Its attitude pitched somewhere between Bulfinch's Mythology and the New York Post's Page Six, The Cat's Meowallows Peter Bogdanovich to revisit one of the juiciest scandals in Hollywood history—namely the mysterious death of pioneer director Thomas Ince during the course of a wild weekend hosted by media mogul William Randolph Hearst on his palatial yacht in late 1924.
photo: Richard Foreman
Her royal vivacity: Dunst in The Cat's Meow
Details
The Cat's Meow
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich
Written by Steven Peros, from his play
Lions Gate
Opens April 12
Sally of the Sawdust
Directed by D.W. Griffith
Written by Forrest Halsey, from the play Poppy by Dorothy Donnelly
Film Forum
April 14
Human Nature
Directed by Michel Gondry
Written by Charlie Kaufman
Fine Line
Opens April 12
Related Content
More About
Hearst's guest list included his young mistress, actress Marion Davies, and her ardent pursuer Charlie Chaplin, as well as aspiring gossip columnist Louella Parsons, popular novelist Elinor Glyn, various corporate flunkies, and assorted party girls. Rich in personalities, rife with cover-ups, and full of unexplained details, the incident has proved a rich field for speculation over the years. Ince's demise was touched on in the 1985 telefilm The Hearst and Davies Affair(with Robert Mitchum as W.R.) and formed the basis for the 1996 mystery novel Murder at San Simeon, co-written by Hearst's most notorious grandchild, Patty. In 1997, the same year that the Steven Peros play adapted by Bogdanovich was staged in West Hollywood, Vanity Fairran an article suggesting that Hearst had precipitated Ince's coronary by inadvertently stabbing him in the chest with Davies's hat pin.
Eschewing such baroque conspiracy-mongering, The Cat's Meowis most similar to the version put forth in Kenneth Anger's classic scandal compendium, Hollywood Babylon—albeit as comedy. The insanely jealous and pistol-packing Hearst (an uncannily exact Edward Herrmann) suspects the high-spirited Davies (Kirsten Dunst) of betraying him with Chaplin (Eddie Izzard). Ince (Cary Elwes), who has his own part to play in the scandal, more or less blunders into the line of fire.
Based on legend if not history, The Cat's Meow—which is narrated by the humorously imperious Glyn (Joanna Lumley)—is further preordained for being presented as flashback. The party's sense of forced gaiety is contagious. As most of the action is set on a boat loaded with scheming celebs (and the actors who play them), the audience might feel a tad trapped with a gaggle of Agatha Christie suspects—particularly as Bogdanovich needs to promote a bogus mystery regarding the identity of the victim. Everyone on board has an agenda, not least because Hearst, who has his yacht rigged so that he can exercise Mabuse-like total surveillance, enforces his own form of Prohibition by limiting his guests to a single drink per evening.
Well-cast if broadly acted, The Cat's Meowgives Dunst particular room to stretch as the most sympathetic passenger on Hearst's ship of fools (and also as the freshest talent in the hammy ensemble). A lively constellation of worked-out '20s mannerisms, Her Royal Vivacity resolves every sticky situation by calling for an instant Charleston. Izzard's avid Chaplin is less spontaneous, seemingly modeled more on Robert Downey Jr.'s impersonation than the thing itself. Squealing like Minnie Mouse, Jennifer Tilly plays Parsons as the starstruck nuisance of the party, who parlays her knowledge into a lifetime sinecure with the Hearst newspapers to become the most powerful columnist in Hollywood. Herrmann's Hearst has a galumphing pathos, absurdly wearing a jester's cap to a costume party and impotently glowering as Marion and Charlie do the bump.
The Cat's Meowis dramatically convincing, although somewhat cute. Historically, there is far more material to suggest that Davies and Chaplin really were having an affair than that Hearst had anything to do with Ince's death—other than orchestrating a disinformation campaign to forestall any investigation into his hospitality. Although, as noted by Hearst's biographer David Nasaw, the newspaper baron "would be accused of poisoning Ince, shooting him, hiring an assassin to shoot him, fatally wounding him while aiming at Chaplin . . . there is still no credible evidence that [Ince] was murdered or that Hearst was involved in any foul play." Nevertheless, omniscient Olympian that he was, the godlike Hearst shouldhave been involved—and in the world of myth he is.
Crisply designed and carefully scored, The Cat's Meow is, as one might expect, filled with inside references—mainly to Chaplin's recent flop A Woman of Paris, his upcoming The Gold Rush, and an affair with teenage actress Lita Grey that left her pregnant. The movie may not prove a comeback for Bogdanovich, but his first theatrical feature in nearly a decade is a better-than-competent period evocation that allows the director to flaunt his knowledge (and perhaps vent some of his own bitterness) regarding Hollywood.
A reference to this particular divine comedy was dropped from Citizen Kane's initial draft. Bogdanovich, who has been dining out on his Welles impersonation for years, has managed an odd footnote to his hero's career—filming the anecdote that was considered too scurrilous to make it into Kane.
One of the most famous addenda to the story of "William Randolph's hearse" was D.W. Griffith's remark that all anybody had to do was mention Ince's name to watch Hearst "turn white as a ghost." Griffith's own ghost materializes this week, with somewhat unexpected levity, as part of Film Forum's Sunday series of comic "Re-Discoveries."
The 1925 Sally of the Sawdustwas one of two comedies that Griffith, then under contract to Paramount, made with W.C. Fields. The movie adapted the Broadway musical hit Poppy—Fields's first vehicle after featured stints with the Ziegfeld Follies and George White's Scandals—and it is a small irony of film history that the humorless, moralizing Griffith would supervise Fields's screen debut. Playing a boozy carnival con man known as Professor Eustace McGargle, Fields is surprisingly close to his essential persona—albeit a bit trimmer, more spry, and sporting an unbecoming mustache.
