The Swimmer (1968 film)
The Swimmer is a 1968 American surrealist-drama film starring Burt Lancaster.[1] The film was written and directed by Academy Award-nominated husband-and-wife team of Eleanor Perry (screenplay adaptation) and Frank Perry (director). The story is based on the 1964 short story "The Swimmer" by John Cheever, which appeared in the July 18, 1964, issue of The New Yorker.[2] The 95-minute movie adds new characters and scenes consistent with those in the original 12-page short story.
The Swimmer
Frank Perry
Roger Lewis
David L. Quaid
Sidney Katz
Carl Lerner
Pat Somerset
- May 15, 1968 (New York City)
95 minutes
United States
English
Plot[edit]
In a woodland, bordering a well-off suburb in Connecticut, a fit and tanned Ned Merrill emerges wearing only a bathing suit. He drops by a pool party held by old friends and they offer him a cocktail while nursing hangovers from the night before. As they share stories, Ned realizes there is a series of backyard swimming pools that could form a "river" back to his house, making it possible for him to "swim his way home". Ned dives into the pool, emerging at the other end and begins his journey. Ned's behavior perplexes his friends, who apparently know worrisome things about his past that he seems to have forgotten.
As Ned travels, he encounters other neighbors. He meets 20-year-old Julie, who used to babysit his daughters (whom he repeatedly refers to as "at home playing tennis"), and reveals his plan to her; she joins him. They crash another pool party and sip champagne. While chatting in a grove of trees, Julie reveals that she had a schoolgirl crush on Ned. After she tells him about two sexual incidents in her workplace, Ned begins talking about how he will protect her, making plans for the two of them. Discomfited by his intimate approaches, Julie runs away.
Ned meets a wealthy, nudist, older couple, who are unbothered by his eccentric behavior but also unimpressed by his posturing. He then encounters Kevin, a lonely young boy, whom he tries to teach how to swim. They use an abandoned, empty pool, which Ned urges the boy to imagine is filled with water. The boy warms to this method, and soon is "swimming" the length of the empty pool. As Ned takes his leave, he glances back and sees the boy bouncing on the diving board over the deep end of the empty pool. He rushes back to remove him from the diving board, then departs.
Ned fails to make more than a superficial connection with the people he meets, being obsessed with his journey, and becoming increasingly out of touch with reality. The neighborhood consists of judgmental, well-heeled people intent on one-upmanship, and Ned is confused by hints that his life might not be as untroubled as he believes.
Ned walks into another party where the hostess calls him a "gate crasher". He encounters a bubbly girl named Joan, who does not know him. Ned asks her to join him, and Joan is intrigued until his speech becomes more fantastical. A friend leads her away from him. Ned jumps into the pool, making a big splash which grabs the attention of the guests. When he emerges from the water, he notices a hot dog cart that used to be his. Ned gets into a spat with the homeowner, who claims to have bought it at a white elephant sale.
Ned shows up at the backyard pool of Shirley Abbott, a stage actress with whom he had an affair several years earlier. His warm memories of their time together contrast with her own experience of being "the other woman". Unable to reconcile his feelings with the pain he caused, Ned wades into the deep end of the pool.
Ned trudges barefoot alongside a busy highway, then reaches a crowded public swimming pool. After being treated demeaningly by the gatekeeper, he encounters a group of local shop owners who derisively ask him "How do you like our water?" They indicate surprise at his appearance at such a plebeian location and ask him when he will settle his unpaid bills. When some of them make vicious comments about his wife's snobbish tastes and his out-of-control daughters' recent troubles with the law, Ned flees.
The skies darken and rain begins falling. Amid a downpour at sunset, a shivering, limping Ned staggers home; the tennis court where his daughters were supposedly playing is in disrepair, and his house is locked and deserted, with several windows broken. Anguished, Ned repeatedly tries to open the door, before slumping to the ground in the doorway.
Production[edit]
The Swimmer was produced by Sam Spiegel, a three-time Academy Award for Best Picture winner, who ultimately removed his name from the film (but the logo of his company, Horizon Pictures, remains). It was filmed largely on location in Westport, Connecticut, hometown of director Frank Perry.[7]
Although he was a trained athlete, star Burt Lancaster had a fear of the water and took swimming lessons from former Olympian and water polo coach Bob Horn to prepare for the film.[8]
After principal photography from July to September 1966, Perry expected to shoot additional transition scenes but was fired by Spiegel. The producers brought in the young director Sydney Pollack, Lancaster's friend, and cinematographer Michael Nebbia for January 1967 reshoots in California. Pollack reportedly shot several transitions and scenes, including scenes with Kim Hunter replacing Sally Gracie, Charles Drake replacing Larry Haines, Bernie Hamilton replacing Billy Dee Williams and Janice Rule replacing Barbara Loden. According to Eleanor Perry, both Sam Spiegel and Elia Kazan had an interest in getting the scene where Merrill assaults Abbott toned down and subsequently each blamed the other for Loden's replacement. In addition to the above scenes, Pollack and Nebbia shot the scene with Lancaster and the horse as well as some retakes of the Song of Songs scene. According to Lancaster, when the film still needed an additional day of shooting, he paid $10,000 for it out of his own pocket.[5]
The Swimmer
March 2006
Reception[edit]
The initial box office response to the film was "lackluster."[11] Film critic Roger Ebert called The Swimmer "a strange, stylized work, a brilliant and disturbing one."[12] Vincent Canby in The New York Times wrote: "although literal in style, the film has the shape of an open-ended hallucination. It is a grim, disturbing and sometimes funny view of a very small, very special segment of upper-middle-class American life."[13] Variety wrote "a lot of people are not going to understand this film; many will loathe it; others will be moved deeply. Its detractors will be most vocal; its supporters will not have high-powered counter-arguments."[5]
In the 21st century, the critical response has improved, with the movie gaining cult film status.[14][15]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 100%, based on reviews from 26 critics, with an average rating of 7.8/10.[16]