The first time I saw this movie I was about 14 years old. I thought it was Incredible. And of course unforgettable. An odyssey and tragedy. Brilliant in its acting and giving us just the right clues to piece together and fill in the blanks. It’s like a Twilight Zone episode.
Gotta admire Burt Lancaster's body language in this movie. In the beginning, he looks like a middle-aged superhero, a man who even though is long past his youth still has a pefect shape and can do anything he wants. In the final shot, however, after all the emotional journey he's been through, he barely even looks human anymore. It's like he reverts back to an animal, an abandoned pet left alone in the rain: cold, hurt and sick
Very chilling and surreal. More so than most horror movies, and I believe it is because this could happen. Even though it leaves a lot to the imagination as to what went wrong, I believe it is schizophrenia, or some type of psychosis. He believes that he is spending one day swimming the neighbors pools, when in reality he loses his mind at some point, and we don't know how long he's been wandering around out there, while his entire life goes down the shitter. The movie is brilliant!
I remember being 9 years old and waking up to this ending scene at 3 in the morning on TCM. This scene made me really uncomfortable and it’s ingrained in my mind as a horrible memory.
I saw it at 9yrs old also, and it was very disturbing. They cut some of the ending out of this clip, when he can hear his daughters playing tennis back and forth. He spoke to the little boy with the empty pool, and that was a key to the story here because he spoke about his soul, and even though he was not seeking God, he really was. The whole movie and especially the last scene was like a virtual reality play of what Mystics call a "dark night of the soul experience" that is bound to make a person choose God and not this world.
Exquisite score by Marvin Hamlish. We never really own "stuff". We just borrow them for a while. "Stuff," doesn't really matter in the totality of one's life.
I did see this movie when I was in my teens in the 1970s. A lot of people put it down only because they don’t understand Burt Lancasters character in the movie. I am going to watch it again after all these years to really immerse myself in it to get the real essence of it. They made some really good Psychological movies in the 1970s. The final scene of the movie really touched me because from what I can gather this man was once riding on a crest, he had it all, beautiful house beautiful wife and children with a great career, a wonderful lifestyle in a home where parties were held and priceless memories still haunt him. Something has gone wrong in he’s life where he has made a bad decision and he’s wife has left him and he’s mistresses have all abandoned him. It’s a very disturbing scene. To lose your mind and to be left out in the rain like that and having delusional thoughts of coming home to he’s family where he thinks it’s 10 years ago.
The movie is based on the fictitious, surreal life of a former stock broker who had a nervous breakdown and was just released from the hospital. He is living out of a past and is in denial of the fact that he was a failure as an alcoholic, philandering husband and derelict father. His wife and daughters left him while he was committed to a psych ward. The story is about the insanity that he finally comes to terms with in the end, and can't deny or run away from anymore. The story is also a critique on the underbelly and façade of the American dream while exposing the hidden consequences of pursuing that dream.
Marlon, I suggest you read the short story by author John Cheever. No where does the story mention anything about Neddy being a former stock broker or a nervous break down. We don't know if he was in a psych ward either. If it isn't solid fact you must resist the urge to make personal inferences.
Saw this movie some 40 years ago and never forgot about it. Read an article where they called him : Brutus with the angel eyes. Loved the movie Circus I think with T. Curtis. I was frightened by his masculin looks, but his voice, intelligence and vulnerable eyes made him my favorite actor when I was young. Turning on 65 now, he still makes my heart beat faster. They don't make them anymore like this 🤓♥️♥️♥️
I watched this movie at an USA Army Base back in 1969, in Bavaria, Germany, when visiting their unit to swap out UK Army supplies for some more Medical Supplies we needed to replenish. Did not make sense of the movie, neither one of us understood or made any sense of it. But the movie and Burt's name stuck in my mind all these years, I'm now 78 now living in OKLA, just got the phone talking with my Grandson about Germany and start talking about the movie, and told him I would like to see it again, and would look it up on TH-cam. Going to watch it later!
This is much more Scary and distressing than many horror movies... after the blond beauty disappears the movie total changes and turns into a dark something ... Another Stunning performance by Lancaster Another movie to added in the National Film Registry
Only a mature mind (perhaps only a man at that) would understand this film, im 45 if i had seen this at even 25 it would have made no sense. Its about having something, losing it and NEVER being able to go back...its basically a film of being alone in the world.
nicely put. The movie always touched me on some unconscious level and I think you just made it conscious. I am 56 now and I didnt get this movie when I first saw it but it still moved me.
@@opinionday0079 It touches us as nostalgia, a profound ache for a lost past. The film is troubling because it sparks our own nostalgic longings in a tragedy of disintegration and delusion.
@@opinionday0079 The Lancaster character had lost everything, having alienated friends and family, through his past behaviour as a user (of others) and a taker. It all comes out (and comes back to hit him in the face) as he goes from pool to pool, increasingly desperate and cold, still unaware (a mental breakdown?) that he's got nothing to return to, absolutely nothing outside his skin [we'll allow him those fig-leaf trunks]. It only makes sense, plot-wise, if his near-naked character has made his way to this exclusive area from some madhouse or other such institution where the gate had been left open. He still thinks it was 'two years ago', the time before his world had fallen in.
