Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Marvin Hamlisch’s marvelously marvelous score for 1968 film, The Swimmer. I didn’t see the film when it came out even though I was a fan of its director, Frank Perry. It opened three weeks after I’d gotten married, but I was still seeing a lot of movies. I do know that the same day it opened, West Side Story had a re-release at the Village and I saw that on its opening day. But at that same time, I also managed to miss The Young Girls of Rochefort, Pretty Poison, Deadfall, and a few others, all of which I would have normally seen. So, I didn’t catch up with The Swimmer until it aired on one of the late-night movie programs, probably The Late, Late Show and probably sometime around 1972. Well, close – February 22, 1973, at midnight (so really February 23), a Thursday/Friday on the CBS Late Movie at midnight. I was mesmerized by it – I knew nothing about it, or the short story and I simply could not stop watching, staying up past two to finish it. In fact, I loved it, did a little research, finding it was a huge flop at the time of its release. Of course, no videotape in those days, so I couldn’t see it again even if I wanted to, which I very much did. So, I didn’t see it again until 1976, when I bought a 16mm IB Technicolor print, a pristine print that looked like it had never even been run. I’m sure I ran it at my weekly movie night in my homemade projection room I’d made in my garage. Every time I watched it I thought how strange it was in the way the style of a scene suddenly felt different from the rest of the film – which kind of made it slightly off-kilter, which kind of worked in its favor. Only much later did I learn that two scenes were not the original scenes but had been reshot with Sidney Pollack directing. Even later, I learned about all the turmoil and how several roles had been recast when they were shot. That even gave it more allure. Sadly, Perry’s original cut was never even shown to the public, not even a preview, which today could not happen thanks to the DGA. Four editors worked on the film over a two-year period, constantly re-cutting according to the whims of producer Sam Spiegel.
The Blu-ray release from seven or eight years ago has an exhaustive two-and-a-half-hour documentary that goes into everything, not always with complete accuracy. Now, a new release from the UK is out, and someone I should know better than to trust in any way, said the transfer was really an improvement. So, I got it. No, the transfer isn’t really an improvement, it’s exactly the same, but with a higher bit rate, which I have to tell you I think is pretty nonsensical. If you sat this guy down and ran both transfers for him in a blind test, he would probably misidentify which he thought was better. There is a new commentary track on this release by an American author who wrote a book on Frank and Eleanor Perry. I made the mistake of listening to it. First off, I’m not really a fan of most commentary tracks. But this one achieved an all-time low, at least for me. The guy who raved how much better the transfer looked, loved the commentary – of course he did. The author speaks in the breathless, non-stop style of Quentin Tarantino. I lost count of how many sentences he ends with “right?” Hundreds. He’s like a teenage film fan-boy. And it’s not that he gets things completely wrong, although he does, he mentions things in his breathless way, then never explains them or even goes back to them. He says the original score was thrown out in favor of Hamlisch, who he never even names – nor does he name the composer whose score was thrown out. Well, no score was thrown out. At some point, Perry said he’d envisioned an improvised score by Miles Davis. He may have envisioned it, but I don’t believe Mr. Davis was ever hired and certainly had he written music that was thrown out he would have recorded it at some point, because he would not have let it go to waste.
The author repeats anecdotes several times, runs out of steam halfway through and has to work himself into another frenzy. For long stretches, the conversation doesn’t involve The Swimmer at all – we get Cheever stories and Frank and Eleanor history while scenes play out that it would be great to have some comment on. He lets almost the entire fifteen-minute re-shot and re-cast scene with Lancaster and Janet Rule play out before he finally mentions that Pollack directed it and that the original actress was Barbara Loden. There were several times when I began to yell at the TV, trying to shut this guy up. I toughed it out until the bitter end. Anyway, the Hamlisch score, his very first film score, works wonderfully in the film.
