IN 2013 SCOTT THORSON SAID HE ONCE HAD AN AFFAIR WITH MICHAEL JACKSON : IT'S CONTROVERSIAL

Multiple news agencies around 2013 reported that SCOTT THORSON said he also had a homosexual relationship with famous singer MICHAEL JACKSON.

I listed to a Howards Stern interview of Scott Thorson on YouTube.  I'll let you find it.  It's rude and crude and X rated.  Scott was in good humor and actually did answer some extremely intimate questions about sex with Liberace and also Michael Jackson.

Here is the review: Scott said he met Michael in 1977 and they were good friends. (He and Lee (Liberace) broke up in 1982.) He did have something going with Michael while still with Lee... Michael and Scott all had some cosmetic surgery at the same time.  Micheal was there convalescing at the same time. It was when Michael  was just starting his cosmetic surgeries.

Scott does not believe Michael had sex with young boys.   

During the interview he maintained a loving and positive attitude towards Michael.

This was also around the time that the Thriller album was so successful ....  Scott also says he was in recording studios with Michael.

When asked if he was in love with Michael, he said no.

"How could you top Liberace?" 

Other videos contained photos that give evidence of Lee, Scott, and Michael together.  However, to me this is no surprise as lots of celebrities meet up.  However, also I think it's entirely possible that Scott and Michael did have a relationship of some sort. 

BLAZE (THE FILM) MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

The film came out in 1989.  It does not feel dated.

Based on Blaze's autobiography, which she wrote with a co author, the film goes quickly through the stripper's life, beginning with her goodbye to her mother in rural West Virginia.  Her mother's advice was never trust a man who says "You can trust me." She says there are few men as good as her daddy.  She warns her daughter about boys.

Blaze's early dream is to be a country music singer. Far from home, she works at a donut shop until a customer grooms her to be a stripper. He is not honest, but convinces her that the audience is full of military men who may loose their lives in Korea. Can't she give them what they want - a strip - for America?  She defines herself as a dancer, not a stripper.

Blaze quickly becomes a star, traveling the circuit. Implied is that she has earned her independence. When Governor Earl Long of Louisiana shows up to see her perform in New Orleans, she asks him if she can trust him. He says "No you can't" and their romance is sparked. This is a man that Blaze can relate to.

Actor Paul Newman portrays the Governor as a wily older man who is sure he wants to keep his political office even if doing so requires unconventional ways. There's a bit of "only in Louisiana." Politically there's a situation in which the press and the voters want to know how he's going to deal with racism.  Black leaders say they need jobs, good jobs. He manages to do that by shaming an administrator at a segregated hospital.  Blaze retains her "down home" sensibilities.  Earl Long keeps his boots on - an old coot he is. There are some silly-funny sex scenes

When confronted by his political cronies about being involved with a stripper Long denies it, just as he does when confronted with IRS tax problems.  Blaze Starr is depicted stripping with one of Long's campaign buttons in her garter.  He wins the election but has had serious health problems for some time and dies, just after he lies and says she can trust him that he will marry her.

This film was based on the autobiography by Blaze Starr and co-author Huey Perry. 

Blaze was a production consultant and had a bit part in the film.

C 2023 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  Film Review 

All Rights reserved including Internet and International Rights

BINGE WATCHING the TOTAL FANTASY of EMILY IN PARIS : BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES

I got hooked on Emily in Paris last year, and just binge watched the second season.  If anything the show is going a bit slow for me; I'm ready for the third season and don't want to wait.  Am I a fan? Well...

My first impression was that the writers were highly dependent on stereotypes of the French, especially the comparatively accepting attitude about sexuality outside of marriage compared to most Americans. That's why I'm posting this here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT.  There are just so very many Parisian Courtesans to cover, and though few modern women in this world live lives comparative to the Belle Epoch Courtesans, you can use the search feature in this blog to discover just how important France is to our subject. You can muse along with me. There isn't just lots of sex outside marriage and other seemingly committed relationships in this show, there is a blurring of the boundaries about what's personal and also what is unacceptable sexual harassment on the job.

