The eight mile swim represents the passage of time . Incredible short story actually . 1968 wow , that feels like yesterday . I think I’ll take a swim back .🏊🏻♂️
Exactly. But the movie shows that with each subsequent pool he emerged himself in he appeared to be getting more aged and infirm until finally when he reaches the public pool he was a pathetic, limping man in the throes of dementia, as opposed to the virile, ramrod straight man he was at the beginning of the film.
A weakness of the story is that Ned must have been out of circulation for two years or more (maybe (after a breakdown) at the funny farm, from which he's 'flown'), yet some of the people he's wounded/damaged during his time as a local arrogant big-player behave as if they were ignorant of his comedown, as though they thought he and his family were still living the life up at that long-derelict house.
I love the look on the guest faces as someone DARES to swim in the pool! What a crazy idea! (lol) This is one of my favorite films. The plot is very simple but yet the story is so deep! (pun intended) You really feel for him. Then you have the friends that care greatly for him and as he swims from one pool to the next those who don't care and a couple who hate him!
One of the most disturbing and depressing movies ever made. Compounding the unknown tragedy of his lost family is his own decent into mental illness. We all could be there.
Great tragic movie. Ned is in denial of where his life went when he made his "swimming home" trip...this scene hits hard at the losses Ned sustained... such as the hot dog cart he used to own!
I was so pleased Gilbert Gottfried recommended this film as a guest on TCM tonight. Excellent movie!! It is a true scenario of many today as well as '66. Always having to have the biggest/best of everything and what happens when.....?
the best bit of acting is when he gets out of the public pool and is confronted by the friends he owes money to. and he says my daughters love me, they worship me. and the guy says your daughters think you are a joke.
I love this movie........fancy a man swimming through everyone elses swimming pool just to get home.his old hot dog wagon is fantastic too.......I bet you kimbo would love that!
This picture brings to mind the much-later "Falling Down" (1992/93) that starred Michael Douglas as a short-fused character who has lost his job and his family (thru divorce) and who is crossing L.A. to visit his estranged family on his daughter's birthday. As he keeps saying on his way (with one violent 'encounter' after another) he's "going home", a home that's no longer his ( something like Lancaster's apparently deranged 'Ned Merrill' whose own naked progress, from pool to pool, gradually reveals that he's estranged from the prosperous community he's passing through and from the family who've abandoned him and the now-derelict home towards which he's heading. He's got absolutely nothing left (literally) apart from his swimming trunks). The confident athlete who entered the picture leaves as a wimpering, curled-up foetal wreck, out in the rain with nowhere to go and with no-one to turn to.
@@mikeg2491 I really loved it, and I'm certainly a woman. I always thought it was a movie that only people who have started aging--or can imagine it--could understand.
@@lottaandgus fair enough, and maybe i should clarify, I think any gender can understand & enjoy a movie tailored to the opposite sex but I think some movies will always hit harder or feel more relevant to some people just based on their life experiences. I can see some themes too in the Swimmer if you are a successful person who lost everything whether man or woman, you can find stuff to relate to. This is why it’s such a good movie, there are so many layers to it and deserves a rewatch.
All the things he holds dear, all the things that he owned are gone/disappearing.. he is delusional, confused and things are breaking through his foggy mind and trying to bring him back to reality. He is having a breakdown and hasn't accepted the fact his family has left him, he's lost his house, he's not the stud he once was.. he's a washed-up old man.
I wonder.....if Ned settled for a lower paying job like that old guy offered him, and also went back to Shirley Abbott with a promise to be a better man and a ring, perhaps he could have made a go of it?
Interesting question. The male ego is a fragile thing, so I’m sure Ned would view those things you mentioned as humbling, or maybe even humiliating. He wants to for we see himself as a “lion”, able to get the best-paying jobs and get the hottest girls, *and* have a picture-perfect family life. He wants it all, very much like Don Draper from Mad Men.
