The Swimmer (1968)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Frank Perry

Writers:

John Cheever (story)
Eleanor Perry (writer)

Release Date:

15 May 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

The famed John Cheever short story appeared in the New Yorker and people talked. Now there will be talk again. When you sense this man's vibrations and share his colossal hang-up . . . will you see someone you know, or love? When you feel the body-blow power of his broken dreams, will it reach you deep inside, where it hurts? When you talk about "The Swimmer" will you talk about yourself?

Plot:

Neddy Merrill has been away for most of the Summer. He reappears at a friends pool. As they talk, someone...

Plot Keywords:

Computer Dating | Broken Window | 1960s | Coca Cola | Neighbor

US Showtimes:

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Cast

Burt Lancaster	...	Ned Merrill
Janet Landgard	...	Julie Ann Hooper
Janice Rule	...	Shirley Abbott
Tony Bickley	...	Donald Westerhazy
Marge Champion	...	Peggy Forsburgh
Nancy Cushman	...	Mrs. Halloran (Nudist)
Bill Fiore	...	Howie Hunsacker
David Garfield	...	Ticket Seller (as John Garfield Jr.)
Kim Hunter	...	Betty Graham
Rose Gregorio	...	Sylvia Finney
Charles Drake	...	Howard Graham
Bernie Hamilton	...	Halloran's Chauffeur
House Jameson	...	Mr. Chester Halloran (Nudist)
Jimmy Joyce	...	Jack Finney
Michael Kearney	...	Kevin Gilmartin Jr.

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:12 (f) (re-rating) | West Germany:16 (f) (original rating) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Singapore:PG | Sweden:11 | UK:PG | USA:Approved | USA:PG (re-rating) (1968)

Filming Locations:

Connecticut, USA

Company:

Horizon Pictures (II)

Trivia:

Burt Lancaster did numerous push-ups and sit-ups every morning before each shoot to stay lean and solid. He gained 20 lb. of muscle by doing weights, running, karate and aerobics.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: Shadow of light-rig clearly visible at the first pool party.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Donald Westerhazy: Where have you been keeping yourself?
Ned Merrill: Oh, here and there. Here and there.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Undercover X (2001)

Soundtrack:

Send for Me in Summer

Cold Shoulders From Connecticut Can Rival a Nuclear Weapon!!

Just how devastating is the term "has been" anyway? Such a plight can often times lead to life giving you the cold shoulder, and kicking you when you're down!! Besides, how is somebody expected to interpret a bevy of disconcerting responses that they get bombarded with? When encountering a series of contemptuous jeremiads from those who perennially resented you, how are you suppose to respond to something like this? This movie opens up the floodgates for Ned Merrill (the swimmer / Burt Lancaster) and provides one social conundrum after the next as a way of accommodating Ned Merrill's quagmires of disillusionment and arctic desolation!! Sydney Pollack is the collaborating director of this film, along side of Frank Perry. Pollack is one of my favorite directors of all time!! His articulation on the savage emotions of people with firmly entrenched hang-ups encompasses a bitter realism that evokes a heinously irrevocable resolve with the movie audience!! Such intransigence with the characters in the movie "The Swimmer" wound up becoming a vitiation of humanistic alternatives for compassion with this particular facet of upper crust Connecticut!! These shallow suburbanites were perpetually writhing with venom with regards to their vicarious manifestation of disgruntled feelings!! Such wry feelings inevitably translated to all of these comfortable malcontents being mired in a citadel of acrimony!! Swimming pools were a form of prestige in this film, this is a common New York suburban status symbol!! The size and condition of the pool represented the state of pecuniary deterioration they were afflicted with, or, for the fortunate ones, their lack of it!! Each one of these spawns of affluent dereliction have been decimated through a vicious and denigrating natural course of time erosion, as well as an excessive consumption of alcohol!! You will need a brand new machete to slice through all of the cynicism in this film!! Reveille with the fact that every token of prestige in Ned Merrill's life, now belonged to the bank, was the decaying adversary which became his Achille's heel!! His only potential for escalation in his threatened existence, were his escalating debts!! The swimmer (Burt Lancaster's character) has now been discarded, and fed to the wolves, because his neon accented exposure to his cavorting country club cohorts, about his monetary demise, has sadly reared it's ugly head!! I found this film to be powerful and effective in it's portrayal of the pusillanimous affluent!! This film effectuated a myriad of recriminations for everyone. These avoidable flaws became their ultimate undoing!! Isolation was the conspicuous villain which stalemated Ned Merrill, as well as all of the happenstance victims related to his desultory lifestyle!! Burt Lancaster does a remarkable job of acting in this movie!! I thought I saw some footage whereby David Hasselhoff was in a remake of this film, that would be very interesting to see!! As I have previously mentioned, Sydney Pollack is a fantastic director, and it shows in this movie over and over again!! I definitely recommend seeing this film!! The acting from everybody in this film is very believable. The cacophony of human shortcomings in this movie, gets relegated to a proverbial scenario of too little too late!! For Ned Merrill, it becomes a situation whereby it is ephemeral to be barraged with a bunch of socialites who are formaldehyded by material obsessions!! This film depicts the colossal ramifications, and metaphorically sibilant social pitfalls of masquerading pretenses, far more effectively than almost any other movie that I have seen!! FIVE STARS!! Definitely!!!