MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Down 7,012 this week

The Cat's Meow (2001)

 -  Drama  -  4 June 2004 (UK)
6.3
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 6.3/10 from 5,697 users   Metascore: 63/100
Reviews: 115 user | 100 critic | 34 from Metacritic.com

Semi-true story of the Hollywood murder that occurred at a star-studded gathering aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht in 1924.

Director:

Writers:

(screenplay), (play)
Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 1228 titles created 02 May 2012
 
a list of 57 titles created 16 Apr 2011
 
a list of 5779 titles created 5 months ago
 
a list of 780 titles created 4 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: The Cat's Meow (2001)

The Cat's Meow (2001) on IMDb 6.3/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of The Cat's Meow.
1 win. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Lantana (2001)
Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

Psychiatrist Valerie Somers disappears one night; Det. Leon Zat is called to investigate; his wife has been getting advice from Somers.

Director: Ray Lawrence
Stars: Anthony LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush, Barbara Hershey
Doubt I (2008)
Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

A Catholic school principal questions a priest's ambiguous relationship with a troubled 12-year-old student.

Director: John Patrick Shanley
Stars: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams
Spider (2002)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

A mentally-disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.

Director: David Cronenberg
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne
Citizen Kane (1941)
Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X  

Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.

Director: Orson Welles
Stars: Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

A psychoanalyst and his family go through profound emotional trauma when their son dies in a scuba diving accident.

Director: Nanni Moretti
Stars: Nanni Moretti, Laura Morante, Jasmine Trinca
Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

When her husband goes missing at the beach, a female professor begins to mentally disintegrate as her denial of his disappearance becomes delusional.

Director: François Ozon
Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Bruno Cremer, Jacques Nolot
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

A woman struggles to interact with her family and find her place in society after spending fifteen years in prison.

Director: Philippe Claudel
Stars: Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Serge Hazanavicius
Drama | Mystery | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.2/10 X  

Two women are arrested for smuggling while vacationing in Thailand.

Director: Jonathan Kaplan
Stars: Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Pullman
L'avventura (1960)
Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

A woman disappears during a Mediterranean boating trip. But during the search, her lover and her best friend become attracted to each other.

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Stars: Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti, Lea Massari
Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

Strange events happen in a small village in the north of Germany during the years just before World War I, which seem to be ritual punishment. The abused and suppressed children of the villagers seem to be at the heart of this mystery.

Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi, Leonie Benesch
Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

Bent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, a journalist commits himself to a mental institution to solve a strange and unclear murder.

Director: Samuel Fuller
Stars: Peter Breck, Constance Towers, Gene Evans
Comedy | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.2/10 X  

Mr. Neville, a cocksure young artist is contracted by Mrs. Herbert, the wife of a wealthy landowner, to produce a set of twelve drawings of her husband's estate, a contract which extends ... See full summary »

Director: Peter Greenaway
Stars: Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman, Anne-Louise Lambert
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
...
...
...
...
Claudia Harrison ...
...
James Laurenson ...
...
...
...
Ingrid Lacey ...
...
...
Elinor's Driver
Edit

Storyline

In November of 1924, a mysterious Hollywood death occurred aboard media mogul William Randolph Hearst's yacht. Included among the famous guests that weekend were, Charlie Chaplin, Hearst's mistress, starlet Marion Davies, the studio system creator, producer Thomas Ince, and feared gossip columnist, Louella Parsons. Written by Carol Lewis, Producer

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Taglines:

A Triangle... A Murder... A Secret... Don't Tell. See more »

Genres:

Drama

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sexuality, a scene of violence and brief drug use | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

| |

Language:

Release Date:

4 June 2004 (UK)  »

Also Known As:

Hollywoods hemlighet  »

Filming Locations:


Box Office

Budget:

$7,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$111,037 (USA) (12 April 2002)

Gross:

$3,176,936 (USA) (14 June 2002)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

The costuming and sets were designed with as little color as possible to give the illusion of a black and white film. This was to make up for the fact that the film wasn't allowed to be filmed in black and white as originally planned. See more »

Goofs

The rubber-ball fenders seen as the Onida is docked are of a modern (c. 1970) design. Period fenders would have been white and cylindrical. See more »

Quotes

[first lines]
Man in crowd: Stop pushing! Stop pushing!
[unintelligible yells from crowd]
Man in crowd: Please, calm down!
Elinor Glyn: [voiceover] In November of 1924, during a weekend yacht party bound for San Diego, a mysterious death occurred within the Hollywood community. However there was no coverage in the press, no police action, and of the fourteen passengers on board only one was ever questioned by authorities. Little evidence exists now or existed at the time to support any version of those weekend events. History has been ...
[...]
See more »

Crazy Credits

Thanks to the people of Kyparissi; Captain Kostas and the crew of the yacht "Marala" See more »

Connections

References Janice Meredith (1924) See more »

Soundtracks

"Do It Again"
(1922)
Performed by Paul Whiteman
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.

User Reviews

entertaining but nothing to get excited about
19 May 2002 | by (United States) – See all my reviews

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.


18 of 27 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Worst movie ever! ricaniusrhubarb
Eddie Izzard? abuzzed
Marion Davies/Dunst mystangrocks05
outraged Chaplin fan your_hobbit_pal
Tom Ince rajax
Black + White foxwoods
Discuss The Cat's Meow (2001) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?