If they remade this movie today, Lancaster's character would have to be a jogger or bicycle, because Gilbert Gottfried pointed out, today's audiences would require someone pointing the absurdity or weirdness of him "swimming home." Also, I do find it interesting that the closer he gets to "home" the more disliked he is by the people he meets.
Its on tcm now so is the whole thing one day where was he before the fillm ? It becomes winter at the end ? So where was he before rhe start od the film
I agree. Today it would have to be full of drug use, mega bloodbath nudity and maximum course language. The women would all have to have large implants and the guys steroid size muscles. Burt would be considered as not 'buff' enough.
It's the story of a man who once had it all and lost all of it due to his indiscretions and hubris. The ending reminds me of a line from the 1964 movie "Fail Safe." After a USAF crew nukes Moscow in that movie, a crew member remarks, "What the hell, there's nothing to go home to anyway." Burt Lancaster's character had nothing but memories in an abandoned house. His life was gone. He was breathing but not living.
The more pools that he swam in, the more memories, which included bad ones came up, and this scene had his old wagon in it from happier times, and now it was taken from him and in the hands of other people, which didn't make him too happy!!!!!
He is cracking up..I think that is the point...he is sentimental about his wagon and has not faced reality that many things have been sold in a White Elephant Sale...
elvicare35 Without a doubt, it is a film that leaves much of our reality of the loneliness that it is leaving behind. It is a story that is very present in our days
Аясніё Моояэ Without a doubt, it is a film that leaves much of our reality of the loneliness that it is leaving behind. It is a story that is very present in our days
Nothing like an old 55 year old man trying to molest a pretty young girl . I can't see why Woody Allen was not in there also . this movie is beyond creepy !
This is truly one of the greatest movies ever made..every scene will haunt me 4ever..
Burt Lancaster is a legend..and the score & script are too..
Amen!
incredible to make a film of John Cheever's short story, surreal & metaphorical. A brave & intellectual period for American film
Excellent comment!
Very strange but unforgettable movie. Highly underrated.
I think, from what i recollect it's from a novel 1964 or arounds.
The eight mile swim represents the passage of time . Incredible short story actually . 1968 wow , that feels like yesterday . I think I’ll take a swim back .🏊🏻♂️
I will never do that!
burt looked really good for a man in his 50s doing all the running and swimming great actor.
He was 95 when he filmed this!!
@@Weird.Dreams go back to the basement
Burt Lancaster has to be one of the most talented and versatile actors and this movie proves my point, great era in film making
A really stark and bleak ending to this with Ned locked out of his abandoned home, banging on the door in torrential rain. Sad.
Based on a novel or novella , from i believe 1964. Yet another read i have to hunt down.
Oh, yeah. You hit that nail squarely on its head; stark and bleak.
@@Kelly14UK It was from a short story written by John Cheever. It was published in the New Yorker magazine back in 1964.
Talk about one gorgeous hunk of talented man.
Too bad about spoofish lunes in movie🎬🏆
Lancaster looks like he could have torn apart the guy that pushed him down. Instead, he says he'll call his lawyer.
Exactly. But the movie shows that with each subsequent pool he emerged himself in he appeared to be getting more aged and infirm until finally when he reaches the public pool he was a pathetic, limping man in the throes of dementia, as opposed to the virile, ramrod straight man he was at the beginning of the film.
It's this scene when you really know something's up with Neddie
A weakness of the story is that Ned must have been out of circulation for two years or more (maybe (after a breakdown) at the funny farm, from which he's 'flown'), yet some of the people he's wounded/damaged during his time as a local arrogant big-player behave as if they were ignorant of his comedown, as though they thought he and his family were still living the life up at that long-derelict house.
One of the heaviest films anyone will ever see.
I love the look on the guest faces as someone DARES to swim in the pool! What a crazy idea! (lol) This is one of my favorite films. The plot is very simple but yet the story is so deep! (pun intended) You really feel for him. Then you have the friends that care greatly for him and as he swims from one pool to the next those who don't care and a couple who hate him!