Emily is a modern American girl, from Chicago, who also seems to have an unlimited budget for Paris fashion, some of it by my way of thinking quite unprofessional for the office. Also she seems to be happy most of the time and is constantly chronicling her adventures using her social media and personal cell phone to take photos proving it.  With that I figure she has little sense of privacy.

But OK, it's a fantasy that a girl who just graduated college working for an American marketing firm, could get this paid experiential or whatever it is she's doing at the firm, live in a small apartment - that she shares with the richest girl in China who is estranged from her family and busking - and afford all those clothes. Maybe they're gifts from some of the client companies?  She is cuteness unlimited, bopping around, and really making the most of her French experience. She manages to get on the nerves of her woman boss - a woman of a mysterious age but let's say she's 40-something and still hot. The work crew includes an openly gay black man who also wears loud colors like Emily does and also seems to otherwise be a stereotype of gay creatives. The office crew seem to go somewhere between agreeing with clients and influencing them to market, promote, and advertise their products and hone their reputations.  Meanwhile there are some conflicts because of Emily's American values. She never means to, being exuberant and helpful and sweet by nature, but she can ruffle feathers not knowing what the boundaries are, and she still seems to be surprised at how open about sexuality the French are.

Except that, when it comes to sex, Emily is an adventurer who doesn't know what to make of a client sending her sexy underwear as a suggestion or what to do since she just had the best sex of her life with a good woman friend's special man. So much forgiveness though! Can Emily chose between the friendship and what she wants and needs for herself?  And has this become the conflict of the show - to be a Parisian or remain an American when it comes to values?  Last season she had sex with a teenager not knowing he was so young. His mother found out and approved. It happens.

Her American boss has come to visit the office and is quickly appalled by the idea that an employee would have an affair with a client. Where does Emily stand on this? Does she accept it as a team player at the company or because she is a peon in the scheme of things?

I've had coworkers who were involved with the married boss. They were unmarried women who were not in relationships.  If everyone in the office didn't know it, they suspected it. And friends have fallen for someone at their job, jobs they intended to keep, and it was messy when it didn't work out. 

On the lighter side, I laughed out loud at some of the antics of this second season. I anticipate that at some point in the show Emily is going to be called back to America and she is not going to want to go. Don't we all want her to find true love?  Is refusing to have sex outside the relationship the test?  Would the chef she had great sex with ever consider opening a place in Chicago?

C 2022  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

 I loved this film, circa 1997, because it's about friendship, something we all need to have a good life. Julia Roberts plays Julianne Potter, a liberated career woman with a long term Platonic Friendship that began as an affair but ripened into Best Friends.  Not much was happening for her or her friend Dermot, played by Michael O'Neal (who you want) so what a shock when he finds himself in love with the younger, innocent but unjaded, sweet but gutsy Kimberly, played by Cameron Diaz. After being a bitch and making a fool of herself, Julia must accept, things are never going to be the same. Luckily she has a friend in George, played by Rupert Everett, as well.  He's what every heterosexual woman needs; a gay man friend who loves her unconditionally and knows men better than she does. There are plenty of LOL moments in this film, and you might even find yourself singing out loud, so it's a treat.

After you watch it, call you Best Friend!

Missy

C 2021 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot Film Review All Rights Reserved Including Internet and International Rights

THE APARTMENT : A 1960's COMEDY : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

1960 wasn't the Swinging Sixties yet and subject matter such as this,

which could have been considered offensive to society

which was far more religious than ours,

 was made into comedy.

All these years later, I think of this film as having social commentary embedded in it. There is sexism and there is classism and well... What will you think once you've seen it? Maybe relax and find it fun, relate to it, or simply realize this kind of situation still happens. Only now, we have the MeToo Movement.

