The Cat's MeowDirected by Peter Bogdanovich A Lion's Gate release Opens Friday at Ritz Bourse

Nearly a decade since his last picture show, The Thing Called Love -- a decade spent whoring his directorial talents out to high colonic TV movies like Naked City: A Killer Christmas and Rescuers: Stories of Courage: Two Women -- one-time wünderkind Peter Bogdanovich returns to the big screen. No one should be too surprised to learn that his return feature focuses on the (true?) story of a mysterious death on board the yacht of William Randolph Hearst. Given his not-unrelated obsessions with classic films, Hollywood myth and the friendship he cultivated -- and never tires of bragging about -- with Orson Welles, this has to be, for Bogdanovich, the filmmaking equivalent of comfort food.

It's California in 1924 and Hearst is hosting a weekend at sea on his gigantic boat Oneida to celebrate the birthday of pioneer movie producer Thomas Ince (Cary Elwes). Ince had produced or directed almost 300 films in collaboration with luminaries like Mack Sennett, D.W. Griffith and Adolph Zukor, but his last few movies have been flops, and he needs Hearst's financial backing to save his career.

Hearst's mistress, actress Marion Davies, is also aboard. That W.R. dotes on Marion is an understatement: He created an entire movie studio, Cosmopolitan Pictures, devoted to making movies starring her. As Davies, Kirsten Dunst is gorgeous, funny and sharp; if the real Marion was anything like her, it's easy to see why Hearst was so devoted. Hearst is not the only one smitten by Davies' charms, though, and it is his misfortune to be all too conscious of the competition for her attention. The chief lothario is none other than Charlie Chaplin, notorious at the time for having married and divorced one 16-year-old, and impregnating a second one. (And you thought he was called The Little Tramp because of his hobo shtick.) Hearst has invited Chaplin to the party to observe how he and Marion behave together. Hearst's scenes of desperate, mostly ineffective spying on all parties, culminating in the violent, frustrated search through Davies' cabin, come off like a neat, pre-electronic riff on The Conversation.

Other passengers in this tale of a fateful trip include jaded British novelist Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley), whose acerbic narration provides the frame for the story, and star-struck Hollywood newcomer Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly), who grows increasingly canny as the film progresses, such that she ends up with a lifetime Hearst Publications contract for her entertainment column. Lumley and Tilly do right by their parts, each extracting a maximum of pulp and juice from their small but important roles.

Indeed, the acting on all counts is what puts the purr in The Cat's Meow. An actor himself before he made his own films (he's currently seen as Dr. Kupferberg on The Sopranos), Bogdanovich's strength as a director has always been getting nuanced, earthy performances from his casts. Edward Herrmann does his best work as the sad, insecure media dynamo Hearst, gamely trying to be the perfect host while falling victim to his Othello-like jealousies. As Ince, Elwes manages to transcend his usual blandness, delivering equal parts cool and desperation. Besides certified movie star Dunst, who deservedly gets the bulk of the attention (from the other yachters and the camera), the real breakout performance is by cross-dressing comic Eddie Izzard as Chaplin. Although he looks more like the Chaplin of 1947's Monsieur Verdoux than he of 1925's The Gold Rush, Izzard perfectly captures the likeable cheekiness and ardent horndoggery of one of Hollywood's great talents.

If The Cat's Meow ultimately fails to be the bee's knees, some of the blame can be shouldered by the source material. Steven Peros' script is an adaptation of his own play, and not much of the piece's staginess has been transmuted. Since most scenes take place below deck on the Oneida -- a large boat, to be sure, but still a relatively cramped space -- the film has a tight, claustrophobic feel. This may serve to heighten the themes of sexual frustration and tragic inevitability (and keep the production budget low), but I can count on about two fingers the plays that work as movies without being "opened up" for the medium, and they both star Cary Grant.

That the movie is so dependent on exposition is not surprising; these are representations of real people, whose situations and motivations need to be explained to modern audiences. But this is fundamentally a small art film, playing to a cinema-savvy demo who are at least passingly familiar with the Hearst/Davies story. What is surprising is the way the story is structured: Bogdanovich wants this to be a murder mystery, with the killer and the killed's identities kept secret until the end. If you already know the legend about who supposedly did what to whom (and many reviews are tattling), there aren't a lot of plot twists to be had 'round these parts. I'm glad you're back, Pete, but next time tell me something I don't know.