The Cat's Meow (2001) on Netflix
In 1924, William Randolph Hearst hosts a yacht party for Thomas Ince's birthday. Hearst suspects his mistress Marion Davies and Charlie Chaplin of an affair; producer Ince wants his backing.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.4/109,619 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes75%
Trailer
Plot summary
In November 1924, a group of Hollywood figures boards the yacht Oneida for a weekend cruise from San Pedro, California, marking Thomas Ince's birthday. The host is publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, whose companion is the silent film star Marion Davies; among the guests are Charlie Chaplin, the writer Elinor Glyn, the gossip columnist Louella Parsons, and Ince with his mistress, the starlet Margaret Livingston. Chaplin is preparing The Gold Rush after a recent film's failure. Davies wants to make comedies instead of the costume dramas Hearst chooses for her. Ince's studio is in financial trouble, so he hopes to become Hearst's partner at Cosmopolitan Pictures. Parsons wants to move from the East Coast to Hollywood. Hearst, meanwhile, suspects Davies and Chaplin of an affair, and Ince looks for proof he can use with Hearst.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Cat's Meow (2001)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Steven Peros wrote the screenplay from his own 1997 play, which was inspired by the mysterious real-life death of film mogul Thomas H. Ince aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht during a weekend cruise celebrating Ince's birthday in November 1924.
- Peter Bogdanovich wanted to shoot in black-and-white to capture the silent era but studio heads objected, so he had costume designer Caroline de Vivaise dress the cast only in black and white; with weeks to prepare, she shopped secondhand stores for vintage clothing.
- Edward Herrmann took over the part of William Randolph Hearst from a different, unnamed actor who had already been cast but backed out of the project.
- The vessel used to represent Hearst's yacht Oneida was the Marala, originally named Evadne as the private yacht of Fairey Aviation's Charles Fairey, which had patrolled the approaches to Bermuda and its Royal Naval Dockyard during the Second World War as HMS Evadne.
- Music supervisor Joel C. High noticed the "Charleston" in the birthday party scene was a 1950s jazz arrangement and had Ian Whitcomb & His Bungalow Boys record an authentic 1920s version; Bogdanovich preferred the livelier 1950s take but was convinced to use the accurate one.
- Eddie Izzard, then primarily known as a stand-up comedian, was given the role of Charlie Chaplin because Bogdanovich felt his comedic sensibilities were compatible with the character.
- Though the story is set in California, the film was shot primarily in Greece, which stood in for coastal Southern California.