I totally disagree. I saw it as a teen and got it on the spot. The ending was no neat 'bow' by any extent, but it explains the entire film, at least it did for me, even that young. Like T. Wolf said, you can't go home.
This is one of the best character studies ever. Also needs more than one watching: see how his 'friends' are looking at each other behind his back; he also gets weaker - towards the end can't climb out of the pool and at a huge pool party gets knocked totally down (over a hot dog cart that was purchased at "at white elephant sale". Notice at that party he is the only one in swimwear all the other guests are fully dressed. One issue I totally disagree with that was on IMDB - as a blooper. It says that you can see tire tracks on the tennis court. Actually wouldn't that fit in with an abandoned house? Realtors and other agents would drive around to price it - no need to worry about driving on the tennis court, also kids love houses like that to par-tay. If you agree with this LMK. I was surprised not to see a for sale sign - maybe just up for grabs.
Jessica, this is a wonderful observation. I completely agree with your feeling that the IMDb “blooper” doesn’t have to be seen as such. The presence of tire tracks is entirely plausible. Kids would certainly have a field day on such a vast abandoned property. The American public knows this all too well. Happy belated New Year…2024 A.D. I apologize fo
@@ProudlyReformedCyberBully Thanks for your message. In my area kids love to partay at empty houses. Also no reason why realtors would not be driving on the property to survey it. Happy New Year to you also.
well now the line "When you talk about the swimmer, will you talk about yourself?" makes a lot more sense now, yesh that was one of the creeepiest endings I've seen in quite a while, and tha haunting score made it more creepier...as it should it be
@nanlisa My theory is that he lost his job and had a nervous breakdown and his wife divorced him. also he was kinda living in the past like when he went to that young blonde woman he kept saying ''this is our babysitter'' And as he got closer to his house more and more people hated him. I think his daughters just left and grew up and yeah... It's one damn confusing movie!
The greatness of the ending to The Swimmer (enhanced by Hamlisch's score) rivals ANY of The Greatest Endings in Movie History: Citizen Kane, 2001, and The Planet of The Apes (interesting that 3 of the 4 films were all released in '68)!
I thought the movie was very compelling when I saw it years ago. Having Rod Serling narrated in the background would not have been out of place -- the movie had a "Twilight Zone" feel to it.
Presumably, the tennis racquets in the packing cases and the fact that they've been left behind, is a metaphor for the happy times he thought his family enjoyed with him but in reality, they find it easy to leave such memories behind because only money counts, not sentiment. The happy memories, as well as the house, have been abandoned. A bit like his wife selling the hot dog cart; for him, he enjoyed playing with his daughters, pushing them around in it, preserving it for them but for his wife, it was just a piece of tat...sad, but many of us are like the wife...😔😔😔
Lancaster's character had played around, hurting a lot of women neighbours (acc. to what we hear during the picture). His family have dumped him (and his 'tennis racquets'), maybe after a divorce, in retaliation (his daughters reportedly called him "a great big joke"). At the end, it all comes together to show that he's lost absolutely everything (friends,family, job [?], home, possessions, even his clothes). He's delusional, clearly having no knowledge of what's happened to his life as he "goes home" from pool to pool. Maybe he's escaped from an institution to which he'd been admitted/committed after his life fell apart, and he's now going along thinking that things are as they once were (or as he had thought they were). It's a weakness of the picture that only one other character seems aware that he's sick, while the others behave as if he's still the person they'd come to hate, instead of someone who HAS to be mentally ill (since they must have known of his downfall and his loss of home and family, while he's talking to them as if nothing had happened to him). A similar situation is played out in the 1993 movie release " Falling Down" in which a deranged and jobless Michael Douglas character 'goes home' across L.A. to a home and family that he's lost because of his abusive personality: he's "going home" to something that's not there any more.
@@None-zc5vg I guess the reason that no one acknowledges his illness is due not only to rage and bitterness but also because rich, middling or poor, they have the same vacuous values as the antagonist once had; values that leave little space for empathy, understanding or compassion. They are just not as ruthless, driven and arrogant as he once was; curious to know what brought on his break down? Also, do you think it significant that he didn't have a swimming pool? Presumably everyone else had upgraded and he was beginning to lag behind financially? The final scene is brilliant; returning to 'The Garden' to be baptised by the torrential rain, beat against the locked door of a house that was devoid of love and full of pretentiousness; a house he was never part of, truly accepted for himself. However, the film seems to offer redemption at the end, when he he curls up, foetal like, on his old doorstep - he is literally being born again. I think it is a very great, very brave film too, in many aspects😎
@@traceywatson5452 I think the "foetal" ending on the rain-lashed porch of the long-abandoned house represents the utter collapse of his world, his total loss of everything that mattered to him and of what he had been as a person: literally/metaphorically he's gone right back to how he arrived in the world, naked, helpless and having nothing. It's more of a "winding back", a dwindling-down to a 'Day Zero' than to the 'Day One' of one's entry into the world: this man is going back into nothingness and there'll be no coming back.