Shirley MacLaine is one of my favorite actresses* and someone who lived an unconventional life. After marrying and having a daughter, her husband and daughter moved to Japan. Theirs was a long distance and alternative relationship. She sent money. Focusing on her career, aware that despite her talent and hard work she was lucky to have one, MacLaine's autobiographical works (books), several which I've read, reveal that she was free to have other relationships and did have them. Be it through negotiation or just how it worked out, her marriage was an Open one. (Back in the day her marriage would have been considered one in which there was a "role reversal")

In The Apartment, Shirley MacLaine acts as Fran Kubelik, an young and pretty elevator operator who only has access to the executives at a company because they ride the elevator. Her ethnic surname suggests that this job is the best she can do (circa 1960). Though in a lowly position, she is hopeful and open-minded for love. She's a respectable girl who seems not to accept dates out of some sense of professionalism or wisdom but how long can that last?

Mister Sheldrake, the Big Boss, played by Fred MacMurray, has his afternoons to entertain.  He and other characters at the office are using an underlings apartment to have afternoon sex, excessively.  The underling, C.C. Baxter, played by Jack Lemmon, can't say no. He needs recognition and advancement in his career. The neighbors can hear all that sex through the walls and think it's Baxter - very busy.

Who will seduce Fran?

C 2021 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot 

Film Review

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

* Shirley was mentioned in this blog before because of her acting in the film Bernie. Bernie Tiedi was featured in January 2021

THE DUCHESS : A FILM ABOUT GEORGIANA SPENCER CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

Based on a book I did not read by author Amanda Foreman, the film is stated to be historically correct. It features actor Ralph Fiennes, as a difficult and demanding Duke who is entitled and sexist and not much interested in his wife, other than her reproductive ability and his need for an heir, and Keira Knightley as Georgiana Spencer, a young noble woman whose mother insists she marry for prestige and money while still a teenager. She did and became the wife of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire and mothered the 6th Duke. The real Georgiana lived from 1757 to 1806 and while her marriage was hell, she made a mark on society due to her beauty and personality, her social acumen, and her gambling habit. Blessed with charisma that just about everyone but her husband got, the Duchess decided to allow a young woman, Bess Foster, who her husband could love, into their home and so this marital arrangement sufficed, while reportedly she also had some love affairs herself. It is suggested that the young woman, a penniless mother who had left her own marriage, may have been bisexual or at least given Georgiana some lessons in how to enjoy pleasure but more likely the two women man shared. 

It was a relief for Georgianna, who comes from a different branch of the Spencer family that Lady Diana Spencer came from and seems to have been brutalized emotionally by her husband.  The scene in which the married couple come to terms with their mutual unhappiness is the only one in which the Duke seems to have some empathy. As a result, I cannot call the relationship these three people had a Love Triangle for there was no love lost for Georgiana. It's the kind of film that reinforces a woman's feminism, knowing that no one should be forced into a marriage or forced to stay in one that is this horrible.

Link to a lecture by author Amanda Forman about Georgiana on YouTube. Awfully good. Georgiana had affairs with women after realizing that her husband didn't like or love her.

Bess Foster was, according to Forman, a fake - a person who would make herself pleasing to one person at a time by studying them. Bess had an affair with both of them for about a year and during that year Georgiana finally became pregnant - as did Bess - both with the Duke's child.

YOUTUBE: AMANDA FORMAN on GEORGIANA and the DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE

C 2021 Mistress Manifesto Film Review

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

THE CROWN PRINCE : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

In a retelling of the the vivid story of Mary Vetsera and Crown Prince Rudolf, this film attempts to take us back in time to a period when stability in Europe was in question and Crown Prince Rudolf was a reluctant heir, frankly not suited for the role. The Prince seemed desperate for a life of irresponsibility.

