The Cat's Meow
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.69 You Save: $11.29 (75%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.19 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Cat's Meow
Movie Review: Interesting Hollywood History
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie was enjoyable to watch. I think it was accurate as a period piece, with the music, costumes, morals and attitudes, etc. I bought it for two reasons: I am curious about William Hearst's life and times and I am a huge fan of Eddie Izzard and he played the role of Charlie Chaplin. He did not disappoint!Movie Review: Not for everyone.
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed the ensemble based, 'The Cat's Meow'. Though I only purchased it to see Eddie Izzard perform. The movie is pretty, and interesting enough. Though I really did like it, I'll say its not for everyone. And for god's sake, don't buy it used like I did.
Movie Review: Enlightening
Summary: 4 Stars
If you think OJ invented getting away with it, watch this piece of history. It seems, there have always been a different set of rules for the affluent.Movie Review: entertaining but nothing to get excited about
Summary: 3 Stars
Peter Bogdanovich's "The Cat's Meow" is an only mildly interesting take on an unsolved scandal that has become a part of early Hollywood folklore. The year is 1924. The setting: a yacht owned by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. The occasion: the birthday celebration of one Thomas Ince, a movie mogol desperate to join forces with Hearst's organization. The guests: Charlie Chaplin, Hearst's mistress, actress Marion Davies, the neophyte gossip columnist Louella Parsons, and famed bodice-ripper writer Elinor Glyn. The mystery: the sudden death of Ince under potentially shady circumstances. It is Miss Glyn, serving as the tale's narrator, who states right up front that most of what we will be seeing in this rendition is pure speculative fiction. Given the fact that writer Steven Peros (who wrote both the screenplay and the stage play on which it is based) had pretty much a free hand when it came to dreaming up a convincing scenario to explain the tragic events of that November weekend, it seems odd that he basically settled for little more than an updated production of "Othello" played out in a "Great Gatsby" setting. Hearst is, of course, Othello himself, the powerful leader driven into a jealous rage at the thought of his dearly beloved's betraying him with another man. Ince plays the part of Iago, a self-centered opportunist who poisons Hearst's mind against Marian's fidelity, using a combination of whispered innuendo and fabricated circumstantial evidence to achieve his purpose (though his motive for doing all this is never very adequately explained, I must confess). Marian is, of course, the beloved Desdemona - though she seems a less wholly virtuous innocent than the character Shakespeare gave us. Finally, Chaplin plays a considerably less virtuous innocent than the play's Cassio, the man allegedly having an affair with Othello's - that is to say, Hearst's - dearly beloved.
Even without the "Othello" parallels, "The Cat's Meow" never really adds up to very much in the long run. Perhaps, the characters are too broadly drawn to really make us believe that what we are seeing is an actual historical event and not mere dress-up playacting. Hearst (Edward Herrmann) seems like little more than a petulant, befuddled buffoon, hardly a man who would be sitting atop one of the world's great corporate empires. Louella Parsons, as played by Jennifer Tilly, comes across as a hopeless ditz, a nitwit who literally stumbles, through a stroke of "good" fortune, into her long and lucrative career as one of Hollywood's premiere gossip columnists. And Eddie Izzard makes a thoroughly bland and unconvincing Charlie Chaplin. He neither looks nor moves like the legendary performer and seems to be completely devoid of the kind of charismatic persona one would naturally associate with Chaplin, both on-screen and off. Only the lovely Kirsten Dunst makes a mark on the audience's emotions. Her Marion Davies radiates a high-spirited warmth that brings a touch of much-needed humanity to the rather cold, clinical world these characters inhabit. Of course, recreating this world is one of the prime dictums of the film, but it is hardly earth-shattering news at this late date (and especially to anyone who has ever read the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald) to discover that the idle rich of the 1920's were all a bunch of shallow, self-absorbed hedonists without morals, values, direction or purpose. When Glyn gets the chance to sum up the moral lesson for us at the end, we can barely stifle a yawn at the pedestrian nature of the "revelation."
