The muddled mistress

Set in the Twenties, this stars Eddie Izzard as Charlie Chaplin stirring up trouble on board the yacht of newspaper and movie mogul William Randolph Hearst ( aka Citizen Kane). Hearst's young mistress, Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst), has a crush on Chaplin but knows he is truculent and manipulative. Is he worth chucking her sugar daddy for?

Izzard is terrific, saying to Marion at one point, in a typically Izzard way: "Question. Two men starving to death decide to eat their hair like spaghetti. Is that funny?"

Other people on board include a variety of gossip columnists, troubleshooters and movie producers (Joanna Lumley, Ronan Vibert, Cary Elwes); we come across huddles of them in cabins, being urbane in too much make-up.

The most notable thing about The Cat's Meow is that it has been directed by that great Frenchinspired American Peter Bogdanovich, who made the influential Last Picture Show (1971). For a

time, Bogdanovich let an ageing Orson Welles live in his summerhouse. Sadly, little feeling of the Welles-Kane-Hearst-Bogdanovich connection comes through.

And since the film has been hanging around for a couple of years now, with regular screenings on Sky Movies, its sudden theatrical release feels somewhat after the fact.

The Cat's Meow
Cert: cert12A