@@None-zc5vg I have a much bleaker take on the ending than Tracey's. After Ned reached his lonely, empty, desolate house, he made one last effort to reach his final resting place, safely hidden away from the storm and the world. I'm inclined to believe he smashed a lawn chair through one of the windows, crawled inside, dragged himself up the stairs to what used to be his bedroom, and huddled into the tiny, womb-like space of his spare closet, where he slowly but finally - mercifully - died. I've even heard one reviewer describe Ned's journey as "a sick animal dragging himself home to perish," which would greatly explain Ned's deterioration. The abuse he receives verbally as much as physically from his malevolent neighbors isn't dissimilar from a gang of sadistic thugs beating a sick dog to death with clubs. At a certain point, you'll notice he never stops shivering. We're observing the plight of an ailing man on his last legs. It's awful.
i always (flippantly) say that about the movie dr terror's house of horrors (where the grim reaper secretly gets on a train and at the end of the line at the last station all the people on the train realise they are now dead - and they just stay at that station dead - why not just get back on the train and ride back along the line?)
Reminds me of the Alfred Hitchcock episode when John Forsyth returned home and come to find out he was in a mental institution after killing his father
That ending suddenly went from absurd to horrifying. God its a strange fim. Jeez. Also this is supposed to be the 60s the peak of the American middle class not a post Gatsby 30s tragedy. Jeez the timing of the period really through me 😂
Attention: All fans of this movie! This is going to be on TCM on Saturday at 12 o'clock. If you have TiVo or a DVD recorder you might want to tape this.
Es una pelicula de horror y decadencia, la vi cuando era pequeño y hoy la vi nuevamente. Es una alegoria a la falta de aceptacion del fracaso que convierte a un hombre en un vagabundo.
Great underrated movie. Fantastic cast. But alas, the soundtrack is brutal. I know this will generate negative comments and that Marvin Hamlisch is wonderful but the music needed a more sombre, ambient tone. This soundtrack is pap layered in so much sap it hard for me to watch AND mute when the orchestration becomes too much.
You can see it as sick man's dream. But the characters are solid enough and I see it as a real journey by a sick man desperately going home though he has no home. Falling Down (1993), with Michael Douglas, has a comparable deluded quest to regain a family life no longer possible.
A reminder that some day your life will reach the end, and you'll want to have given your life over to the Lord Jesus, who always loves you, and have lived your life for him, and serving those around you for His glory
When Burt Lancaster got to his house in the pouring rain, his wife and his kids were gone, and the house was empty. What happened? Did his wife take the kids and leave him? The ending leaves us with some unanswered questions.
It's never fully explained, I don't think. In the short story that it is based on there are some hints like Burt Lancaster (or his character, rather) overhearing someone talking about him losing money and I also remember that when he asks for a drink at one of the last places he visits, they question why he would ask that since the man of the house (his old friend) had an operation three years ago and couldn't have a drink since (indicating that this madness has been going on for quite some time). So, I'd say he ran into some real financial trouble (which obviously you can't, if you live in an upper class society like here) and the family just took off. All this probably broke him down mentally.
@@Jay-vr9ir I believe he has been at his friends' house for some drinking. The friend says something like "I drank too much last night". You're right though, Lancaster looks very fresh unlike the others that he leaves behind when he decides to "swim home".
@@Jay-vr9ir from a storytelling standpoint you aren't allowed to know too much about him in the beginning because the movie is a series of encounters that give the viewer a little bit of an idea of who and what Ned is and then you can draw your own conclusion--a rare instance of a movie treating you like an intelligent person 🙂
It was a mighty strange movie. Burt Lancaster was one hell of an actor though, it was a poignant, moving and sad part for him to play. He must have been in his late forties when this came out on general release.
If they shot this movie up in Connecticut, they must have used giant sprinklers to create the rain scenes: especially when Burt Lancaster finally gets to his house and his wife and kids are gone. I may be wrong, but I don't think anybody goes out in a real-life thunderstorm and shoots a movie. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Koscina5: I didn't pay that much attention to the part where his wife was in the movie.
By the time he finally gets to his own home we find that it is long abandoned (probably tied up in foreclosure proceedings). This explains why he was well thought of at the beginning of the movie but people gradually became more hostile and wary of him as the movie progressed as much more time is passing than the audience or Ned is actually aware of, making him somewhat of an unintentional unreliable narrator. By the end of the movie both the audience and Ned are aware that something is wrong but Ned still arrives home believing that he is a well-liked, respected and important member of his community with a good paying executive job. The way I have always interpreted the ending reveals the truth about Ned's situation. He is no longer any of those things. He may have been at the beginning of the film but we don't know how much time has passed (was it only one day, was it several, weeks months or even years?) We only know that he is a broken shell of a man wandering lost, alone and afraid trapped in the delusions of the life he used to have. How long has he been a madman stalking the streets of his old neighborhood perhaps living off the sympathy of his former neighbors? Again we don't know. Since he is so lost in his delusions he doesn't understand why his home is abandoned and his family is gone or why it's no longer a warm summer day. When he can't get into his house and is confronted with the truth he doesn't understand what's happening. The final scene is him crouching down to take shelter in the doorway of his former home trying to protect himself from the rain, cold, confusion and fear.
Not to sound prenetious, but while the movie is good - the short story is better. It is a little less artistic, more straight forward and answers (or at least strongly hints at) a lot the questions you may have about this story.
