The Swimmer movie storyline. Ned Merrill, a former stock broker from the valley has been released from a mental hospital after suffering a break-down. No longer having a car he develops in his mind that his former wife and estranged grown daughters are leaving to play tennis. Delusional he thinks he has left his car on a quest to swim to his boarded up home in an imaginary ‘river’ of the valley’s numerous swimming pools.
At first a stranger, as he nears his former residence people begin to put him down: an alcoholic, mentally ill and not a good family man. He becomes challenged at a pool gathering that his wife and daughter sold off the estate months ago. He begins to shiver from hypothermia as rain sets in. Climbs a steep hill in back of the club’s pool and finds the tennis court overgrown and the house locked and boarded. He collapses in his swim trunks in the rain. One of only a very few movies with a cameo by Joan Rivers and Kim Hunter outside her Planet of the Apes make-up.
The Swimmer is a 1968 American Technicolor surreal drama film starring Burt Lancaster. 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.[3] The 95-minute movie adds new characters and scenes consistent with those in the original 12-page short story.
The Swimmer (1968)
Directed by: Frank Perry, Sidney Pollack
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule, Joan Rivers, Tony Bickley, Marge Champion, Kim Hunter, Bill Fiore, Rose Gregorio, Charles Drake, Bernie Hamilton, Jimmy Joyce
Screenplay by: Eleanor Perry
Production Design by: Joseph Manduke
Cinematography by: David L. Quaid
Film Editing by: Sidney Katz, Carl Lerner, Pat Somerset
Art Direction by: Peter Dohanos
Makeup Department: Ed Callaghan, John Jiras, Clay Lambert
Music by: Marvin Hamlisch
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: May 15, 1968 (New York City)
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