The Cat's Meow

The Cat's Meow (2001) is Peter Bogdanovich's period mystery, and you can watch online on iFILM. One autumn weekend in 1924, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst gathers a glittering crowd of silent-era stars aboard his lavish yacht. By the time the boat returns, producer Thomas Ince is dead.

No press coverage, no real inquiry — just whispers that never went away. The film takes the juiciest rumor of the day and stages it as a chamber piece: Hearst's jealousy over his much younger sweetheart Marion Davies, the charming Charlie Chaplin circling her, and a single gunshot that may have been meant for the wrong man entirely. Close quarters, champagne, jazz, and paranoia tightening by the hour.

Kirsten Dunst plays Marion, Edward Herrmann is Hearst, and Eddie Izzard makes a surprisingly persuasive Chaplin. Bogdanovich, a devoted student of old Hollywood, didn't make a whodunit with a tidy solution — he made a wistful elegy for a vanished age where money and silence bought the truth. A subtle, unhurried piece for anyone drawn to the dark underside of the dream factory. Stream The Cat's Meow (2001) online on iFILM.