The Cat's Meow | | Cast : | Kirsten Dunst, Cary Elwes | | Director : | Peter Bogdanovich | | Studio : | Lions Gate Home Entertainment | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 01, 2001 | | DVD Released Date : | August 20, 2002 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | May 26, 2005 | | Summary | Bottom of the Barrel | Content
 | I am appalled at how bad this film is. As a pastiche of early 20th century Hollywood artistes it sets a new low - even past The Moderns or (gasp) Cradle Will Rock & I never thought I'd see a film worse than those 2. Granted they were about a slightly different milieu & period. Nevertheless the intents & results were distressingly similar.
First off there's the horrible casting: Eddie Izzard as CHAPLIN? Excuse me? Peter, did you owe this guy something? Jennifer Tilly as Loulla Parsons?? Kirsten Dunst as Marion Davies??? Holy smoke, these people don't even begin to try to capture the look or sound (to say nothing of charm or elan) of the period they are purportedly depicting.
The humor is worse than leaden to say nothing of anachronistic in the extreme. Did the author(s) ever read anything about this period? You'd think this director of all people would have known better.
Well, Last Picture Show was a decent film, but this thing is a disaster & the rest of Bogdonovitch's pics haven't been much better. Guess rubbing up against Welles & Hitch & Ford wore off a long time ago. Still good for hosting TCM though. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 10, 2005 | | Summary | An entertaining slice of Hollywood gossip. | Content
| Despite some of the negative reviews I've read, I find this movie to be very well done. I think Kirsten Dunst did a great job playing Marion Davies, despite the fact that Dunst was much younger than the character was in the movie. Eddie Izzard did a great job as Charlie Chaplin, playing Chaplin as a real person and not as a "Little Tramp" caricature. Joanna Lumley as the eccentric Elinor Glyn is my personal favorite in the movie... her telling the others of the "California Curse" in one scene was fascinating, and her narration of the beginning and end of the movie was perfectly done.
The story is one of Hollywood legend, told in whispers, and it's great that the story is alive again thanks to this great movie. I highly recommend it, and at its low price, it's a pretty good deal.
One more thing... check out Woody Allen's Zelig. At one point you can find the actual Marion Davies and Charlie Chaplin together! An interesting link between two fantastic movies... |
| Rating | | | Date | January 24, 2005 | | Summary | Not good | Content
| This movies tries to represent a time in the golden age of Hollywood, but they can't represent it. In occassions actors don't know what to do, how to play their characters. Kirsten Dunst play an older when she looks like a teenager, she's a good actress but far to bee the best one, and able to play any character. The story is weak and a bad plot for what it seems something real. |
| Rating | | | Date | January 13, 2005 | | Summary | "I'm asking you to join me in an oath of silence" | Content
| The Cat's Meow offers an insight into what may (or may not) have occurred during a fateful pleasure cruise aboard media mogul William Randolph Hearst's yacht in 1924. One guest didn't survive the trip, and afterwards the other passengers only ever talked about what happened during those few days in riddles. The film is at pains to point out that it only depicts one possible version of events, which unfortunately does rather undermine the convincing storyline.
The story begins in Hollywood, "a land just off the coast of the planet earth", in that decadent decade dominated by the Charleston, flappers, and bootleg moonshine. The women's costumes are thus visually spectacular - all satin and feathers - but some of the actors seem to be overwhelmed by the splendour, and appear somewhat wooden as a result. The notable exception to this is Kirsten Dunst, who plays the effervescent Marion Davies, Hearst's mistress. However, the best lines in the film surely belong to the wonderfully cynical and sarcastic Joanna Lumley.
The thing the movie does capture to perfection is the double standards extant in Hollywood. One of the characters disdainfully dismisses the Prohibition, claiming that alcohol isn't illegal "for us". And that seems to pretty much sum up the attitude of the film fraternity at the time - that they are above rules and regulations. Even murder, it would seem, can be hushed up.
This isn't a murder mystery as such; anyone with a thorough knowledge of Hollywood history will know who died, and the whispers surrounding the event. But the average viewer may question if, after all this time, they really care what the truth is. Better instead to enjoy this film as a fiction.
|
| Rating | | | Date | December 25, 2004 | | Summary | Long-Buried Hollywood Love Triangle and Murder Mystery | Content
| Anyone who has taken an introductory film class knows Thomas Ince was a pioneer filmmaker who could never live out of the shadow of D.W. Griffith. Part of this has to do with talent and the other part with his fast lifestyle. This film barely touches on either aspect, but it does venture forth a theory on how he died in November 1924. One-time wunderkind director Peter Bogdanovich has made an intriguing historical fiction by surrounding Ince with a gallery of larger-than-life characters aboard publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst's yacht. The occasion is Ince's birthday party, and the story ends with his death. How his death occurred is a matter of speculation, but Bogdanovich, along with screenwriter Steve Peros, has fashioned a period murder mystery focused on the volatile love triangle of Hearst, his mistress Marion Davies and Charlie Chaplin. According to this version, Chaplin is constantly on the make for the alluring Davies, and Ince is more than willing to spy on them for Hearst so that the mogul will fund his failing movie-producing career. Chaplin finally makes his conquest after a huge drug-and-sex orgy, Hearst finds out and then a series of tragic consequences occur.
At first, Kirsten Dunst seems an odd choice for the vivacious Davies, as the actress is too young to be a credible magnet for two such powerful men (though ironically, Chaplin preferred the company of much younger women). But she actually grows in the film until she finally captures the world-weariness of her character in the final scenes. Edward Herrmann plays Hearst like he played FDR, full of bombast but this time, with a decided sadness and made all the more pathetic by the vast age difference between his character and Davies. British comedian Eddie Izzard makes a credible Chaplin, though he seems relatively constrained by the role, as does Cary Elwes who plays Ince with just enough desperation to make his fate seem less than criminal. Out of "Ab Fab" mode, Joanna Lumley is quite effective as writer Elinor Glyn, who narrates the story, but Jennifer Tilly is grating as the clinging gossip columnist Louella Parsons, the only one to benefit from the scandal and become a Hollywood power doyenne for thirty years. It's an interesting story told competently but not all that memorably, but this one is definitely up Bogdanovich's alley as he enjoys Hollywood history like no other filmmaker. |
|