A bad relationship with his father and his parents own unhappy arranged marriage as no good example, and with few Royal women of interest, the Prince pursued the party. He went to houses of prostitution and got VD which wasn't curable. He used morphine, though a doctor supplied it. The family were devout Catholics so he upset them and the bishops by hanging out with the Masons and mixing with commoners. He had a secret romance with a Jewish woman, who didn't know he was a Prince. But, like the Buddha, he also discovered the suffering, the poverty, the orphans in the streets, the fact that there were Greek Catholics and people of other religions in the Empire he was born to rule. He was no longer protected from the realities of the Empire. 

He's a progressive, interested in the new technology of electricity. He had new ideas that were not welcome. When he wasn't in Vienna, he's in Prague. Oddly, using a Jewish pen name, he writes articles that are published in a Jewish newspaper. 

After rejecting five possible matches, he could resist no longer and married Stephanie of Belgium who hadn't even had her period. Stephanie soon grew into a woman who had political opinions and was into her role as an upcoming emperor's wife. He thought of her as just one more society girl. The couple were miserable, especially when he gave her VD that resulted in infertility and there was no longer a reason for their marriage. 

His mother lived a life separate from his father, who had a mistress. She even lived in Godollo, a town in Hungary - part of the Austrian Empire but far away. So the Prince accepted an assignment in the military, as it was hoped this responsibility would give him self discipline and confidence. His father told him to fix his marriage. He wanted an annulment. The couple followed his parent's example and he lived a bachelor's life separate life from his wife.

Despite all this, there were women competing for the Prince and mothers pushing their daughters to become his mistress. The question was and is, did Mary Vetsera really want to be with him or has her life story been rewritten to explain how or why a beautiful young women, who could have had a had good marriage among the nobility, ended up in a suicide pact.

Her love for the Crown Prince may have been played up, so that she appears to have been desperately in love, possessed, enthralled and - utterly hopelessly fatally romantic. The story might have also been invented, I speculate, to get a pushy mother out of trouble or save her reputation. (For, from other sources, I know it appears there was a cover up that her family cooperated with that resulted in her reburial.) Was Mary a murder victim? Was the Prince not just a rebel but mentally ill.

The story goes that Mary, even as a girl, had a crush on him, and her mother ripped up the pictures of him that Mary kept of her idol, when he married to discourage her.

Perhaps there was another woman, a relative, who served as an intermediary between Mary and Rudolf? For in this version of what happened at Meyering, called a hunting lodge but one of his residences and the scene of wild parties, the Prince, who was now shooting up morphine and a very ill addict, not to mention possibly becoming deranged from the complications of VD, only planned to kill himself, but young Mary went to him, desiring to be with her Prince for eternity, the only way they could be together.

Mitzi, the common and more pragmatic Mistress is shown as the only person to be concerned about him to reach out for help. She was rebuffed.

The production appears to have come out of Austria or Germany and is rich with details. Perhaps it's my research that has lead me to more speculation.

C 2021 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

LOVE SOMEHOW : (CAITLIN MACNAMARA THOMAS DRAMA) MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

The film LOVE SOMEHOW is an unconventional composition, a monologue of about half an hour.  It presents the widowed wife of Dylan Thomas, Caitlin Macnamara Thomas, as well performed by actress Sally George.  The film is full of beautiful images of Wales and the exterior of the rather ramshackle house the couple lived in.  (I'm not sure the interior shots were done in this house.) Caitlin tells that she was a dancer, following in the footsteps of Isadora Duncan*, and met Dylan in Paris in a bar. He searched her eyes and put his head on her lap. You could say love at first sight.  She is portrayed as boozing herself.  She mentions that he lies, and lies, and lies. What was her reason for staying with him?  Love.

Here is some information on Dylan Thomas and his wife from various other sources.

Caitlin Macnamara was born in 1913 and died in 1994.

The couple married in 1937 and stayed married until his death in 1953.  He broke her heart before he died, it seems repeatedly. They both had affairs. After he died, she gave up drinking and moved to Italy.  She also authored a book called Leftover Life to Kill.