Burt Lancaster, one of my favorite actors. My critique about the music in this scene. CUT IT, Way too dramatic. Let the storm be the music. total silence, except for his crying and trying to open the door. Good movie tho. R.I.P. Mr. Lancaster and Joan Rivers
First saw this on late night TV when I was in high school - around 1977 . I fell asleep and did NOT SEE THE ENDING ! LOL. So all these years , I wrote this off as a boring pointless drama. If you like this movie : you may also enjoy "Seconds" w/ Rock Hudson (1966). Another amazing drama that FLOPPED but like what Lancaster said of The Swimmer , Rock said of Seconds "Its my best work of all my pictures".
@atfatw Good retort atfatw! I too was wondering what accomplishments "curtis1000" has contributed to mankind, but mostly to himself? Sad, isn't it...those that can't, hate?
i understood it when i was 15, and i understand it now. you'd have to be pretty dense not to. he blew it, he lost everything, he's in denial. that's it.
i saw this movie today and it took me a while after it to really analyse it afterwards. It was a kinda good movie very strange but it makes sense i guess but to many un solved questions or is it meant to be like that? Idk wish they made a sequel.
Something else that strikes me in this film is a few times he is very inappropriote with women, for instances the first scene when he picks up the womans feet and kisses then in front of her husband also when he slaps the behind of the woman bending over, there are others to.
SPOILER ALERT If you've seen the ending here, then I guess I can spoil it a little (a decade after you asked the question, but still). Burt Lancaster, although I think it's implied heavier in the short story than in the movie, has gone through some major crisis in his life (possibly economic) that has lead to another crisis (him losing his family). However, he's unable to accept this and has been able to deny it for so long that he's now living in some sort of imaginary world where things are still good in his life. In the movie here, he seems to realize what has actually happened by the end of the story, where in the short story, he mentions the possibility of the maids having done a bad job at the house and then when he looks through the window he sees that the house is empty and that's where the short story ends.
I missed the first twenty minutes of it. I had went to my Weight Watchers Meeting and then I stopped at the Target and did some food shopping. But I did see the rest of it. And besides, I've already seen the beginning.
The first time I saw this movie I was about 14 years old. I thought it was Incredible. And of course unforgettable. An odyssey and tragedy. Brilliant in its acting and giving us just the right clues to piece together and fill in the blanks. It’s like a Twilight Zone episode.
Jass- that strage ahh now 65 and it like today when ahh firstsaw it on folks t.v. in about 1968 a.d.
Gotta admire Burt Lancaster's body language in this movie. In the beginning, he looks like a middle-aged superhero, a man who even though is long past his youth still has a pefect shape and can do anything he wants. In the final shot, however, after all the emotional journey he's been through, he barely even looks human anymore. It's like he reverts back to an animal, an abandoned pet left alone in the rain: cold, hurt and sick
i feel this pain
I love the film The Swimmer because it is so very like an anxiety dream, and like life in the way it swings from exuberance to despair.
Marvin Hamlish's music is terrific! Really adds a great deal of pathos to the ending.
I have the soundtrack. Like the movie the music stays with you.
Very chilling and surreal. More so than most horror movies, and I believe it is because this could happen. Even though it leaves a lot to the imagination as to what went wrong, I believe it is schizophrenia, or some type of psychosis. He believes that he is spending one day swimming the neighbors pools, when in reality he loses his mind at some point, and we don't know how long he's been wandering around out there, while his entire life goes down the shitter. The movie is brilliant!
A stunning, allegorical film about the decline and eventual failure of one man's American Dream life.
@Wid Eye He should have taken the job offer , with the pay cut .
the same happened to me after swimming home also
@@icanswimhomeYOU LOVED IT!
I remember being 9 years old and waking up to this ending scene at 3 in the morning on TCM. This scene made me really uncomfortable and it’s ingrained in my mind as a horrible memory.
I have an almost exact same memory. Crazy.
Welcome to pure art.
Made same year I was born...during a repeat showing when I was like 5 years old..At 3 a.m I woke up also to ending
Funny comments...I was born in 65....have yet to see the film.From Australia...our tv lagged behind the U.S. by about 4 years.
I saw it at 9yrs old also, and it was very disturbing. They cut some of the ending out of this clip, when he can hear his daughters playing tennis back and forth. He spoke to the little boy with the empty pool, and that was a key to the story here because he spoke about his soul, and even though he was not seeking God, he really was. The whole movie and especially the last scene was like a virtual reality play of what Mystics call a "dark night of the soul experience" that is bound to make a person choose God and not this world.
A brilliant film and a wonderful evocative theme music that i could listen to all day and night
Exquisite score by Marvin Hamlish. We never really own "stuff". We just borrow them for a while. "Stuff," doesn't really matter in the totality of one's life.
Very well said..
I did see this movie when I was in my teens in the 1970s. A lot of people put it down only because they don’t understand Burt Lancasters character in the movie. I am going to watch it again after all these years to really immerse myself in it to get the real essence of it. They made some really good Psychological movies in the 1970s. The final scene of the movie really touched me because from what I can gather this man was once riding on a crest, he had it all, beautiful house beautiful wife and children with a great career, a wonderful lifestyle in a home where parties were held and priceless memories still haunt him. Something has gone wrong in he’s life where he has made a bad decision and he’s wife has left him and he’s mistresses have all abandoned him. It’s a very disturbing scene. To lose your mind and to be left out in the rain like that and having delusional thoughts of coming home to he’s family where he thinks it’s 10 years ago.
