The Cat's Meow

THE CAT’S MEOW PRODUCTION NOTES Directed by Peter Bogdanovich SYNOPSIS From award-winning screenwriter Steven Peros and acclaimed director Peter Bogdanovich comes The Cat’s Meow, an extraordinary look at a fateful excursion of “fun and frolic” aboard William Randolph Hearst’s private yacht in November of 1924 that brought together some of the century’s best-known personalities and resulted in a still-unsolved, hushed-up killing. As Hearst and his lover actress Marion Davies set sail from San Pedro Harbor early one Saturday morning, hosting a small group that includes the brilliant but self-absorbed Charlie Chaplin, film pioneer Thomas Ince preoccupied with his recent financial setbacks, ambitious gossip columnist Louella Parsons, and the eccentric British Victorian novelist Elinor Glyn, it quickly becomes clear that although witty repartee and double entendre are the order of the day, deceit and deception are also on the menu. Everyone, it seems, has a secret agenda: Ince, whose pioneering work in defining the role of the film producer has been favorably compared to D.W. Griffith’s contributions to directing, is determined to seal a partnership with Hearst’s Cosmopolitan Pictures despite W.R.’s seeming lack of interest; New York-based film critic Louella Parsons has her eye on a transfer to the west coast where she can cover the film industry more intimately; Ince’s lover, actress Margaret Livingston, no longer cares to keep their affair a secret; Hearst himself suspects that his paramour Davies has been unfaithful with the legendary comic Chaplin; and Chaplin indeed schemes to steal away the beautiful actress from the richest man in the world. The boat sets off, and the first evening’s dinner gives way to frenetic dancing to the on-board jazz band, followed by a screening of Ms. Davies’ latest film. From there the late-night revelries shift to individual cabins for bootleg whiskey, marijuana cigarettes and other tempting, though illicit, nocturnal activities. 2 Meanwhile, Ince stokes Hearst’s flames of jealousy and offers to “keep an eye on” Ms. Davies if the two men were to unite their filmmaking enterprises. At the same time, Elinor warns Marion away from the predatory advances of the womanizing Chaplin. Hearst is further incensed when a late-night wire comes in to report that a rival newspaper will publish an item romantically linking Chaplin and Davies. The next day Hearst’s party guests are treated to an unusual display when their host fires a cannonball into the stomach of a brawny vaudevillian named “Mr. Cannonball.” Meanwhile, lawyer George Thomas warns the increasingly desperate Ince not to turn over a love letter to Marion that the producer stole from Chaplin’s cabin. That afternoon, as Margaret reveals to anyone who’ll listen that she is Thomas Ince’s lover, Marion pleads with Charlie to keep his distance, though they cannot deny their mutual attraction. That night Ince stokes the flames of Hearst’s jealousy into a bonfire. In an attempt to further ingratiate himself in order to close the partnership deal, he hands Hearst the crumpled love letter that he stole from Chaplin’s wastebasket. Later, as figures come and go, trading whispered conversations in the shadows, the events of the last two days hurtle toward a dramatic moment of tragedy and a single gunshot echoes in the night. The events of that evening affect the lives of every celebrity on board the ship, and before the excursion is over, all will learn the painfully high price of their precarious success. * * * 3 ABOUT THE PRODUCTION Producer Kim Bieber so believed in Steven Peros’ screenplay for The Cat’s Meow that, after her initial attempts to interest various film studios in it fell short of obtaining an actual commitment, she proposed that the writer rework it as a play. He did and she subsequently produced the piece at a small theater in Los Angeles. As she had hoped, the play garnered rave reviews and at least one critic wrote that it might make a compelling film. Bieber then contacted her friend, casting director Carol Lewis, who had been looking for a vehicle that would allow her to make the transition to film producer, and proposed that they work together on it. The two found that they both gravitated to this unique piece because they shared a love of the classic films of old Hollywood. Though the road from idea to reality was a long and arduous one for the first-time feature film producing team, in the end, said Lewis, “We made the picture we wanted to make.” For both Bieber and Lewis the selection of a director was an easy one. “Peter was our first choice and we’re so glad that he was interested and available,” said Lewis. “Kim and I are both long-time fans of his