It seems to me that being married to a genius has some difficulties, a famous genius even more. This was never a sober relationship and so her choice to give up drinking and face life without a substance in her system came after this marriage.

I notice that there have been many Dylan Thomas inspired films in recent years, including one called A poet in New York (circa 2012) which perhaps portrays our Mistress of the Month, Pearl Kazin  There is also another film called Set Fire to the Stars with a focus on Dylan Thomas in New York, the Big Apple.  Ditto. Should I get to see one or both of these films, I will try to include my review or what I learned in this blog.

Missy

LOVE and SEX IN INDIA : DOCUMENTARY FILM: MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

India is primarily Hindu, secondarily Muslim, and both religions arrange marriages.  This film is about just how rigid that system is.  It is illegal to send a private investigator out to ask questions, illegal to have abortions, and both dowries and the caste system is illegal.  However, investigators routinely go out to get dirt on a potential bride or groom, women have abortions - especially to be rid of female fetuses (femalicide) and so the proportion of women available for men to marry is shrinking. People who run away to marry someone they fell in love with that their parents do not approve because they are of a different caste, and severe physical punishments if they are caught happen.  It's inexpensive to buy acid to throw in a woman's face for refusing a groom and men can be beaten to death as well.  These "Honor Crimes" have their defenders and lawyers who will go to court to defend them. As a result there is, profiled in this documentary, a shelter where couples go and hide and a tiny room of a temple where they can be married.  That they eloped and it's a done deal does not mean either of them will ever see their family again.

So, if you, like me, have studied yoga, and are of the opinion that India is a very spiritual country, well, it's also a difficult one to live in if you are a modern woman, one that doesn't believe in love as a reason for marriage.  Despite the Kuma Sutra sex position manuals and romantic Bollywood movies, sex - even kissing - is not allowed before marriage.  A woman without a husband has no status. 

And perhaps the biggest taboo of all is homosexuality, although transgender people - considered the 3rd sex and mystical - are accepted. 

All very sad, very distressing.

C 2020 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved

MEET THE PATELS : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

What do you do when your mother considers herself to be a successful matchmaker herself, but you can't seem to find the "right one" to marry and you really want mom off your back?

MEET THE PATELS is a documentary film that focuses on Patels, apparently one of the most common East Indian surnames in the United States and a name which also implies a certain caste. Handsome East Indian-American men experience a clash of cultures, the tradition of arranged marriage or finding their own partner in life, called a "love marriage." The idea is that if two people are matched well they will come to love each other, or learn to love each other, or discover what love is together. Generally, arranged marriages is how their parent's met. Aren't they happy? Doesn't a person's attitude has much to do with their parent's marriage, the marriage they have judged to be good or bad?

One thing that impresses me about East Indian Matchmaking in the United States is that the potential mates are often willing to move their lives to another city and state to make the match.  Sometimes the bride or groom, mostly the bride, comes from India to a new marriage and a new country.  What an adjustment that must be!  This means that family will either be distanced or follow.

I enjoyed this one.  It does have a happy ending. 

LOVE ME : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW : UKRAINIAN WOMEN AS IMPORTED BRIDES

I watched this documentary film with fascination because I wanted to know more about the men who are featured.  These are white American men trying to find a Ukrainian woman to import to the United States for the purpose of marriage.  All of them seemed to be decent enough men, not the type who would bring a woman to our country under false pretenses and turn her life into a nightmare.  I wanted to know if all or any of them would be successful.

This film focuses on a particular company that provides a web site, translation services, and trips to that country for meet ups, which are usually parties where women come to meet men, dance, talk, and perhaps further their relationships.
Some of the men have spent thousands on this process and have been to the country before. It's not an advertisement for this particular company and I wondered just how many companies are in the business of brides.