The movie is based on the fictitious, surreal life of a former stock broker who had a nervous breakdown and was just released from the hospital. He is living out of a past and is in denial of the fact that he was a failure as an alcoholic, philandering husband and derelict father. His wife and daughters left him while he was committed to a psych ward. The story is about the insanity that he finally comes to terms with in the end, and can't deny or run away from anymore. The story is also a critique on the underbelly and façade of the American dream while exposing the hidden consequences of pursuing that dream.
I thought this film was based on a short story by John Cheever?
@@megalosauru It is. Marlon's comment isn't accurate.
@@guidadiehl9176 Ok, thx.
Marlon, I suggest you read the short story by author John Cheever. No where does the story mention anything about Neddy being a former stock broker or a nervous break down. We don't know if he was in a psych ward either. If it isn't solid fact you must resist the urge to make personal inferences.
Great synopsis. I like how he just appears in a swimsuit out of nowhere. Released or wandered away? That is the ambiguous part.
Saw this movie some 40 years ago and never forgot about it. Read an article where they called him : Brutus with the angel eyes.
Loved the movie Circus I think with T. Curtis.
I was frightened by his masculin looks, but his voice, intelligence and vulnerable eyes made him my favorite actor when I was young.
Turning on 65 now, he still makes my heart beat faster.
They don't make them anymore like this 🤓♥️♥️♥️
trapeze (1956)
@@plasticweapon - 'Was he wearin tights in that movie also
I watched this movie at an USA Army Base back in 1969, in Bavaria, Germany, when visiting their unit to swap out UK Army supplies for some more Medical Supplies we needed to replenish. Did not make sense of the movie, neither one of us understood or made any sense of it. But the movie and Burt's name stuck in my mind all these years, I'm now 78 now living in OKLA, just got the phone talking with my Grandson about Germany and start talking about the movie, and told him I would like to see it again, and would look it up on TH-cam. Going to watch it later!
Did You watch it again?
This is much more Scary and distressing than many horror movies...
after the blond beauty disappears the movie total changes and turns into a dark something ...
Another Stunning performance by Lancaster
Another movie to added in the National Film Registry
Only a mature mind (perhaps only a man at that) would understand this film, im 45 if i had seen this at even 25 it would have made no sense. Its about having something, losing it and NEVER being able to go back...its basically a film of being alone in the world.
nicely put. The movie always touched me on some unconscious level and I think you just made it conscious. I am 56 now and I didnt get this movie when I first saw it but it still moved me.
@@opinionday0079 It touches us as nostalgia, a profound ache for a lost past. The film is troubling because it sparks our own nostalgic longings in a tragedy of disintegration and delusion.
@@opinionday0079 The Lancaster character had lost everything, having alienated friends and family, through his past behaviour as a user (of others) and a taker. It all comes out (and comes back to hit him in the face) as he goes from pool to pool, increasingly desperate and cold, still unaware (a mental breakdown?) that he's got nothing to return to, absolutely nothing outside his skin [we'll allow him those fig-leaf trunks].
It only makes sense, plot-wise, if his near-naked character has made his way to this exclusive area from some madhouse or other such institution where the gate had been left open. He still thinks it was 'two years ago', the time before his world had fallen in.
I totally disagree. I saw it as a teen and got it on the spot. The ending was no neat 'bow' by any extent, but it explains the entire film, at least it did for me, even that young. Like T. Wolf said, you can't go home.
@@ericjoseph4355 same.
Beats any movie made today.
in many ways
Any single one
This is one of the best character studies ever. Also needs more than one watching: see how his 'friends' are looking at each other behind his back; he also gets weaker - towards the end can't climb out of the pool and at a huge pool party gets knocked totally down (over a hot dog cart that was purchased at "at white elephant sale". Notice at that party he is the only one in swimwear all the other guests are fully dressed.
One issue I totally disagree with that was on IMDB - as a blooper. It says that you can see tire tracks on the tennis court. Actually wouldn't that fit in with an abandoned house? Realtors and other agents would drive around to price it - no need to worry about driving on the tennis court, also kids love houses like that to par-tay. If you agree with this LMK. I was surprised not to see a for sale sign - maybe just up for grabs.
Jessica, this is a wonderful observation. I completely agree with your feeling that the IMDb “blooper” doesn’t have to be seen as such. The presence of tire tracks is entirely plausible. Kids would certainly have a field day on such a vast abandoned property. The American public knows this all too well. Happy belated New Year…2024 A.D. I apologize fo
@@ProudlyReformedCyberBully Thanks for your message. In my area kids love to partay at empty houses. Also no reason why realtors would not be driving on the property to survey it. Happy New Year to you also.
This is one of the saddest movies ever made. Burt Lancaster is phenomenal!
well now the line "When you talk about the swimmer, will you talk about yourself?" makes a lot more sense now, yesh that was one of the creeepiest endings I've seen in quite a while, and tha haunting score made it more creepier...as it should it be
But Marvin Hamilsch's first film score was his first big break on "The Swimmer" and everything works
just fine.
im about halfway home if you get me on the time frame now
If only he'd treated people better.
I remember being ten years old when I saw this movie, one Saturday afternoon. I also remember the growing anguish I felt as the film progressed.
