that yacht.
The other characters on board for this story are Elinor Glyn (played by "Ab Fab"'s Joanna Lumley) - one of Hearst's most popular syndicated columnists of the time, George Thomas (Victor Slezak) - business associate and friend of Ince, Margaret Livingston (Claudia Harrison) - an aspiring actress and Ince's own mistress, Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly) - who would subsequently become the most famous of Hearst's Hollywood gossip columnists, and various other hangers on. All of the actors are quite good and well cast, especially Herrmann, Elwes and Izzard. Dunst, who is about to reach a new level of celebrity as Mary Jane in Spider-Man, does an admirable job in her first real adult role. I didn't find her as effortless or spot-on casting as the other principal actors, but she's definitely growing as an actress. No matter what you may think of Jennifer Tilly, like Bullets Over Broadway and a few other choice roles in her career, she's just right as the sincerely annoying Parsons (though Tilly is held in check here and doesn't go too far over-the-top), and Lumley lends an air of weight and respectibilty as well as an easy comedy as Glyn.
Ironically enough, the ostensible reason for this gathering and brief ocean voyage was a birthday celebration for Thomas Ince. The movie supposes that Hearst's real reason for the weekend was to find out for himself if the rumors about Davies and Chaplin were true. The tragedy that results from finding out the answer to that question may or may not have played out this way, but it makes for an interesting movie just the same.
The script, by Steve Peros adapted from his play, and Bogdanovich's direction blend together well the elements of this scandal with plausible character motivations and a good initial mix of low-key humor and an Agatha Christie-like milieu, eventually building to a satisfying conclusion that borrows a bit from Othello of all things. The period detail is achieved very nicely on a limited budget, Bruno Delbonnel's cinematography is pleasant (though not as stylized or special as his work on Amelie), and the backstory that I've detailed above is laid out in an easily digestible manner within the first couple reels. If you knew next to nothing about Hearst, Davies and Ince and only know Chaplin as an early cinema icon, you'd have no trouble at all gettng into the film immediately.
Like another recent Silent Film era supposition - though an obviously more fictionalized one, Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire (which coincidentally also co-stars Izzard and Elwes), the more you know about the story going in, there are different levels of appreciation and even more to enjoy about The Cat's Meow.
Bogdanovich handles the material well and has crafted a nice little movie, but it's not one of his masterpieces from three decades past. Despite everybody's best efforts, it has an underlying feel of a made-for Cable TV project. A good made-for Cable TV project, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't have that extra magic ingredient to elevate it to near masterpiece.
The Cat's Meow is in very limited distribution right now, but with the good reviews thus far it should be making the art house circuit soon, so watch for it as the season becomes more and more crowded with big budget blockbusters. I saw it at the opening night of D.C.Filmfest two Wednesdays ago. Peter Bogdanovich was in attendance and proudly fielded a nice Q&A afterwards. Though Welles had told him this story in the early '70s, it was something he had put at the back of his mind until talking with Roger Ebert one day about Hearst stories (in relation to Citizen Kane, naturally) and the tale of jealousy and murder popped out. Ebert immediately remarked what a good idea it was for a movie. Bogdanovich agreed, and as if fate had placed it there, when he arrived home shortly afterward he found among his mail Steve Peros' script. That's Bogdanovich's story anyway, and he's sticking to it.
As a final postscript, Welles thought of putting a version of this story as an episode in Citizen Kane - which is loosely based on Hearst of course. Not only was it a juicy story, but Welles wanted to force Hearst to possibly go on record and at least deny the story. Instead it was simply deflected by the massive arms of his publishing empire. But for the record, Chaplin's limo driver and one of Margaret Livingston's relations (a nephew, I think) have long stated that the basics of the scandal are indeed true. This can all be fueled forever by the fact that Ince was very quickly cremated and suspiciously no autopsy was ever performed.
Grade: B
The Cat's Meow is Peter Bogdanovich's first effort for the big screen since This Thing Called Love (1993). Overall it's a welcome return, though it falls a bit short of his own highwater marks from the '70s: Paper Moon, The Last Picture Show and What's Up, Doc?. But that may be an unfair measuring stick by which to judge.
Anyone familiar with Bogdanovich at all will know he befriended Orson Welles for the last fifteen years or so of that filmmaker's life, and the story of The Cat's Meow was one he originally heard from him. William Randolph Hearst, the billionaire newspaper publisher, was forever rumored to be linked to a 1920's Hollywood scandal. Silent film innovater Thomas Ince, a producer/director/writer/sometime-actor who was credited with popularizing The Western in the earliest days of cinema, died shortly after a trip from Mexico up the California Coast on one of Hearst's yachts. The official cause of death was "accute indigestion", but the story goes it was actually a gunshot wound to the head, from Hearst, which was hushed up by the tycoon's vast influence. The presumed reason for this shooting was an accident of sorts: Hearst was trying to kill Charlie Chaplin - yes THAT Charlie Chaplin, who was supposedly carrying on an affair with Hearst's mistress, actress Marion Davies, and was also a guest on the yacht.