Otherwise, I did watch a couple of things last night. Amazon Prime had a new film streaming, a horror film entitled Goodnight Mommy. Of course, it was based on another film from a mere six or seven years ago, an Austrian film entitled – Goodnight Mommy. That film got mostly raves as a brilliantly clever horror film, albeit a very violent one. I was almost going to watch the original until I read what the violence consisted of and, for me, with that kind of disgusting violence it would never be a great horror film. The reviews of this new version with Naomi Watts said that all that overt and nauseating violence had been removed – the remake is getting terrible reviews. But I wanted to see why the story was so unique and twisty and the story beats were, apparently, the same, albeit adding a character at the very beginning. It’s about twin boys going to visit their mother, who they haven’t seen in a while (we’re not ever really told why, at least in this version). In the original film, the boys don’t have a father – in this it’s the father who drops them at the mom’s secluded house.
Once the boys arrive, mom greets them – only mom seems very strange – her face wrapped in bandages. She tells them she’s recently had some reconstructive surgery (read plastic surgery). At some point, the boys begin to suspect that mom may not really be mom. SPOILER ALERT, not that I’m recommending you watch it. SPOILER ALERT – BEWARE! Move along to the next paragraph now if you don’t want the SPOILER. Towards the end of the film, we get the reveal or twist. And it’s not about mom at all. Now, in all the reviews I read of the original and this remake not a one has mentioned something they absolutely should have mentioned – I suspect these idiot young critics don’t know any real film history. So, SPOILER ALERT – you have twin boys. Apparently, these critics have never read a little novel entitled The Other by Thomas Tryon or seen the film version. So, about fifteen minutes in I knew the reveal, although I hoped that it wasn’t going to be that kind of rip-off. I don’t know of anyone who did that particular twist prior to Mr. Tryon’s book and the film of it. Oh, it’s been ripped off by many since, but Tryon was the originator and it worked brilliantly, especially in the book. Anyway, I found the film had way too many plot holes and it’s directed poorly, with an awful, droning score.
After that, I watched a new Flix of Net documentary entitled The Anthrax Attacks, about the five deaths resulting from Anthrax enclosed in letters. Of course, this happened mere weeks after September 11, 2001, so terrorist attacks were the words of the day, even though they had not a shred of proof of that. Then, over the course of the FBI investigation, they realized that it wasn’t foreign terrorists, that it emanated from the US. They spoke to a few people who they felt were suspicious but settled on a scientist. The FBI hounded this guy publicly, followed him relentlessly, while the media had a field day doing the same, shamelessly, without any evidence that this person was guilty. But of course, he wasn’t guilty. They just ruined his life and without an apology just moved on. Many years on, he sued the government and got a 5.8-million-dollar settlement. Oops. The media never apologized either nor even acknowledged their hideous behavior.
The next suspect was most likely the right person, although it was never proven, and he committed suicide before they could bring him in. Funnily, neither the FBI nor the media made a circus of guy number two. In fact, there was nothing about it anywhere. It’s an interesting documentary, undone only by using actor recreations, which is a) cheating, and b) stupid and unnecessary.
Yesterday was, well, I don’t know quite what it was. I did get a very needed nine-and-a-half hours of sleep, arising at one-thirty. Once up, it was the usual array of e-mails to answer, we locked down more of our cast, but still am coming up empty on this duet thing we must cast. I’ve written any number of people who don’t think it’s necessary to respond – not performers, but people who know performers and can get to them and who can give suggestions. I’ll never understand it.
I ordered my pasta thing from Stanley’s and it arrived with no fanfare, no doorbell, no text alert – luckily, I just happened to be getting the mail and saw it there and luckily it hadn’t been sitting there long and was still nice and hot. I ate it all up – not as good as usual, I must say. That was the only food I ate. I had some telephonic conversations, chose a cameraman for the LA shoot, presuming he’ll do it for the dough that’s available, did a final Zoom thing for the screenplay, so this draft is now finished. This script began at 174 pages, got whittled down to 137 pages and is now a compact 117 pages. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish and began my viewing. The rest you know.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll do some prep work for the series, I’ll eat, and then at some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow will be exactly the same, and then it’s prepping every day. We take the red eye on Friday night, so I don’t get into the city until about seven in the morning and then I’ll try to sleep until about four. Then we’ll meet with Sami and the fellow who plays her BFF, talk through some stuff, and then have a nice dinner at Joe Allen.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, do prep work, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What is your favorite movie that you discovered on late-night television? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where there will be no SPOILER ALERTS.