Barnes & Noble

After a nine-year hiatus from directing feature films, Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) revisits Hollywood Babylon in The Cat's Meow. The story retells a favorite Tinseltown legend: the mysterious death of silent-film pioneer Thomas Ince after a birthday cruise on William Randolph Hearst's yacht. (It is familiar territory for Orson Welles biographer Bogdanovich, as Hearst was the inspiration for the central character in Welles's landmark Citizen Kane.) The film begins with a swell party aboard Hearst's fabulous ship that turns sour when the paranoid host (Edward Herrmann) suspects that notorious womanizer Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard) has eyes for his mistress, actress Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst). All aboard for the floating fete are Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley), Hearst columnist Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly), and Ince (Cary Elwes) -- who has been attempting to revitalize his career with Hearst's help. At once a Hollywood history book and an Agatha Christie-style mystery, The Cat's Meow's main attraction is its ensemble of actors, a fine crew distinguished by the tender relationship between Herrmann's surprisingly human Hearst and Dunst's inexorably engaging Davies, an unflappable flapper who Charlestons through every scene. Stuart Gazzo

All Movie Guide

Peter Bogdanovich turns his sights on the 1920s for a fictitious look at the possible reasons for the death of silent movie producer Thomas Ince (played here by Cary Elwes) after spending a holiday with media tycoon William Randolph Hearst (played by Edward Herrmann). The film begins and ends on Ince's funeral, attended by best-selling novelist Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley), who was present when the young producer finally died and who leads the audience through the unsure details of what may have occurred to cause the tragedy. Then, through flashback, we see Elinor arriving on the dock to Hearst's party, which is attended by a number of Hollywood players. Among those in attendance are Ince, his business manager (Victor Slezak), and his irritating mistress (Claudia Harrison. Charlie Chaplin (played by British comic Eddie Izzard) is recovering from a box-office bomb and fearing his 16-year-old mistress is pregnant, not to mention that he is seeing Hearst's lady on the side, the vampish actress Marion Davies (played here by Kirsten Dunst). Also seen are Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly), a clumsy movie critic who works for Hearst, and Joseph (Ronan Vibert), Hearst's private secretary. The film was funded in Europe and also includes in its large cast James Laurenson, Chiara Schoras, and Claudie Blakley. Jason Clark

Rolling Stone

Elegant, funny and unexpectedly touching, this whodunit...represents a bracing comeback for Peter Bogdanovich. Peter Travers

Washington Post

An elegant drama about power and its frightening uses, The Cat's Meow is the bee's knees. Michael O'Sullivan

Chicago Sun-Times

The film is darkly atmospheric, with Herrmann quietly suggesting the sadness and obsession beneath Hearst's forced avuncular chortles. Dunst is as good, in her way, as Dorothy Comingore in Citizen Kane in showing a woman who is more loyal and affectionate than her lover deserves. Roger Ebert

Chicago Reader

If it speaks with a quieter voice than many of Bogdanovich's early pictures, what it has to say seems substantially more personal and thoughtful. Jonathan Rosenbaum

Product Details

• UPC: 031398849520
• Source: LIONS GATE
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Español
• Time: 1:52:00
• Sales Rank: 36,859

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