THE SWIMMER
Here's another HILARIOUS movie "The Swimmer"
I keep associating this movie with "Planet of the apes" because this also featured an aging actor in a loin cloth.
...Burt Lancaster as the macho Ned Merril, after sneaking into a neighbor's pool he decides to swim home by breaking into all the neighborhood's private pools to swim in them...something his character calls "Swimming across the county".
Well, each stop he makes he come across someone from his past, usually someone hanging around their pool drinking alcohol at eleven o'clock in the morning! The amount of booze consumed in this movie is unbelievable! It's a suprise he can manage to swim across one pool with all that booze let alone across the county.
I kept thinking this was a made-for-tv movie because it was so cheesy...the Marvin Hamlisch soundtrack was perfect for this piece, however it needs Leonard Nimoy's vocals to enhance the romantic-mold element of this film.
"The swimmer" was released in 1968, that's why it resembled so much of the old "Star Trek" TV show, the way Lancaster flirts with the women in this movie is a total Captain Kirk!
posted by M.G.M at
2:20 PM
1 Comments:
Just watched THE SWIMMER dvd today (that being Saturday 9/8/07). It's actually one of my favorite flicks! However, I can see that if one chooses, one can view it in a humorous light.
there actually is at least one PLANET OF THE APES connection in the movie: Kim Hunter (Dr. Zira) is one of Ned Merrill's neighbors (the one who gets her backside slapped, and has the pool filter that filters out 99.99.99% of all solid matter).
Ned Merrill refers to the string of pools leading to his house as the "Lucinda River" (named for his wife). In the past when someone is being rather delusional, I would say they were "swimming the Lucinda River"; invariably it was a reference that only I got!
I'd first became aware of the film when I'd see commercials for it on WGN, but didn't watch it till it was show on WTTW. My previous viewings had been edited, so this last look was the first time I've seen it unexpurgated.
The movie being based on a John Cheever story, I can't watch it without the "Cheever Letters" episode of Seinfeld coming to mind.
Rob
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