I can't help myself.  All the while I'm wondering why these men want a woman from afar, because I think there are plenty of women right here in the United States of America who would be willing to marry them.  Most of these men have income, houses, and can provide and evidence of that is also that some of them are spending thousands of dollars in pursuit of Ukrainian women.


C 2020 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

A PERFECT 14 : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

A PERFECT 14 is a captivating film.

It focuses on plus size models and the one's profiled and followed a bit are on strong career paths.

First, what does it take to be a "plus size" model? The very word implies fat, and indeed some plus size models are by just about anyone's perception fat, with extra folds of skin. But these successful models simply look like most of us. We are not hanger thin. See a normal woman next to a hanger thin one and you can see the difference.  Then you'll say, isn't that other women dangerous skinny?

What's really going on in fashion?

Are designers, male or female, simply unable to create clothing that looks great on humans who are not hanger thin?

Must we really contort ourselves in order to wear clothing? Become ill? Loose our perceptions of reality when we look in a mirror?

Elly Mayday was a plus size model from Canada who eventually died of ovarian cancer at the age of 30 because she was so young when she started having stomach pain (stage 3) that she was misdiagnosed for years. Holding to her dream with ambition she managed to model though she took cancer treatments and eventually had some extreme surgery. So her story is especially touching.

Another model, Kerosene Deluxe, who is profiled here is an alternative model. She is not only a big lady, she is a tattooed and pierced one. She also comes with a unique life story as she was born to a woman who had been a legal prostitute in Europe who married a man who had been a steady customer Europe.

Then there's the Perfect Sized 4 model who is traveling the world, Laura Wells, perhaps the most successful profiled. She is healthy. She is not overly fat - no belly - nor is she overly muscled.

If you're questioning why you are always dieting to loose or maintain weight so that you'll "look good" you might find some inspiration from these models.  You might also decide to go ahead and be a model yourself.

C 2020 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

LINK TO THE OFFICIAL SITE HERE :http://www.aperfect14.com/

JFK'S WOMEN : THE SCANDALS REVEALED : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

JFK's WOMEN is a documentary film that's currently available, and I watched it wondering if any of the Presidential Mistresses I've been featuring on this blog were included.

I guess I've read so very many books about this President, his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, Marilyn Monroe, and other people associated with them - some of whom you can find in my archives here at Mistress Manifesto.

I dedicated a month to Marilyn Monroe, the actress, who was a Mistress, but not to John F. Kennedy nor his brother Robert.  I consider any sexuality or romance she possibly had with either men to be affairs.

You will find Judith Campbell Exner, last months Presidential Mistress of the month on this film.  Testimonials are that she was well known by high ranking mobsters and paid $200 to seduce Jack, exploiting his out of control sex addiction, so that there would be a connection between Kennedy and the mob.  I still consider this to be a controversial statement.  It makes Judith into a prostitute.

You WILL NOT FIND MIMI ALFORD in this film

You will also NOT FIND NEXT MONTHS MISTRESS OF THE MONTH in this film.

Missy


C 2020  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

JEFFERSON IN PARIS - MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

JEFFERSON IN PARIS: This historical drama has some amazing scenes such as the hot air balloon rides that amused the wealthy Parisians and is taking place in the 1780's and pre French Revolution, but focuses on the forbidden love that Thomas Jefferson partook in as a widower.  First with the married Maria Cosway, British, whose parents arranged for her to be married to an artist rather than go into a nunnery; likely her husband was gay.  It is said that they did enjoy a sexual relationship, that he did propose marriage to her but she could not see living in the United States or understand slavery, and that they remained friends and wrote letters to each other for the rest of their lives.  And then with Sally Hemings, his slave brought to Paris as a servant to him and his daughters. Sally was underage by today's standards, and so the lovers story has modern notions of child abuse, seduction, and rape, as well as the power-over of a Master to a Slave. But perhaps the truth is in the long relationship Jefferson continued to have with Sally.  