This is how you use music!! Love this movie
@nanlisa My theory is that he lost his job and had a nervous breakdown and his wife divorced him. also he was kinda living in the past like when he went to that young blonde woman he kept saying ''this is our babysitter''
And as he got closer to his house more and more people hated him.
I think his daughters just left and grew up and yeah... It's one damn confusing movie!
The greatness of the ending to The Swimmer (enhanced by Hamlisch's score) rivals ANY of The Greatest Endings in Movie History: Citizen Kane, 2001, and The Planet of The Apes (interesting that 3 of the 4 films were all released in '68)!
Watched this on TCM late one night during the summer.
I thought the movie was very compelling when I saw it years ago. Having Rod Serling narrated in the background would not have been out of place -- the movie had a "Twilight Zone" feel to it.
tell me about it i live it every day
Presumably, the tennis racquets in the packing cases and the fact that they've been left behind, is a metaphor for the happy times he thought his family enjoyed with him but in reality, they find it easy to leave such memories behind because only money counts, not sentiment. The happy memories, as well as the house, have been abandoned. A bit like his wife selling the hot dog cart; for him, he enjoyed playing with his daughters, pushing them around in it, preserving it for them but for his wife, it was just a piece of tat...sad, but many of us are like the wife...😔😔😔
Lancaster's character had played around, hurting a lot of women neighbours (acc. to what we hear during the picture). His family have dumped him (and his 'tennis racquets'), maybe after a divorce, in retaliation (his daughters reportedly called him "a great big joke"). At the end, it all comes together to show that he's lost absolutely everything (friends,family, job [?], home, possessions, even his clothes). He's delusional, clearly having no knowledge of what's happened to his life as he "goes home" from pool to pool. Maybe he's escaped from an institution to which he'd been admitted/committed after his life fell apart, and he's now going along thinking that things are as they once were (or as he had thought they were). It's a weakness of the picture that only one other character seems aware that he's sick, while the others behave as if he's still the person they'd come to hate, instead of someone who HAS to be mentally ill (since they must have known of his downfall and his loss of home and family, while he's talking to them as if nothing had happened to him).
A similar situation is played out in the 1993 movie release " Falling Down" in which a deranged and jobless Michael Douglas character 'goes home' across L.A. to a home and family that he's lost because of his abusive personality: he's "going home" to something that's not there any more.
@@None-zc5vg I guess the reason that no one acknowledges his illness is due not only to rage and bitterness but also because rich, middling or poor, they have the same vacuous values as the antagonist once had; values that leave little space for empathy, understanding or compassion. They are just not as ruthless, driven and arrogant as he once was; curious to know what brought on his break down? Also, do you think it significant that he didn't have a swimming pool? Presumably everyone else had upgraded and he was beginning to lag behind financially? The final scene is brilliant; returning to 'The Garden' to be baptised by the torrential rain, beat against the locked door of a house that was devoid of love and full of pretentiousness; a house he was never part of, truly accepted for himself. However, the film seems to offer redemption at the end, when he he curls up, foetal like, on his old doorstep - he is literally being born again.
I think it is a very great, very brave film too, in many aspects😎
@@traceywatson5452 I think the "foetal" ending on the rain-lashed porch of the long-abandoned house represents the utter collapse of his world, his total loss of everything that mattered to him and of what he had been as a person: literally/metaphorically he's gone right back to how he arrived in the world, naked, helpless and having nothing. It's more of a "winding back", a dwindling-down to a 'Day Zero' than to the 'Day One' of one's entry into the world: this man is going back into nothingness and there'll be no coming back.
@@None-zc5vg I have a much bleaker take on the ending than Tracey's. After Ned reached his lonely, empty, desolate house, he made one last effort to reach his final resting place, safely hidden away from the storm and the world.
I'm inclined to believe he smashed a lawn chair through one of the windows, crawled inside, dragged himself up the stairs to what used to be his bedroom, and huddled into the tiny, womb-like space of his spare closet, where he slowly but finally - mercifully - died. I've even heard one reviewer describe Ned's journey as "a sick animal dragging himself home to perish," which would greatly explain Ned's deterioration. The abuse he receives verbally as much as physically from his malevolent neighbors isn't dissimilar from a gang of sadistic thugs beating a sick dog to death with clubs.
At a certain point, you'll notice he never stops shivering. We're observing the plight of an ailing man on his last legs. It's awful.
Wife and daughters could just walk away leaving the mementos - he is a relic they no longer want and are embarrassed by.
He assumed the fetal position in the doorway of his old home hoping to have the same love and security an infant would have in the mothers womb
How to fix the problem? Just swim back the way you came! It’ll reverse everything that happened!
im going to try this now
i always (flippantly) say that about the movie dr terror's house of horrors (where the grim reaper secretly gets on a train and at the end of the line at the last station all the people on the train realise they are now dead - and they just stay at that station dead - why not just get back on the train and ride back along the line?)
They should show this movie at AA. This is what will happen if you don't stop drinking.😂
Great! I like this film very much! Thanks for posting it!
Reminds me of the Alfred Hitchcock episode when John Forsyth returned home and come to find out he was in a mental institution after killing his father
yes - i saw that on cable last year.
That ending suddenly went from absurd to horrifying. God its a strange fim. Jeez. Also this is supposed to be the 60s the peak of the American middle class not a post Gatsby 30s tragedy. Jeez the timing of the period really through me 😂
R.I.P. Burt Lancaster!!
