In 1924 Thomas Ince, a respected Hollywood producer, was found dead on the yacht of the mogul and tycoon William Randolph Hearst. There is scant information about what happened to the man who should have been in his prime, and the fact that he died on a yacht surrounded by friends, famous friends at that, has meant that there has always been Hollywood gossip about what really happened to him on that opulent cruise of “fun and frolics”.
The film opens with the Victorian novelist Elinor Glyn, played subtly by Joanna Lumley, attending the sombre funeral. Here the scene is set and in the black and white funereal setting her character explains to us so poetically that this film will enact “the whisper that is heard most often.”
From here we cut to the group arriving at the harbour to set sail from San Pedro. The eccentric and nervous tycoon Hearst (Edward Herrmann) is hosting with his beautiful mistress Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst) but his self absorbed guest Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard) would rather like Marion to himself…
What will be played out before us is a theory that Ince was in fact shot in the head by one of the assembled party and that the remaining party-goers chose to keep what they knew quiet. Why? Well some out of shock, several for their own ends and some from ignorance of the facts.
Here at least superficially we have 112 minutes of infidelity, dishonesty, deceit, deception and plain old self-serving backstabbing: all hung out before a backdrop of fabulous flapper outfits and a musical score incorporating the most well known songs of the 20’s, from “I’m just mad about Tommy”, to the infamous “Charlston”.
Less superficially we watch the most powerful man in the world rendered virtually powerless by the charm of his apparently honourable mistress, and the flux of power backward and forward between Chaplin and Marion as they give and then retreat, give and then retreat from one another…
One of the most telling scenes is one which initially strikes the viewer as rather repetitive. Namely when Hearst feels that his impromptu speech to his guests over dinner is slipping away from him he imitates something that the socially adept Marion had earlier done – namely call for everybody to dance to the Charleston. In this depressing scene (in which he is wearing a joker’s hat as fancy dress throughout) he does indeed get others to their feet but is less than able to join in the fun himself, racked as he is with worry and jealousy.
I probably picked this DVD off the shelf from a vague interest in how Eddie Izzard would get on in his biggest Hollywood film to date. In fact his black contact lenses and foppish hair allowed me to quite forget who he was as an actor and enjoy his portrayal of the “off duty” Chaplin which neither strived to physically look like either Chaplain or the earlier Robert Downey Jr interpretation.
Kirsten Dunst plays Marion with a refreshing jollity and Joanna Lumley is quite magnificent as English eccentric Glyn, bit-part that it is. More notably enjoyable acting, and much of the physical comedy of the piece came from Jennifer Tilly as the gossip columnist Louella Parsons but the piece de resistance was undoubtedly the portrayal of Hearst by Edward Herrmann.
History would have us imagine that this was one of the most powerful men in the world but Herrmann plays out the character with serious social flaws and gaping insecurities. So for what one would imagine is a deeply unattractive character the viewer will find themselves with a surprisingly charitable view of him. Eccentric? Well of course, and herein lies some of the fun. A tiny example is when the seagull hating Hearst is trying to shoot some:
Hearst: “Have you ever eaten a seagull Tom?” Tom: “Well…no.” Hearst: “They taste godammed awful, just like eating crow.”
Peter Bogdanovich (“The Last Picture Show”, “The Mask” and “Paper Moon”) directs and it would seem that “The Cat’s Meow” has brought him back into the mainstream from some years in the wilderness. The writer Steven Peros explains in the additional (and fascinating) “Making Of…” that he sent his script to Bogdanovich specifically because of his knowledge Orson Welles and fame as a Hollywood historian. What it would have been far too rude of him to mention is the slight touch of “art mirroring reality” with the famous murder of Bogdanovich’s girlfriend Dorothy Stratten.
Of course parallels are unavoidable with Citizen Kane, and in some ways this inevitably means that the viewer will know for example, that Hearst and Marion must still be together by 1941, well after the episode in this film has been put to bed. For me this mattered very little as I was pulled into that surprisingly spacious yacht to follow some of the timeless themes of fame, of jealousy, of love and of power.
The extras on this DVD are really interesting – I particularly enjoyed the interview with Joanna Lumley where she gave her interpretation of the power interplay in the film and an interview with the costumier in which her explanation of the hats used came as quite a revelation to me!
The Cat’s Meow is a Lions Gate Film which runs for 114 minutes and has a 12A rating (meaning it contains moderate violence, sex and drugs use) Although it was made in 2001 in the US it has taken until the summer of 2004 to be released in the UK and is now available for rent or purchase on DVD.
More details
Soundtrack
Good
How does it compare to others by the same director?
Outstanding
Value for Money
What format are you reviewing?
Evaluate this review
How helpful would this review be to someone making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2001 - Drama - Director: Phil Alden Robinson, Richard Loncraine, Mikael Salomon, David Nutter, Tom Hanks, David Leland, David Frankel, Tony To - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over
This product has not yet been reviewed. 
