Posted: 05/14/2002

The Cat’s Meow

(2002)

by Hope Villanueva

Director Peter Bogdanovich returns to the screen with an all-star cast… But is the film any good?

According to one of the party guests in The Cat’s Meow, the California Curse is characterized by the following symptoms: One: You think you are the most important person in any room. Two: You value money above all other things in the world. Three: You no longer have any sense of shame or morality. Maybe this isn’t true of all of California, but it seems to hold true for those Los Angelinos under the sparkling charms of Hollywood. It is certainly true for the passengers aboard the yacht chartered by William Randolph Hearst in 1924, around which the film is centered.

The film, derived from the play of the same title, is based on a few factual details about a strange event. William Randolph Hearst did invite a handful of guests to a weekend cruise from Los Angeles to San Diego and back. The yacht docked, unscheduled, in San Diego, where a sickly producer, Thomas Ince, was taken off the ship. Two days later, Ince died, supposedly by a heart failure caused by indigestion. Sound suspicious? I thought so. There are almost no other facts, no autopsy reports on Ince and even the guest list for the party is uncertain. This is all pretty fishy and The Cat’s Meow speculates on “the whisper told most often.”

The film makes a slow start as the characters invited by Hearst (Edward Hermann) board the ill-fated boat and sail serenely out to sea. The supposed guests include Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard), actresses Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst) and Margaret Livingston (Claudia Harrison), stature-seeking columnist Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly) and the doomed Ince (Cary Elwes). Davies is Hearst’s mistress and guarded treasure. He is paranoid with suspicion that someone else wants to be with her and rightly so: Davies is being courted by a horny and persistent Chaplin. Hearst’s suspicions are fueled by seeing their interaction on the ship and again by information intercepted by Ince. The film circles around the triangle of the flirty Davies, desperate Chaplin and an on-edge Hearst becoming more and more entangled with each other.

The Cat’s Meow picks up its speed around halfway through as we see that Hearst truly loves Davies and she loves him in return, though she is also young and foolish. It is a shame that director Peter Bogdanovich couldn’t have shown his audience that right from the beginning. Izzard, normally a comedian, while not looking the part of Chaplin, plays him with impish charm and passion. Dunst, who is riding high on the Spidey Web right now, puts in a solid enough performance and is given more of a character to knish on than in Spider-man. Interview with a Vampire may still stand as her best performance ever, though closely followed by The Virgin Suicides. Elwes (The Princess Bride, Kiss The Girls), who should work more often than he does gives his blond charm to Ince very well and is supported very strongly by newcomer Harrison as his mistress Margaret Livingston. However, the character you really feel for is Hearst. Hermann gives the famous media mogul the dignity of a very wealthy man and spends the movie deconstructing him into a jilted lover that can be sympathized with.

While pacing is clearly an issue for The Cat’s Meow, the ending is interesting and intriguing. Whether or not the story unfolded in real life the way it does in the film remains in question, but considering the money and power of Hearst and the importance of reputations to the guests of the cruise it is definitely plausible. I would be very curious to compare the play to the film. If you can wait out the slow beginning, the ending is worth your while.

Hope Villanueva is a fourth-grade teacher in Los Angeles who has just started her own theatre company. She looks forward to their first production in September.

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