Attention: All fans of this movie! This is going to be on TCM on Saturday at 12 o'clock. If you have TiVo or a DVD recorder you might want to tape this.
Now here's a comment from the past... Tivo, DVD Recorder, and tape all mentioned in one sentence...
Such a tragic ending 😢💔
Es una pelicula de horror y decadencia, la vi cuando era pequeño y hoy la vi nuevamente. Es una alegoria a la falta de aceptacion del fracaso que convierte a un hombre en un vagabundo.
If the dark abandoned house is supposed to represent death it's remarkable that he doesn’t go in at all. The movie denies him even that closure.
Je n'ai vu ce film qu une fois mais il m a imprimé la rétine a jamais .un chef d'oeuvre malheureusement méconnu
Te recomiendo que leas el texto original ("El nadador", de John CHEEVER) Cuento y film, ambos excelentes y solidarios entre sí.
I read the John Cheever short story📖
Also Janet Landgrad on the side of Burt was very professionell actor. So sad I have no pool...
RIP to Janet .
All life ends like that. Be nice to each other.
if you're nice, life won't end like that.
Epic movie!
Once Julie runs off, it is all downhill for him .
Wiiilmaaaaaaaaaaaa
lol
The movie is depressing AF, but 52 yo Burt Lancaster is in better shape than the average 30 yo...
He should have taken the job offer , with the pay cut .
What an ending. The saddest in history. Burt Lancaster and Gregory Peck are the two greatest actors in history.
very lonely, and the music too
Great underrated movie. Fantastic cast. But alas, the soundtrack is brutal. I know this will generate negative comments and that Marvin Hamlisch is wonderful but the music needed a more sombre, ambient tone. This soundtrack is pap layered in so much sap it hard for me to watch AND mute when the orchestration becomes too much.
I can't believe that this movie had a sad ending 😢💔
why not?
@@plasticweapon because that wasn't his house & he slumped in the doorway crying 🥺
@@serenhafwilliams-davies5915 language barrier.
@eecortese : Awesome info! Thanks! I've always wondered where this was filmed.
it was set in connecticut and filmed there too (westport)
Frank Perry left the film due to creative differences, and Sidney Pollack took his place.
I have the soundtrack album by Marvin Hamlisch. Like the movie, the music stays with you.
But either way, the ending was just very sad.
nana- '' Looked like the whole world pissing on him.''
@@seanodwyer4322 😭
You can see it as sick man's dream.
But the characters are solid enough and I see it as a real journey by a sick man desperately going home though he has no home.
Falling Down (1993), with Michael Douglas, has a comparable deluded quest to regain a family life no longer possible.
" CLEAR A PATH! I'M GOING HOME!"
3:36 onward, very powerful!
❤❤❤
A reminder that some day your life will reach the end, and you'll want to have given your life over to the Lord Jesus, who always loves you, and have lived your life for him, and serving those around you for His glory
When Burt Lancaster got to his house in the pouring rain, his wife and his kids were gone, and the house was empty. What happened? Did his wife take the kids and leave him? The ending leaves us with some unanswered questions.
It's never fully explained, I don't think. In the short story that it is based on there are some hints like Burt Lancaster (or his character, rather) overhearing someone talking about him losing money and I also remember that when he asks for a drink at one of the last places he visits, they question why he would ask that since the man of the house (his old friend) had an operation three years ago and couldn't have a drink since (indicating that this madness has been going on for quite some time). So, I'd say he ran into some real financial trouble (which obviously you can't, if you live in an upper class society like here) and the family just took off. All this probably broke him down mentally.
@@kanemura93 My question is .Where did he come from in the opening of the movie ? He just appeared out of nowhere , looking very fresh .
@@Jay-vr9ir I believe he has been at his friends' house for some drinking. The friend says something like "I drank too much last night". You're right though, Lancaster looks very fresh unlike the others that he leaves behind when he decides to "swim home".
@@Jay-vr9ir from a storytelling standpoint you aren't allowed to know too much about him in the beginning because the movie is a series of encounters that give the viewer a little bit of an idea of who and what Ned is and then you can draw your own conclusion--a rare instance of a movie treating you like an intelligent person 🙂
It was a mighty strange movie. Burt Lancaster was one hell of an actor though, it was a poignant, moving and sad part for him to play. He must have been in his late forties when this came out on general release.
He was mid fifties by the time he filmed this.
50.
It's one of the best drama films I have ever watched, but the ending was really predictable
If they shot this movie up in Connecticut, they must have used giant sprinklers to create the rain scenes: especially when Burt Lancaster finally gets to his house and his wife and kids are gone. I may be wrong, but I don't think anybody goes out in a real-life thunderstorm and shoots a movie. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Koscina5: I didn't pay that much attention to the part where his wife was in the movie.
They did a hell of a lot of reshoots and the transitions in California after Sydney Pollack was brought on board as director too. ✌️
the rain would've been artificial - not that difficult as it only needs to be near the actor and the front of the camera not everywhere on the set.
Just watched it on a TV channel in a hotel in Central London. I completely didn't anticipate such an ending. Can someone explain this?
By the time he finally gets to his own home we find that it is long abandoned (probably tied up in foreclosure proceedings). This explains why he was well thought of at the beginning of the movie but people gradually became more hostile and wary of him as the movie progressed as much more time is passing than the audience or Ned is actually aware of, making him somewhat of an unintentional unreliable narrator.
