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The Swimmer
theatrical poster
Directed by	Frank Perry Sydney Pollack
Written by	Eleanor Perry
Produced by	Frank Perry Roger Lewis
Starring	Burt Lancaster Janet Landgard Janice Rule
Cinematography	David L. Quaid
Edited by	Sidney Katz Carl Lerner Pat Somerset
Music by	Marvin Hamlisch
Production company	Horizon Pictures
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	May 15, 1968
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Swimmer is a 1968 American film directed by Frank Perry and starring Burt Lancaster. The surreal, allegorical tale is based on the 1964 short story by John Cheever, adapted by Eleanor Perry, the director's wife.

Plot

On a sunny early autumn day in an affluent suburb in Connecticut, Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster), a seemingly successful, appealing and popular middle-aged advertising executive, clad only in swimming trunks, runs through the forest. He walks out of the woods and into the backyard of some old friends sitting by their swimming pool. He chats with them, then he has a sudden idea: he tells his friends he intends to "swim" home across the county by dropping in on friends' swimming pools which form a consecutive chain leading back to his house. He dives into the pool, emerges at the other end and starts his journey.

At first Ned gets warm welcomes as he meets old friends, mostly upper middle-class, well-to-do people with homes in the upscale outer suburbs. However, there are hints that Ned has been away for up to two years, and he brushes off any questions about himself. Each stop brings him face to face with some aspect of his life. The first one is with his youth when anything was possible, while the last one exposes the current collapse of his family life and where everything seems lost.

As the day wears on and Ned sees those who have been closer to him more recently, the welcomes begin to sour. Ned's proud boasts about his wife, daughters and home are met with strong mixed feelings, jeers, suspicion and even anger - especially from women. In one backyard Ned meets a 20-year-old girl (Janet Landgard) who, years ago, had babysat his daughters. She leaves with him, at first thrilled to do so owing to an unspoken crush she had for him in her early teens. But when Ned rather clumsily tries to woo and kiss her, she flees. He carries on with his "swim," dropping by the pools of sundry other friends as it slowly unfolds that his life has somehow gone quite wrong. He crashes a party at one pool. While he is put up with at first, Ned is thrown out when he has an outburst after spotting a hot dog wagon he had once bought for his daughters, but which had recently been sold in a white elephant sale. He then shows up at the backyard pool of Shirley Abbott (Janice Rule), a stage actress with whom he'd had an affair several years earlier. She is still feeling bitter and hurt. When Ned tries to rekindle things, this poolside meeting ends badly for both of them.

As the day ends, Ned winds up in a crowded public swimming pool where he is shamed by local shopkeepers to whom he still owes money for unpaid grocery and restaurant tabs. When some of them comment about his wife's overall snobbish attitude and his out-of-control daughters' recent troubles with the law, he angrily flees. As the sun goes down, a shivering Ned at last staggers up a rocky hill, shoves open a rusted gate and walks through an overgrown garden with an unkempt tennis court. A thunderstorm begins as Ned knocks on the front door of a locked, dark and empty house. He then breaks down on the front stoop and cries.

Cast

Production

The Swimmer was made by Columbia Pictures and filmed largely on location in Westport, Connecticut during the summer of 1966, but not released until 1968. Sydney Pollack was brought in to finish the film after Perry left because of "creative differences".

The film was Janet Landgard's first featured cinematic role. It features cameos by Kim Hunter, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Joan Rivers, and Diana Muldaur, among others. The musical score by Marvin Hamlisch has dramatic passages for a small orchestra along with a highly generic mid-1960s pop sound.

Soundtrack

All the pieces were composed by the young Marvin Hamlisch. The soundtrack album was released in 2006 by Film Score Monthly.

1. "Theme From The Swimmer ("Send For Me In Summer") / Big Splash" 3:23
2. "Easy Four / Bubbles" 3:28
3. "The Dive / Don't Come Back / Slow Walk / The Horse" 4:06
4. "Lucinda River / Two People" 4:13
5. "Together / Hurdles" 3:42
6. "Julie, Julie / The Little Flute / The Goodbye" 1:26
7. "Carnival" 2:30
8. "Lovely Hair" 2:34
9. "Down the Steps / You Loved It / On the Road" 3:07
10. "My Kids Love Me / Traveling Home / Closer to Home / Home / Marcia Funebre" 6:07
11. "Theme from The Swimmer (Reprise) ("Send For Me In Summer")"

References

Notes

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External links

• The Swimmer at IMDb
• Appreciation of The Swimmer by Lawrence Russell

• 1968 films
• American films
• Horizon Pictures films
• Columbia Pictures films
• 1960s drama films
• Films based on short fiction
• English-language films
• Films directed by Frank Perry
• Films set in Connecticut
• Films about suburbia
• Swimming films
• Films shot in Connecticut