Flak Magazine: Review of The Cat's Meow, 4-27-02

Peter Bogdanovich has kindly asked the press to keep the murder victim of The Cat's Meow on the d.l. The joke is that the actor-director-critic's film is a speculation on one of "Hollywood Babylon's" most beloved mysteries, the death of silent era producer-director-legend Thomas H. Ince.

Another joke is that some respectable critics see the movie as another bald act of hero worship and a footnote to Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. See, Bogdanovich's career is based in large part on chasing Welles' — as a journalist, as the author of books like "This Is Orson Welles," and as an admirer-turned-friend — and the Ince case implicates William Randolph Hearst, who — get this — was the prototype for Kane himself (no, really!). The critics' stance is understandable, if obvious. But really, this movie is no daring exposé. The Hearst estate could find more controversy in the price of movie tickets.

Directing his first theatrical film in nine years, however, Bogdanovich does prove that his inner Welles is still intact, even if it better resembles Welles as Unicron — misguided, and unlikely to ever be made into an action figure. The Cat's Meow is not Paper Moon or The Last Picture Show. But it's also not TV's To Sir with Love 2. Thankfully.

Steven Peros' script, adapted from his play, is set on an infamous 1924 cruise aboard Hearst's yacht, a trip taken in honor of Ince's birthday. The director's mysterious death two days later was publicly reported as an intestinal problem with few details, so cover-up theories abounded. Rather than examine possibilities, the film sticks with the most popular version of the story: Ince (Cary Elwes) meets his untimely end as an unintended result of a jealous Hearst (Edward Herrmann) going Bickle over a potential Lady-and-Tramp affair between loyal mistress/actress Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst) and Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard).

The colorful supporting company of historical phonies includes, among others, Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley), the daft writer who proclaimed Clara Bow had "it;" future powerhouse columnist Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly); and Ince's mistress, actress Margaret Livingston (Claudia Harrison). Bogdanovich handles his ensemble with a compassion that recalls Renoir's approach in The Crime of M. Lange — the good, bad and ugly each get a fair share of sympathy. Herrmann and Dunst transcend the hamminess of their co-stars, using it as one of the complex character traits of public figures. Herrmann steers the film like his character steers his yacht — privately and in shifts — allowing his guests to overshadow his paranoia while finding a Rosebud anchor in young Davies. And Dunst is a peach of a flapper who Charlestons through every scene, a Cezanne among Monets. (She also impressively sings a dancehall jazz ditty over the end credits.)

Their generation-gap relationship is tender and, as we're repeatedly told, free of gold digging. The couple's biggest problem appears to be that Hearst insists on Davies doing garish period epics when her real flair is for comedy, a weakness Chaplin sees as his opportunity to get close to her. Unfortunately, Izzard as Chaplin is just plain wrong. Bearing an unsettlingly soft appearance, his Little Tramp is written as either lovelorn or remorseless — maybe both — but the way Izzard plays it you can't tell which or why. Here Chaplin is less a womanizing genius than a sleazy twit who needs help to create the shoe gag from The Gold Rush. And he mysteriously fades from the picture during its climax, which is a good old-fashioned tension builder complete with fine zoom cuts (!) not seen since old-school Bogdanovich like Picture Show.

Tilly is also a problem. Besides squealing impressively, she offers no believable bridge for her Parsons to cross in using the murder to broker a lifetime contract with Hearst; it's a shrewd hush-hush payola deal that deserves a more dramatic set-up. Lumley, on the other hand, is great, all cynical wit under a full stack of pancake makeup. Wise to the Gatsby ways, she embodies what appears to be Bogdanovich's faulty impression of the story's meat: Yeah, we're ridiculous, but that's life.

Though entertaining in a roaring-'20s way, you leave the movie wondering whether Bogdanovich and Peros wanted to tell a love story or lambaste the world it's set in, because neither complements the other. The "Hollywood underbelly" element is lost when the filmmakers so believe it happened this way. The cover-up is too imminent and Movietown (a)morals aren't really questioned as much as simply on display. Ultimately, an enjoyable film misses some big chances.

Still, The Cat's Meow's biggest downfall is reducing Ince to a cigar-smoking, "makin' pitchahs" semi-caricature, whose downward career spiral is at best reduced to a struggle for Hearst's partnership and one good bedroom scene with Livingston. The latter is an expertly subtle, if brief, scene that equates sexual and professional impotence. It's another reminder that Bogdanovich hasn't totally lost it since his last feature, The Thing Called Love (which was River Pheonix's last film).

Ince's falling-star story could have been a better one to tell. He was a one-time pillar of Hollywood who fell prey to a career slump and was mistakenly marked for death by the mogul who could have revived his livelihood. On his birthday, no less. It's a tragic melodrama that might hit home for the once Academy-friendly Bogdanovich, not to mention his portly master filmmaker buddy.

— Tony Nigro (tony@superheronamedtony.com)