work and we knew that he wouldn’t be afraid of a period piece. At the time we had no idea of his personal connection to the story – we felt that his vast knowledge of Hollywood history was just one more reason why he was the perfect one to direct it.” Director Peter Bogdanovich, whose own life has been touched more than once both personally and professionally by tragedy, first heard “the whisper” about the story from no less a film icon than Orson Welles, while the two men were working together some years ago on a book about Welles’ films. “Hearst’s name came up,” recalls Bogdanovich. “The story behind The Cat’s Meow was in the first draft of Citizen Kane. He said Herman Mankiewicz (Welles’ 4 co-screenwriter) put it in, but Orson took it out because, as he later told Bogdanovich, “Kane was not a killer.” “At the start of the movie you know there was a shooting, because it begins with a funeral,” says Bogdanovich. “You know someone’s going to get hurt – the question is who? All these famous people were reputed to be on the yacht, and there are several versions of who they were. In her narration, Elinor Glyn says, ‘everything was told in whispers. This is the whisper most often told.’” More than just a tale of suspense set in the glittering world of Hollywood celebrities, The Cat’s Meow also struck another thematic chord for the celebrated director. “One of the reasons I was attracted to the script, apart from the fateful aspect of it, was that it’s basically a story about how difficult success is – it creates a kind of curse that comes with it…Here is a story about how difficult it is to deal with success. “Success leads you into an unreal world,” he continues. “It creates a kind of miasma and people lose themselves. Everybody gravitates to you because of your success – then the avarice factor, the jealousy factor, the envy factor, all kick in. You might say that all seven deadly sins start dancing more. “It’s very dangerous,” Bogdanovich adds knowingly. According to the director, success in the U.S. poses unique challenges, and success in Hollywood is especially treacherous. “In America success is particularly difficult because it comes to you in waves and can so easily be taken away,” he notes. “America, after all, is a young country and we have no respect for age here, or for tradition.” 5 Bogdanovich himself is no stranger to scandal, or to the fickleness of success. After establishing himself as an American director of the first rank with a succession of the critically acclaimed films The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon, his career took a turn with the less well received Daisy Miller and At Long Last Love. The director enjoyed a moderate comeback with Saint Jack, an engrossing character study of a Singapore pimp, but then suffered another setback with They All Laughed, a film that he was forced to distribute himself and which became a financial disaster for him. Personal tragedy visited him at the same time when Dorothy Stratten, former Playboy Playmate of the Year and Bogdanovich’s girlfriend at the time, was murdered by her jealous husband, from whom she was separated at the time, after finishing her featured role in the film. Several years passed before Bogdanovich returned to filmmaking, but his career was revived again by the success of that effort, the award-winning Mask. “In Hollywood failure is a scandal,” says Bogdanovich. “Of course, everything’s a scandal when you live in a goldfish bowl, so everything is the stuff of gossip and legend.” As both a film historian and someone whom has himself been at the epicenter of considerable personal and professional controversy, Bogdanovich seemed predestined to be the one to bring this particular Hollywood legend to the screen. The story first shared by Orson Welles, who had heard about it firsthand from Marion Davies’ nephew, stuck in his memory, so that when he read the script of The Cat’s Meow, it seemed to the director “that fate was telling me something.” As a film historian, Bogdanovich has always been interested in the decade of the 1920s, which were in many ways the zenith of the film industry, and the legendary filmmakers of that time. During that decade most Americans of all ages went to the movies at least once a week. It was well before the age of 6 television; even radio, in fact, hadn’t yet established itself in the public’s imagination. The director’s interest in and knowledge of that period is also evidenced by his several books on movies and their illustrious directors, his most recent being Who the Devil Made It, based on his interviews with sixteen legendary filmmakers, which received a special award from the L.A.

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