The Swimmer – Indicator

Director: Frank Perry, Sydney Pollack (uncredited)
Screenplay: Eleanor Perry
Based on a Story by: John Cheever
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule, Tony Bickley, Marge Champion, Nancy Cushman
Country: USA
Running Time: 95 min
Year: 1968
BBFC Certificate: PG

The married writer/director couple Eleanor and Frank Perry found great success with their first collaboration, 1962’s David and Lisa, each bagging an Oscar nomination for their work. Their follow-up, however, 1963’s Ladybug Ladybug, was a flop. This knocked the couple back a bit and their next film took another 5 years to make it to the screen.

This wasn’t for want of trying though. Eleanor had fallen in love with John Cheever’s highly acclaimed short story The Swimmer, as soon as it was printed in the New Yorker in 1964. She told Frank that she thought it would be perfect for their next film. He initially disagreed, believing as most did that the metaphysical and very short tale was ‘unfilmable’. Eleanor talked him around though and she worked on a screenplay.

It took a while, but the Perrys eventually found backing, with Sam Spiegel producing the film for them. This proved to be a bad move though, as he didn’t have faith in the creative team or the source material, so attempted to put his oar in at every turn.

He worried the film wouldn’t be very enticing to an audience, so forced a big star in the lead role, in the shape of Burt Lancaster, not Frank’s first choice. Lancaster’s busy schedule also pushed the shoot back a long while.

Spiegel’s meddling didn’t stop there. When the initial shoot was done, he wasn’t happy with much of it and deemed a large chunk of the material unusable, hiring Sydney Pollack (and Michael Nebbia for some inserts) to reshoot a couple of sections. Most notably, the climactic scene, featuring the lead character’s ex-mistress, was reshot with a totally different actress. Accounts differ on why Barbara Loden was replaced, but some suggest she was ‘too good’ and acted Lancaster off the screen.

Spiegel made other changes as the post-production went on, replacing the intended Miles Davis soundtrack with an overly lush orchestral score. So, what started life as a passion project for the Perrys, became a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster under Spiegel’s control.

As you might expect, The Swimmer flopped, but it didn’t necessarily turn out as bad as it sounds. Reviews were mixed at the time of release but, over the years, the film has become much more respected and emerged as something of a cult classic.

Bringing the film into the 21st century on Blu-ray with plenty of extra material to help appreciate its troubled history, Indicator are adding it to their illustrious collection. Not having seen the film before, I got hold of a copy and my thoughts follow.

The premise of The Swimmer is an unusual but very simple one. The ageing but healthy and strong Ned Merrill (Lancaster) arrives at the swimming pool of a group of friends one fine morning. Whilst they nurse hangovers, he comes up with a bizarre plan to ‘swim’ the several miles back home by going from pool to pool across the wealthy area of Connecticut in which he lives.

Whilst he carries out this strange mission, he meets various friends and neighbours and we start to learn more about this man, who might not be as perfect as he initially seems.

The Swimmer is an allegorical film where not a lot happens on the surface but somehow it remains strangely compelling. It holds your interest partly through Lancaster’s charismatic but subtly unsettling performance (suggesting Spiegel was right about casting him at least) but also through a quiet sense of darkness and ugliness simmering under the surface.

Indeed, the film can be read in numerous ways and that’s part of the appeal. Ned turns out to be a deluded and self-centred character. As such, the film can be simply viewed as a story of self-realisation, where its protagonist finally sees himself for who he really is, rather than the image of perfection he believes in at the start of the film.

In a similar vein to a number of David Lynch’s films and TV shows, The Swimmer also works as a story where the dark underbelly of middle-class suburban America seeps up from a glossy, seemingly innocuous surface.

The film reflects this in its style too. There’s a mix of location work with studio sequences or sometimes location shooting with studio-style glossy lighting. Marvin Hamlisch’s score, whilst not favoured by Frank Perry, also adds an uncomfortable sheen to proceedings that fits the material.

There’s a nice touch in the film that sees Ned hurt his leg, causing him to limp through the rest of the film. Reportedly this was introduced because Lancaster actually did hurt himself during the production. It may have been an accident but it acts as an added metaphor and an effective signifier of Ned’s gradual unravelling.

I also appreciated the way the film stealthily hit on racism and predatorial attitudes towards women inherent in Ned. The former is shown in a short scene where the character gets a lift with the black driver of one of his neighbours. Ned initially mistakes the man for a former black driver and constantly compares the two, bringing up racial stereotypes that the new driver doesn’t share or appreciate.

Ned’s relationship with women is soured when he grows close to Julie (Janet Landgard), a young woman who used to be the family babysitter but is now ‘of age’. As he connects with her on a personal level, the relationship grows a bit creepy and just when you’re worried about where it’s heading, Julie rightfully calls Ned up on it and leaves. It’s an effective but not overstated comment on toxic masculinity in a film full of interesting themes and ideas.

Overall, The Swimmer is an unusual but captivating picture of the crumbling facade of upper-middle-class America. With the film being open to numerous interpretations, it’s a deeply fulfilling watch, despite seeming quite simple on the surface. If you’ve not seen it before, I recommend you dive in as soon as you can.

The Swimmer is out on 12th September on Blu-Ray in the UK, released by Indicator. The picture quality is impeccable, sharp as a pin with rich colours. It sounds great too.

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