 
IMDB JEFFERSON IN PARIS (1995)
As you can tell from this YouTuber's selection of frames from the film, it looks loving.

CHERI - BELLE EPOQUE MISTRESSES IN FRANCE : A FILM ABOUT AN OLDER COURTESAN AND A MUCH YOUNGER MAN

Lea, acted by Michelle Pfeiffer, is a French, pre- World War I Paris, Bell Epoch courtesan who has, until she meets a certain younger man, she calls Cheri, prideful of not ever really falling in love enough to be hurt.  Cheri was turned over to Lea by a somewhat older courtesan, a bit of a rival, who wants her son to get a good education in sex.  Now that she has fallen in love and done her job well, her rival match-makes her son with an age-appropriate and pure young daughter of yet another Courtesan. 

Lea uses all that she knows about being a woman, sex but not just, to get him back.

Taking place at a time when some Courtesans became wealthy, independent women by investing their money right, we none-the-less realize how small their world and opportunities are.  What they want for their children is a more normal life and a rise into respectability.

Lea wins the young man back. How can he forget his perfect lover when his wife is so, well, inexperienced?  In actuality Lea must turn him away when he comes back to her. an act of the most ferocious, selfless love. Her wisdom as she approaches mid-life is heartbreaking, which is why this is a good, thought-provoking and entertaining film.  And it's great to see the actress Kathy Bates in a role in which she is seductive.

C 2017  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  film review  Missy Rapport

A GOOD WOMAN : MRS. ERLYNNE AS THE WISE MISTRESS

Mrs. Erlynne, is acted by Helen Hunt, as the 40ish Serial Mistress who sets her sights on Amalfi, Italy for a season in 1930.  Mrs. Erlynne hasn't actually been married for years and she understands what motivates her and why she has chosen the lifestyle she has, considering the bad reputation she must endure.  Marriages isn't for her; generally, it's boring.

Scarlett Johansson acts as newlywed Meg Windermere who is vacationing with her husband. New to marriage and assured of her status in her set, she's been raised by a relative believing that her mother died when she was young.  Beautiful, trusting and sweet, the town gossips fill her in on the wicked ways of the world, but before her innocence can be robbed from her, Mrs. Erlynne shows up, and the gossip about the woman intrigues her.

Mrs. Erlynne, a Serial Mistress, is also a wise woman. She is quite expert at having men pay her bills - until their wives shut down her lines of credit.  Said to have fled New York and unpaid hotel bills, why is she really in Amalfi?

Is she, as the gossips say, a common prostitute, or a woman trying to make her way up in high society by eventually marrying the right man, someone who can live with her sins?  

In the end, Mrs. Erlynne decides she will not reveal her important secret to Meg, and allow her to believe her dead mother is her guardian angel.

Helen Hunt's mistress rather aches with repressed emotions.

C 2017 film review Mistress Manifesto Blogspot

SHAMPOO - A MISTRESS FILM THAT STARS WARREN BEATTY, GOLDIE HAHN, and JULIE CHRISTIE

Are all hairdressers gay?  George *(Warren Beatty) isn't.  In fact women are seduced not only by his beautiful trendy looks, and we presume sexual experise, but because he makes them feel beautiful and look beautiful.  He's one popular guy.  Some of the greatest women in town want private appointments with him, only trusting their hair - and their bodies too sometimes - to him.  Carrie Fisher plays the daughter who quizzes him at a home visit to see if he's sleeping with her mom.

At home he has a girlfriend Jill (Goldie Hawn).

He's sleeping with the wife of the businessman he approaches for financing to open his own salon.  Jill is used to waiting around for him, or going by the salon he works at to see him and being brushed aside. It's not till the end of the film that she asks him to move out because he admits that he sleeps around. He thinks sleeping around is part of his job. 

Jill is shocked but behaves in a noble manner, even if it is the 1960's.  Called "one of the American Film Institutes Funniest Movies" to that date, and nominated for four Academy Awards, I didn't quite get that this was a racy farce.  George isn't just sleeping with the investors wife, but also his mistress - Julie Christie's character.