Nobody will ever know what really happened at this point of course. There's no way to separate the rumors, innuendo, legend and fact, but that is a rather infamous scandal that was talked about (quietly) since the '20s. The Cat's Meow is a good dramatic supposition of what might have occurred during that fateful voyage.
Edward Herrmann, the familiar character actor you may know from The Lost Boys, Overboard, The Purple Rose of Cairo, The Paper Chase and many other supporting roles in film and television, stars as William Randolph Hearst. Hermann plays him as a rather insecure man, obsessed with control and power, but foiled by his love for Marion Davies. Kirsten Dunst is Davies, a successful actress of the day that everybody 'knew' was Hearst's mistress. Though it's easy to assume some of that success was attributed to Hearst's connections, by most accounts she was indeed a talent in her own right, with a natural gift for light comedy rather than straight drama. Flamboyant English comic turned actor Eddie Izzard is Charlie Chaplin, the screen legend who was also a legendary womanizer. Cary Elwes is Tom Ince, the producer who may or may not have met a foul end on that yacht.
The other characters on board for this story are Elinor Glyn (played by "Ab Fab"'s Joanna Lumley) - one of Hearst's most popular syndicated columnists of the time, George Thomas (Victor Slezak) - business associate and friend of Ince, Margaret Livingston (Claudia Harrison) - an aspiring actress and Ince's own mistress, Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly) - who would subsequently become the most famous of Hearst's Hollywood gossip columnists, and various other hangers on. All of the actors are quite good and well cast, especially Herrmann, Elwes and Izzard. Dunst, who is about to reach a new level of celebrity as Mary Jane in Spider-Man, does an admirable job in her first real adult role. I didn't find her as effortless or spot-on casting as the other principal actors, but she's definitely growing as an actress. No matter what you may think of Jennifer Tilly, like Bullets Over Broadway and a few other choice roles in her career, she's just right as the sincerely annoying Parsons (though Tilly is held in check here and doesn't go too far over-the-top), and Lumley lends an air of weight and respectibilty as well as an easy comedy as Glyn.
Ironically enough, the ostensible reason for this gathering and brief ocean voyage was a birthday celebration for Thomas Ince. The movie supposes that Hearst's real reason for the weekend was to find out for himself if the rumors about Davies and Chaplin were true. The tragedy that results from finding out the answer to that question may or may not have played out this way, but it makes for an interesting movie just the same.
The script, by Steve Peros adapted from his play, and Bogdanovich's direction blend together well the elements of this scandal with plausible character motivations and a good initial mix of low-key humor and an Agatha Christie-like milieu, eventually building to a satisfying conclusion that borrows a bit from Othello of all things. The period detail is achieved very nicely on a limited budget, Bruno Delbonnel's cinematography is pleasant (though not as stylized or special as his work on Amelie), and the backstory that I've detailed above is laid out in an easily digestible manner within the first couple reels. If you knew next to nothing about Hearst, Davies and Ince and only know Chaplin as an early cinema icon, you'd have no trouble at all gettng into the film immediately.
Like another recent Silent Film era supposition - though an obviously more fictionalized one, Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire (which coincidentally also co-stars Izzard and Elwes), the more you know about the story going in, there are different levels of appreciation and even more to enjoy about The Cat's Meow.
Bogdanovich handles the material well and has crafted a nice little movie, but it's not one of his masterpieces from three decades past. Despite everybody's best efforts, it has an underlying feel of a made-for Cable TV project. A good made-for Cable TV project, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't have that extra magic ingredient to elevate it to near masterpiece.
The Cat's Meow is in very limited distribution right now, but with the good reviews thus far it should be making the art house circuit soon, so watch for it as the season becomes more and more crowded with big budget blockbusters. I saw it at the opening night of D.C.Filmfest two Wednesdays ago. Peter Bogdanovich was in attendance and proudly fielded a nice Q&A afterwards. Though Welles had told him this story in the early '70s, it was something he had put at the back of his mind until talking with Roger Ebert one day about Hearst stories (in relation to Citizen Kane, naturally) and the tale of jealousy and murder popped out. Ebert immediately remarked what a good idea it was for a movie. Bogdanovich agreed, and as if fate had placed it there, when he arrived home shortly afterward he found among his mail Steve Peros' script. That's Bogdanovich's story anyway, and he's sticking to it.
As a final postscript, Welles thought of putting a version of this story as an episode in Citizen Kane - which is loosely based on Hearst of course. Not only was it a juicy story, but Welles wanted to force Hearst to possibly go on record and at least deny the story. Instead it was simply deflected by the massive arms of his publishing empire. But for the record, Chaplin's limo driver and one of Margaret Livingston's relations (a nephew, I think) have long stated that the basics of the scandal are indeed true. This can all be fueled forever by the fact that Ince was very quickly cremated and suspiciously no autopsy was ever performed.
Grade: B
__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
Last edited by Holden Pike; 04-29-02 at 11:42 PM.