Sad how one can have everything and lose everything due to ones reckless lifestyle.
One of the most disturbing and depressing movies ever made. Compounding the unknown tragedy of his lost family is his own decent into mental illness. We all could be there.
I am close to this movie, age , no family , but worst of all not much money .The latter being the most important .
They played this movie over and over in San Antonio in 1968 on the late show, I mean over and over. and over. and over. and over. and over. loved it.
She Loved it!
YOU LOVED IT!
100th anniversary of Burt's birth!
Called Living in Denial, folks!
Great tragic movie. Ned is in denial of where his life went when he made his "swimming home" trip...this scene hits hard at the losses Ned sustained... such as the hot dog cart he used to own!
He wax 55 years old when filming this movie in 1968
+13sunny Actually he was 53. The movie was made in 1966 but was shelved for two years before it was released>
So emotional 😢
I was so pleased Gilbert Gottfried recommended this film as a guest on TCM tonight.
Excellent movie!! It is a true scenario of many today as well as '66. Always having to have the biggest/best of everything and what happens when.....?
It was filmed back in the summer of '66. But it wasn't released until 1968.
the best bit of acting is when he gets out of the public pool and is confronted by the friends he owes money to. and he says my daughters love me, they worship me. and the guy says your daughters think you are a joke.
A serious reality check of a one-time member of the elite by a local proletarian.
"...a great big joke..."
I love this movie........fancy a man swimming through everyone elses swimming pool just to get home.his old hot dog wagon is fantastic too.......I bet you kimbo would love that!
Watch at all cost, beautiful movie.
I remember seeing this as a kid and even then recognising Burt Lancasters amazing, touching performance.
Joan Rivers had a small part in this film. R.I.P.
This picture brings to mind the much-later "Falling Down" (1992/93) that starred Michael Douglas as a short-fused character who has lost his job and his family (thru divorce) and who is crossing L.A. to visit his estranged family on his daughter's birthday. As he keeps saying on his way (with one violent 'encounter' after another) he's "going home", a home that's no longer his ( something like Lancaster's apparently deranged 'Ned Merrill' whose own naked progress, from pool to pool, gradually reveals that he's estranged from the prosperous community he's passing through and from the family who've abandoned him and the now-derelict home towards which he's heading. He's got absolutely nothing left (literally) apart from his swimming trunks). The confident athlete who entered the picture leaves as a wimpering, curled-up foetal wreck, out in the rain with nowhere to go and with no-one to turn to.
he looked amazing for his age at the time
trha2222 He was born in 1913..so closer to 55 or less when he was filming.
lol not!!!!!
GENIUS!
probably the defining scene of this movie. too much
this was a good movie,my mom and aunt hated it,but I liked it
Not to sound sexist but I think this is a movie only a man can really understand.
@@mikeg2491 I really loved it, and I'm certainly a woman. I always thought it was a movie that only people who have started aging--or can imagine it--could understand.
@@lottaandgus fair enough, and maybe i should clarify, I think any gender can understand & enjoy a movie tailored to the opposite sex but I think some movies will always hit harder or feel more relevant to some people just based on their life experiences. I can see some themes too in the Swimmer if you are a successful person who lost everything whether man or woman, you can find stuff to relate to. This is why it’s such a good movie, there are so many layers to it and deserves a rewatch.
All the things he holds dear, all the things that he owned are gone/disappearing.. he is delusional, confused and things are breaking through his foggy mind and trying to bring him back to reality. He is having a breakdown and hasn't accepted the fact his family has left him, he's lost his house, he's not the stud he once was.. he's a washed-up old man.
I wonder.....if Ned settled for a lower paying job like that old guy offered him, and also went back to Shirley Abbott with a promise to be a better man and a ring, perhaps he could have made a go of it?
Interesting question. The male ego is a fragile thing, so I’m sure Ned would view those things you mentioned as humbling, or maybe even humiliating. He wants to for we see himself as a “lion”, able to get the best-paying jobs and get the hottest girls, *and* have a picture-perfect family life. He wants it all, very much like Don Draper from Mad Men.