Now here is what I noted while viewing the film, which is still a very popular one to borrow or rent:

The business man Lester's mistress - Christie - used to be George's girlfriend and they still like each other and are sexually attracted to each other - but being pragmatic, she's moved on him because he can support her.  As George becomes more frantic to own his own salon, he begins to part from Jill, saying that she needs someone who can "Take care of her."  Finances are supreme in his mind.

One gets the impression that perhaps when George is through with a woman or she is through with him, he releases his responsibility by urging her to a richer man. Of course George isn't doing so bad even if he's just the hottest hairdresser in town at one of the busiest and best salons.

This film's worth a watch because it got all that acclaim years ago!


Through the years I've heard that the George character was based on hairdresser Jay Sebring who was eventually killed by the Manson Murderers along with actress Sharon Tate.  Can't prove it, but thought that was interesting. If so, I'll bet the detectives considered that the murderer might be a man jealous over a woman.

C 2017  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  film review  Missy Rapport

STEVEN SPIELBERG's FILM SHINDLER'S LIST : EMILIE CATCHES HER HUSBAND ONE MORE TIME

Shindler's List is the film called Steven Spielberg's Opus. 
If you haven't seen the film, it's a must. 

The original title of this post was STEVEN SPIELBERG's FILM SHINDLER'S LIST : EMILIE CATCHES HER HUSBAND ONE MORE TIME and the video is gone.

In the film Oskar Schindler's wife comes to visit him and his Mistress is there with him and quickly leaves.  All he has to say to his wife is how embarrassed the woman must be.  For the purposes of the film the Mistress is seen as a sexual being, as if she is only there for sex with Oskar. Is Emilie Schindler accepting or long suffering her husband's infidelities?

June 2021 

ENEMIES A LOVE STORY based on the book by ISAAC BASHIVIS SINGER

Ron Silver, as the man Herman Broder who has Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome because of his Holocaust experiences, Angelica Huston as the wife who was thought to be dead in the Holocaust, but who comes to New York alive - their children dead, Lena Olin as the mistress (who is married to another, older, man and lives with her mother), a Holocaust survivor who was in the camps, Margaret Sophie Stein is the Polish peasant who saved his life and who he wed out of gratitude. She wishes to become a Jew and becomes pregnant.


Herman loves all these women in different ways.


A fine work by Issac Bashivis Singer, full of complexities. Such situations did happen post World War II. The Red Cross (there's a link in the Kathleen Kennedy month) did it's best to reunite people who were separated by the war and the death camps and to this day will try to help people locate lost relatives. I'll never forget the first time I saw an old man survivor with his Nazi death camp tattoo, a number on his arm, dehumanizing him. Since then I've attended Holocaust memorials, gone to hear a Shindler's List survivor speak, and learned a lot about Naziism. 

SYLVIA - the film - AMIERA CASAR as ASSIA WEVILL

 Gwyneth Paltrow as poet Sylvia Plath, a bit mad and very driven to be a successful published poet.  Daniel Craig as the already known and esteemed poet Ted Hughes, Sylvia's husband, and Amiera Casar as Assia Wevill, this 2003 film focused on Sylvia and favored her a bit.


In the film, the Plath's and the Wevills become friends of sorts.  The Wevills come for dinner and Sylvia is acting a bit odd.  She's not in a hostess mood after all.  It doesn't help that Assia and Ted have a kiss in the kitchen.  The Wevills are asked to leave.  They pretend understanding the stress Sylvia is under, a poet and motherhood and Ted.


Is this really how the affair between Ted and Assia began?
Was Ted already on the way out of his marriage in his mind, finding being married to another poet, a demanding woman, too much to bear?
Was Sylvia's behavior too crazy for most men to deal with?


If you haven't seen this one, it's worth a watch.  Then you decide.