When filmmakers — or screenwriters, to be more precise — employ voice-over narration, it often seems to indicate that they don't believe moviegoers are smart enough to follow the story.
Fortunately, "The Cat's Meow" abandons its rather unnecessary and clunky voice-over only a few minutes in (though it rears its ugly head again at the end). But there's still the lingering feeling that its maker believes this period drama is more intelligent than its audience.
Still, even that air of smug superiority isn't enough to completely overwhelm what is certainly director Peter Bogdanovich's most relaxed, and therefore best, work in a long, long time.
And a handful of very strong performances keep redeeming the film just when it seems as if it's going to become intolerable.
"The Cat's Meow" is based on Steven Peros' stage play, a highly fictitious piece that examines a still-unsolved 1924 Hollywood mystery.
Most of the action takes place aboard media magnate William Randolph Hearst's private yacht. That's where novelist Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley) finds herself. That means she's there, front-and-center, to observe the love triangle among Hearst (Edward Herrmann), his actress-mistress Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst) and Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard).
The already insecure Hearst becomes increasingly unhinged throughout the brief excursion as he notices how much attention the womanizing Chaplin is paying
to his much younger lover.
Compounding that is the presence of once-golden studio head Thomas Ince (Cary Elwes), who is trying to get back into Hearst's favor by spying on Davies and Chaplin — while dealing with his own indiscretions, of course.
Bogdanovich is smart to treat this material with a light touch, and he allows the members of his cast to find their own voices.
Not that all of them are good. While Dunst exudes a great deal of silent-movie charm as Davies (she even sings an old-time number, "After You're Gone," on the film's soundtrack) and Herrmann shines as Hearst, the usually dependable Izzard doesn't make a very convincing Chaplin.
But even he's better than Jennifer Tilly, whose irritating turn as infamous gossip columnist Louella Parsons sounds as if she's trying to impersonate the "Flintstones" character Betty Rubble.
"The Cat's Meow" is rated PG-13 for scenes of simulated sex (mostly overheard), some crude sexual banter and use of religiously based profanity, brief violence (gunplay), brief drug content (use of tranquilizers) and brief gore. Running time: 112 minutes.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com