An extremely belated comeback from Paper Moon and Last Picture Show director Peter Bogdanovich, who had Hollywood at his feet about a quarter-century ago, The Cat’s Meow is a textbook case of over-reaching ambition.
Intriguingly, it’s based on a still-unsolved murder which took place aboard the luxury liner of proto-Murdoch media magnate William Randolph Hearst back in November 1924, and has been hushed-up with spectacular success for several decades. Obviously, any movie daring enough to drag old WRH into the equation is inviting Citizen Kane comparisons and setting itself up for an impossible fall, but though The Cat’s Meow sorely lacks the epic scope to which it aspires, the general air of seedy debauchery on board renders it tolerable if ultimately unmemorable viewing. The repugnant Hearst is played with appropriate arrogance by Edward Herrmann, while the generally lightweight Kirsten Dunst is effortlessly credible as Hearst’s lover, who has grave difficulties keeping her knickers on in other men’s company. Despite the overwrought ‘whodunnit’ staples, it’s too lifeless and stagey an affair to quicken the pulse, often hanging together like a weak Ruth Rendell mystery, and a crashing disappointment for those who have been hanging on Bogdanovich’s big comeback. Eddie Izzard cameos, but it’s a spectacle you can safely live without, and only Herrmann’s cuckolded fury offers anything to savour. Eminently missable stuff.