By the end of the movie both the audience and Ned are aware that something is wrong but Ned still arrives home believing that he is a well-liked, respected and important member of his community with a good paying executive job.
The way I have always interpreted the ending reveals the truth about Ned's situation. He is no longer any of those things. He may have been at the beginning of the film but we don't know how much time has passed (was it only one day, was it several, weeks months or even years?) We only know that he is a broken shell of a man wandering lost, alone and afraid trapped in the delusions of the life he used to have. How long has he been a madman stalking the streets of his old neighborhood perhaps living off the sympathy of his former neighbors? Again we don't know.
Since he is so lost in his delusions he doesn't understand why his home is abandoned and his family is gone or why it's no longer a warm summer day. When he can't get into his house and is confronted with the truth he doesn't understand what's happening.
The final scene is him crouching down to take shelter in the doorway of his former home trying to protect himself from the rain, cold, confusion and fear.
@nanlisa
You can't get tetanus from being exposed to rain, and you can't get pneumonia from being exposed to the rain. Besides, it's a "movie!"
@jsbach15 'Yeah butt you can get molested running loose like that.''
Not to sound prenetious, but while the movie is good - the short story is better. It is a little less artistic, more straight forward and answers (or at least strongly hints at) a lot the questions you may have about this story.
i read it, and...nah.
He has nothing
Burt Lancaster, one of my favorite actors. My critique about the music in this scene. CUT IT, Way too dramatic. Let the storm be the music. total silence, except for his crying and trying to open the door. Good movie tho. R.I.P. Mr. Lancaster and Joan Rivers
enough with this, the music is fine. leave it alone.
Yes, this movie is a masterpiece, but this music ruins the ending. Would've been better with the sound of the rain.
@clarencecmcgee As a former Michigander myself, I say "Well said!"
He's not gonna get sick is he?
Remake this film set it in PALM SPRINGS, CA and have a hunky actor crash all the Pool Parties happening there. Right casting might work.
First saw this on late night TV when I was in high school - around 1977 . I fell asleep and did NOT SEE THE ENDING ! LOL. So all these years , I wrote this off as a boring pointless drama. If you like this movie : you may also enjoy "Seconds" w/ Rock Hudson (1966). Another amazing drama that FLOPPED but like what Lancaster said of The Swimmer , Rock said of Seconds "Its my best work of all my pictures".
It's also one for the losers. Especially today. Tell me about it 😂 Jeez up in smoke 😂
*Drowned.*
Sad ending for Ned
The American Dream turned into an American Nightmare!
@atfatw Good retort atfatw! I too was wondering what accomplishments "curtis1000" has contributed to mankind, but mostly to himself? Sad, isn't it...those that can't, hate?
@atfatw You just accurately described about 100 million Americans.
@nanlisa DONE!
So sad this is what happens when you spend more than you Make.
Been there, done that.
Saw this in 1968. Didn’t understand it then sure as hell don’t understand it now.
i understood it when i was 15, and i understand it now. you'd have to be pretty dense not to.
he blew it, he lost everything, he's in denial. that's it.
@@plasticweapon '' jist left with his short's.
@@plasticweapongee thank you. They didn’t restructure my brain that good when I was created 😢
i saw this movie today and it took me a while after it to really analyse it afterwards.
It was a kinda good movie
very strange but it makes sense i guess
but to many un solved questions
or is it meant to be like that? Idk
wish they made a sequel.
@Randy White wow, I love it when people respond to my old comments! this movie is wonderful, I find more and more to like on each viewing
The only thing in the sequel would be Ned's funeral, as he'd be found dead of hypothermia the following morning.
@cutis1000
I guess Oscar and Tony winning composer, Marvin Hamlish will be horrified at your comments? NOT! Ha! The laughs on you!
Marvin Hamlisch's first film score for "The Swimmer" was always a real pleasure to work with.
@atfatw Yes, appropriately stated.
Something else that strikes me in this film is a few times he is very inappropriote with women, for instances the first scene when he picks up the womans feet and kisses then in front of her husband also when he slaps the behind of the woman bending over, there are others to.
What's this film about? I've only seen this and another scene where he realises everyone hates him. It looked really disturbing. Seeked it out here.
SPOILER ALERT If you've seen the ending here, then I guess I can spoil it a little (a decade after you asked the question, but still). Burt Lancaster, although I think it's implied heavier in the short story than in the movie, has gone through some major crisis in his life (possibly economic) that has lead to another crisis (him losing his family). However, he's unable to accept this and has been able to deny it for so long that he's now living in some sort of imaginary world where things are still good in his life. In the movie here, he seems to realize what has actually happened by the end of the story, where in the short story, he mentions the possibility of the maids having done a bad job at the house and then when he looks through the window he sees that the house is empty and that's where the short story ends.
I'm surprised that he didn't get tetanus and pneumonia from being out in the rain so long.
LOLĹLL
@nanlisa- ''ahh pray he was not running around like that in June 1968, - especcially in ''Sodom'' u.S.A.
I missed the first twenty minutes of it. I had went to my Weight Watchers Meeting and then I stopped at the Target and did some food shopping. But I did see the rest of it. And besides, I've already seen the beginning.