@@litzDP excellent analysis!
Without question Lancaster's best movie.
If they remade this movie today, Lancaster's character would have to be a jogger or bicycle, because Gilbert Gottfried pointed out, today's audiences would require someone pointing the absurdity or weirdness of him "swimming home." Also, I do find it interesting that the closer he gets to "home" the more disliked he is by the people he meets.
When you talk about The Swimmer
Will you talk about
Yourself?
Absolutely..atleast for me..it is totally autobiographical !
I remember trying to swim home last summer
@Dale Rebe Me too
I watched this film when I was 14 ,think it was on channel 4 in the UK. Really disturbing and I don't know why
“Come on, man!”
One of the saddest scenes in the movie
That and when he gets the reality check in the public pool before heading to an abandoned home at the end.
This was a strange movie...but good.
This was shown on the cable channel This the other day (Tuesday, 11/29).
Profound.
The man who pushed Burt to the ground was the same man who was father on Give me a break show.
Dolph Sweet. I thought he looked familiar....
Dolph Sweet... Carl Kanisky from Gimme a break...he couldn't have been more than 45 years old
This movie is a fool detector.
Great movie but the editing is terrible in parts 1:38 for example
Even Burt Lancaster shouldn’t fuck with a man named Sweet.
Sweet was a semi pro football player as well as a boxer as well as a 2nd Lt on a B-24 shot down over Germany,held as a P.O.W. during WW2
Reminds of a vitoria de seta movie called uomo a meta
Burt Lancaster could have beat that bowler up any day! Actor Dolph Sweet played in the movie The Wanderer!
Its on tcm now so is the whole thing one day where was he before the fillm ? It becomes winter at the end ? So where was he before rhe start od the film
The man in the black shirt in this scene looks like Harvey Kietel
Dante...
Lol
I agree. Today it would have to be full of drug use, mega bloodbath nudity and maximum course language. The women would all have to have large implants and the guys steroid size muscles. Burt would be considered as not 'buff' enough.
what are you, 90 years old?!
🌭🌽🍿🏖
I never understood this movie or it's ending
i never understood people who don't understand this movie.
It's the story of a man who once had it all and lost all of it due to his indiscretions and hubris. The ending reminds me of a line from the 1964 movie "Fail Safe." After a USAF crew nukes Moscow in that movie, a crew member remarks, "What the hell, there's nothing to go home to anyway." Burt Lancaster's character had nothing but memories in an abandoned house. His life was gone. He was breathing but not living.
If this happened now, a gun would have been brandished, the police would have been called, and lawsuits would be filed.
The MPA wanted an R rating because Burt's happenis was prominent in every scene
It's the MPAA, and ratings weren't established until late 1968
what is the point of this scene? didn´t get it :/
The more pools that he swam in, the more memories, which included bad ones came up, and this scene had his old wagon in it from happier times, and now it was taken from him and in the hands of other people, which didn't make him too happy!!!!!
He is cracking up..I think that is the point...he is sentimental about his wagon and has not faced reality that many things have been sold in a White Elephant Sale...
elvicare35 Without a doubt, it is a film that leaves much of our reality of the loneliness that it is leaving behind. It is a story that is very present in our days
Yes. Although I think it could be edited better and have thought how a twist could be: a Native American traversing the/his people's land.
Аясніё Моояэ Without a doubt, it is a film that leaves much of our reality of the loneliness that it is leaving behind. It is a story that is very present in our days
Beautiful movie with an excellent performance by Burt, however the terrible score during the last scene ruins the movie.
That's because you are listening to a 60's soundtrack from 45 + years in the future.
Nothing like an old 55 year old man trying to molest a pretty young girl . I can't see why Woody Allen was not in there also . this movie is beyond creepy !
If that's your account of the movie, yeah, move on to something simpler.
@Me Myself Oh yeah get real
You're too simple for it, keep moving.