 |
| Frank
Perry & Sydney Pollack |
|
| Burt
Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule, Tony Bickley, Marge
Champion |
|
 |
Anamorphic
widescreen |
 |
Dolby Digital
5.1 |
|
DTS |
|
|
Trailer(s) |
|
Featurette(s) |
|
Documentary |
|
Audio commentary
|
|
Deleted scenes
|
|
Concept art
/ storyboards |
|
Multi-angle
feature |
|
|
|
|
Kevin Gillmartin Jr. (Michael
Kearney): I've
done it! It's the first time I've ever swum a whole lane!
Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster): Congratulations.
Kevin Gillmartin Jr.: I suppose it doesn't count, though,
because there's no water.
Ned Merrill: For
us there was.
Kevin Gillmartin Jr.: But that's a lie, isn't it?
Ned Merrill: No. You see, if you make believe hard enough
that something is true, then it is true for you.
A man visiting friends decides to
swim home through the pools in his neighbors' gardens.
 This
troubled production, from which director Frank Perry was fired
and replaced by Sydney Pollack before completion, wasn't received
very well when it was first released. But over the years, it's
slowly been discovered by a wider audience, and by now it's referred
to most often as an underrated work that deserves to be seen. Indeed,
Burt Lancaster's performance alone makes the film worth viewing,
as the famously virile former acrobat at the height of his acting
career delivers a brave and affecting portrait of a man whose outer
husk is slowly but surely disintegrating.
The film's unusual premise, based on the marvelous short story
by John Cheever, has Lancaster's character appear out of nowhere
on a sunny day, diving into some friends' pool, and decide to 'swim
home' by hiking along all of his neighbors' pools. What starts
out as a good-natured prank from a confident family man is quickly
disrupted by the increasingly harsh confrontations with the people
from his neighborhood, whose recollections of their shared past
fail to match his own self-image. Although the story development
isn't always terrifically convincing, and the film clearly suffers
from sequences with mismatched footage and an overly obtrusive,
badly dated score, the film never bores thanks to the strength
of its varied supporting cast and the magnetic central performance.
Not quite an overlooked bona fide cinema classic, but certainly
an excellent, unusual film that's worth a look. |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Identical releases are available
for Region 1 and Region 2.
The anamorphic widescreen
image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 1.85:1. The
source print is rather grainy, with colors typical for the
types of color film stock used in the late 1960s. But the
transfer offers an excellent, very film-like presentation
of the material, which has very little print damage or other
imperfections.
The original mono sound mix is presented in Dolby Digital
2.0, and is perfectly acceptable given the restrictions inherent
in the dated source material.
The only extra is the theatrical
trailer, which is a real shame as there is so much
interesting background information on this film. A
nicely designed static menu page offers colorful access to the
main feature.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
October 22, 2003
Click
here for IMDB info on The
Swimmer.
Click here
to return to the front page.
|
|
| |
