Main Cast: Robert Wuhl, Martin Landau, Robert De Niro, Danny Aiello, Eli Wallach
Release Year: 1992
Country: US
Run Time: 110 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Successful character actor Barry Primus spent seven years trying to get financing for his feature debut as a writer-director, Mistress. In the film, a once-promising writer-director, Marvin Landisman (Robert Wuhl), who now directs instructional videos, is sitting home one night, watching his own print of Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion, when he gets a strange phone call. A producer, Jack Roth (Martin Landau), formerly a bigwig at Universal, tells Marvin he was cleaning out his office when he came across Marvin's old script, "The Darkness and the Light." Jack claims he can get financing to make the film, and agrees to Marvin's stipulation that he be attached to direct. They "take a meeting" at a low-rent diner, and Jack brings along a gung-ho novice screenwriter, Stuart (Jace Alexander), to help Marvin polish the script. They meet with three potential backers, played by Eli Wallach, Danny Aiello, and Robert DeNiro, each one more meddlesome than the last, and each with a girlfriend (played by Tuesday Knight, Jean Smart, and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively) whom they demand be cast in the film. At first, Marvin adamantly resists changing his serious, downbeat, and very personal script, about an painter who commits suicide, rather than betray his ideals. But eventually, Marvin gets caught up in the momentum of actually getting his dream project made, and starts compromising. He agrees to cast the three women; he agrees to make the script funnier and sexier; he even agrees to change the painter to a photographer to please his backers. Laurie Metcalf plays Marvin's long-suffering wife, and Christopher Walken has a cameo as a tortured actor. Mistress was the first film produced by DeNiro's independent production company, Tribeca Films. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
An inside look at low-level Hollywood deal making, Mistress was released just a few months after Robert Altman's The Player, and suffered from the comparison. While The Player is slick and jaunty, and features a wealth of A-list cameos, Mistress is more sweaty and desperate, and features cameos by Christopher Walken and Ernest Borgnine. Primus clearly based Mistress partly on his own experiences in the film business, and a lot of the amusing low-budget details (exemplified by Jack Roth's [Martin Landau] amusingly mundane choice of restaurants) and desperate dialogue ring true. Robert Wuhl delivers one of his better performances, for the most part eschewing the mugging that mars a lot of his work. Landau, Jean Smart, and Laurie Metcalf stand out in the strong supporting cast. But the film's overly complicated plot frequently veers into melodrama, which mixes uneasily with its low-key farce. Mistress is a modestly entertaining film that occasionally takes itself too seriously. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Jace Alexander - Stuart Stratland, Jr.; Tuesday Knight - Peggy; Sheryl Lee Ralph - Beverly; Christopher Walken - Warren Zell; Laurie Metcalf - Rachel Landisman; Jean Smart - Patricia Riley; Frida S. Aradottir - Mrs. Evan M. Wright; Tim Bagley - Mitch's Singing Student; Gretchen Becker - Hamburger Girl; Ernest Borgnine - Himself; Jerome Dempsey - Mitch; Dimitri Dimitrov - Maitre d'; Stefan Gierasch - Stratland Sr.; Deirdre Hade - Party Goer; Dawn Hopper - Mitch's Singing Student; Debbie James - Mitch's Singing Student; Kate Johnson - Party Guest; Peter Kalos - Party Goer; Michael F. Kelley - Guard at Gate; Mary Mercier - Shelby's Waitress; Raphaela Rose Primus - Raphaela Wright; Bill Rotko - Valet; Vasek Simek - Hans; Nina Small - Mitch's Singing Student; Tomas R. Voth - Stagehand; Roberta Wallach - Nancy; Tuesday Weld; Eileen Wilkinson - Astrologer; Byron Simpson - Mitch's Singing Student; Chuck Low - Benrie; Leata Galloway - Mitch's Singing Student
Credit
Randy Grickson - Art Director, Randy Eriksen - Art Director, Gail Levin - Casting, Susan Nininger - Costume Designer, Bruce Franklin - First Assistant Director, Jeff Rafner - First Assistant Director, Barry Primus - Director, Steve Weisberg - Editor, Galt MacDermot - Composer (Music Score), Ilona Herman - Makeup, Phil Peters - Production Designer, Sven Kirsten - Cinematographer, Robert De Niro - Producer, Meir Teper - Producer, Bertil Ohlsson - Producer, Avi Kleinberger - Producer, Ruth Charny - Producer, K.C. Fox - Set Designer, J.F. Lawton - Screenwriter, Barry Primus - Screenwriter, Tom Perry - Re-Recording Mixer
Written by Barry Primus and J. F. Lawton, Mistress is about a Hollywood screenwriter named Marvin Landisman whose old movie script is read by Jack Roth, an almost has been producer who tries to help poor Marvin to find investors for his new movie. From there, they get involved with three possible investors willing to help their project. But it seems that each money source has their own mistress that they want put into the film. Gradually, the screenwriter is forced to make changes to his script to accommodate these backers until he finally sees no semblance of his original ideas in the writing. Starring an all-star casting, the movie takes you to the journey of a young talent who tries to make in Hollywood, but finds it difficult to keep his own ideas plus his personal life intact.
