Mistress

Robert Wuhl plays Marvin - a weary, bemused screenwriter who gets a second chance at filmmaking when an unctious producer, Jack Roth (Martin Landau), taps him on the shoulder in a quest to get Marvin's old script made into a movie. It's the usual story, Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood, and this satire concerns itself primarily with the creative hurdles a film can be required to jump if it wants to attract financing. Marvin and Jack meet with a trio of executive producers and must convince each one to help finance their picture. Soon Marvin's project is cast with the acting-aspirant mistresses of each producer, and the artistic value of the script (a rather dreary piece about an artist commiting suicide) becomes tempered by the usual Hollywood formula for box office success. As the project continues to build momentum, Marvin finds that his ideals mean less to him and he starts desperately playing the game of Hollywood-bullshit just to get the film made. The project becomes a comedy, and then some sex scenes are added in, and so on and so forth.

As a film about the plight of the Hollywood screenwriter I'd say it's only really half successful. There's a scene near the beginning where a chef in a production of a cooking video is asked to use lighter fluid in order to achieve a visually stunning flambe. The chef is horrified as it will ruin the food, and this becomes a metaphor for the ways an artist must compromise his art. The problem with Mistress though is that Marvin's precious script doesn't sound particularly great to begin with, so his attachment to it isn't really a point of sympathy for the audience. The mistress theme isn't really all that developed either beyond superficially featuring three characters who happen to be the mistresses of these producers. It starts out as a light Hollywood comedy and then becomes all introspective at the end, questioning the motivations of these losers and what drives them. In short, it's entertaining but it's also a bit of a mess.

Somehow, this film is also filled with big name actors, and this is the only real reason to watch it. I suspect that the making of Mistress may have been even more interesting than the metafictional story it tells, as it features celebrated legends such as Martin Landau and Eli Wallach, and features supporting appearances from Robert De Niro, Danny Aiello and Christopher Walken. Wallach, Aeillo and De Niro play the trio of producers called upon to finance the film... each has a scene where they sit down and discuss the script with Marvin and Jack, and they all feature again in a larger scene at the end. Wallach's character is the most entertaining of the three - a cantankerous self-made businessman who doesn't really know anything about movies. Danny Aiello plays a depressed and mopey gambler, and De Niro is a hotshot Hollywood type who's only interested in making money. De Niro's introduction looks like it was shot while he was just having lunch somewhere, as he never physically shares the screen with Wuhl or Landau in this scene. His role just feels like a cameo done as a favour to someone. Walken's brief appearance is bizarre but important to the film, and I had to laugh at the wordless cameo from Ernest Borgnine!

Anyway, this film is a bit of a mixed bag and is kind of obscure as far as De Niro films go. You can watch it in parts on youtube. Apparently director-writer Barry Primus (who is better known as a character actor) tried to get it made as a film for several years before his friend De Niro agreed to finance it and play a role in the film. Some bits are wryly funny but I can't say it the film is all that great overall, by the end it felt like it had overstayed its welcome and didn't really have anything fresh or exciting to say.

DIRECTOR: Barry Primus
WRITER/SOURCE: Barry Primus and J. F. Lawton
KEY ACTORS: Robert Wuhl, Martin Landau, Jace Alexander, Danny Aiello, Eli Wallach, Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Laurie Metcalfe, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Tuesday Knight, Jean Smart

RELATED TEXTS
- De Niro would revisit similar material with the film What Just Happened, in which he plays the lead role.
- Other films about Hollywood: Hollywood Ending, For Your Consideration, State and Main, Barton Fink, Sweet Liberty, The Big Picture, Swimming With Sharks, The Player, Burn Hollywood Burn and The Stunt Man.