Peter Bogdanovich's latest, "The Cat's Meow," is a fun period piece that works on some levels, but fails on others.
If you know very little about the period or the real life people involved, it's great. It is well written, well directed, well paced and almost uniformly well acted. It deals with a real life incident in 1924 that occured aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht which cost the life of early silent film producer/director Thomas Ince. The whole movie takes place aboard the yacht, so Bogdanovich got "A" picture production values on what was probably a "B" picture budget and his money was well spent, almost exclusively on the actors. None of them really fail him, in my view.
So this comes off as a sort of "Gosford Park" in America, including the murder mystery. It's not as well acted as Altman's film, but its close.
So where are the problems? For the most part, you won't find them, unless you know much about the people involved. First, there's the casting. Kirsten Dunst plays Heart's long time mistress Marion Davies. The problem is, Dunst is 19, playing a woman who was atleast 27. Joanna Lumley plays British novelist turned screenwriter Elinor Glyn. Lumely must be in her 30s. Glyn was 60 at the time. Both give good performances, though, especially Dunst, who is extremely charming.
But then there is Eddie Izzard as silent screen legend Charlie Chaplin. In my book, Izzard fails to capture much of the charm or cleaverness that made Chaplin such a hit, with both audiences and with women. He plays Chaplin like Robert Downey Junior -- on drugs.
Then there's Hearst, played by the fine character actor Edward Herrmann. The intent here appears to have been NOT to portray Hearst as Orson Wells portrayed him in "Citizen Kane." But what Herrmann's Hearst comes off like is a kind of simp, a wildly erratic man who seems more like a manic depressive (big highs and big lows) than the absolute ruler of what at the time was the world's largest media empire.
While I believe Hearst had an unusually high voice for a man, I don't think there was any evidence that he was the weak sister he comes off as in this film.
Finally, there's the concept that Marion Davis was not only cheating on Hearst with Chaplin, but apparently willing to do it almost openly, publicly humiliating the newspaper tycoon in front of his own guests.
I think that flies in the face of most of what we know about Davies, who was no great shakes as an actress, but certainly no dummy. She would not have been willing to risk everything she had for a roll in the hay with Chaplin, a man who loved 'em and left 'em with regularity.
But, assuming viewers know none of this to begin with, the picture works just fine and is really quite enjoyable. It ends a little flat, and perhaps needed a little more drama there, but other than that, you can have fun with it. Just don't expect too much historial accuracy, if that's your thing.
If you know very little about the period or the real life people involved, it's great. It is well written, well directed, well paced and almost uniformly well acted. It deals with a real life incident in 1924 that occured aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht which cost the life of early silent film producer/director Thomas Ince. The whole movie takes place aboard the yacht, so Bogdanovich got "A" picture production values on what was probably a "B" picture budget and his money was well spent, almost exclusively on the actors. None of them really fail him, in my view.
So this comes off as a sort of "Gosford Park" in America, including the murder mystery. It's not as well acted as Altman's film, but its close.
So where are the problems? For the most part, you won't find them, unless you know much about the people involved. First, there's the casting. Kirsten Dunst plays Heart's long time mistress Marion Davies. The problem is, Dunst is 19, playing a woman who was atleast 27. Joanna Lumley plays British novelist turned screenwriter Elinor Glyn. Lumely must be in her 30s. Glyn was 60 at the time. Both give good performances, though, especially Dunst, who is extremely charming.
But then there is Eddie Izzard as silent screen legend Charlie Chaplin. In my book, Izzard fails to capture much of the charm or cleaverness that made Chaplin such a hit, with both audiences and with women. He plays Chaplin like Robert Downey Junior -- on drugs.
Then there's Hearst, played by the fine character actor Edward Herrmann. The intent here appears to have been NOT to portray Hearst as Orson Wells portrayed him in "Citizen Kane." But what Herrmann's Hearst comes off like is a kind of simp, a wildly erratic man who seems more like a manic depressive (big highs and big lows) than the absolute ruler of what at the time was the world's largest media empire.
While I believe Hearst had an unusually high voice for a man, I don't think there was any evidence that he was the weak sister he comes off as in this film.
Finally, there's the concept that Marion Davis was not only cheating on Hearst with Chaplin, but apparently willing to do it almost openly, publicly humiliating the newspaper tycoon in front of his own guests.
I think that flies in the face of most of what we know about Davies, who was no great shakes as an actress, but certainly no dummy. She would not have been willing to risk everything she had for a roll in the hay with Chaplin, a man who loved 'em and left 'em with regularity.
But, assuming viewers know none of this to begin with, the picture works just fine and is really quite enjoyable. It ends a little flat, and perhaps needed a little more drama there, but other than that, you can have fun with it. Just don't expect too much historial accuracy, if that's your thing.