So what makes "The Cat's Meow" worth seeing? Well, it certainly feeds a kind of morbid fascination we have for that long-ago world of early Hollywood, when movies were in their infancy, their creators larger-than-life figures and their scandals made all the juicier by the fact that the press actually played along with keeping the details a deep, dark secret - thereby enhancing the curiosity factor and guaranteeing that a kind of modern, pop-culture mythology would grow up around that industry and that time. It is that mythology that "The Cat's Meow" effectively opens up for us. That, along with the sharply observed details of the period, is what makes the film, flaws and all, into a reasonably diverting drawing room entertainment.
Movie Review: The bees knees and the snake's hips, it AIN'T
Summary: 3 Stars
THE CAT'S MEOW (2002, dir. Peter Bogdanovich) is one of those films I'm glad I have finally seen, yet simultaneously glad it sank with all those other immediate-post-9-11 films. It's a passable film, but a hard one to review because I see it as a matter of taste.
William Randolph Hearst (Edward Hermann), Mr. Yellow Journalism himself, is aboard his Oneida yacht holding a birthday celebration for studio founder Thomas H. Ince (Cary Elwes). It was November, 1924, and sometime during the cruise Ince fell ill (apparently he did not die on the yacht as has been stated). Hearst cut the cruise very short, putting in at San Diego, where Ince was carried off the yacht. 1927 was a long time ago, yet the gossip flew for generations about possible foul play.
David Emery, of About.com, once an employee at the old 1918 Ince Building, known as "Ince's Mansion", has written about Ince's ghost spooking the building. Of course, one never knows about the weird and surreal Roaring '20s. Fatty Arbuckle's mess is an example...but here, Bogdanovich tries to conjure up a plausible tale of what might have happened.
Namely, Hearst mistook Ince for Chaplin, shot him in the head from behind, then tried to tell himself Ince would be fine. Since Chaplin (a brilliant Eddie Izzard) lusted after the interesting Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunce), and as she was Hearst's little girlfriend, well....
Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley), notorious for her famous novel "Three Weeks", may or may not have been on that cruise. The story isn't straight about who else was present. (For example, Paul Whiteman, my favorite bandleader, is mentioned and shown at the end--but he wasn't in the film!) Here, Glyn cleverly narrates the beginning and ending, talking about how they wouldn't even be human if it weren't for Hollywood culture. I tend to think that was far-fetched dialogue because 1920s Hollywood wasn't exactly what it is today.
Jennifer Tilly turns in a chilling performance of the wicked witch film reviewer/gossip columnist Louella Parsons, who was the "most feared person in show business" for decades due to her acerbic nastiness. Hearst put her in that position, and the film suggests it was because she saw him commit the shooting.
Well, if the cast isn't enough to give headaches, the acting is none too sharp for my taste. The story was smooth and clean, as was the cinematography (no silly bobbing just because they're on a yacht). Hermann's portrayal of Hearst is just scary enough, though Hermann is probably the worst actor in the bunch. Bogdanovich has a flair for clean simplicity and beauty in film, I'll say that much for him.
My huge pet peeve in film--that the camera bobs until you puke because the action takes place on a ship or boat--was NOT an error Bogdanovich committed. In fact what he did was brilliant: he made the sea-line in the background bob up and down, in relation to the boat and the camera was steady. The strategy is beautiful to behold, and I wish directors would have learned from this.
Somehow it reminds me of Izzard's Chaplin. This is not Robert Downey tripping over himself; Izzard is brilliant yet low-key. I can imagine that is exactly what Chaplin in real life was like. Reflecting Izzard's own habit, Chaplin is forever spouting possible scenes and asking Marion Davies, "Would that be funny?"
By the way, "The cat's meow" was Ince's snide, jealous description of the Oneida in the film. I cannot confirm whether he ever really said that. Then again, it's impossible to confirm anything here except there was a birthday cruise party Hearst gave to Ince. Once off the boat and home in bed, Ince lingered for two days in a coma before dying. The doctor put "heart failure" on the death certificate.
Make of this what you will, both the movie and the real-life "mystery". To me, it's better than so-so, but I won't be acquiring this for my DVD library anytime soon....