PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL stardate : capitulation day+61
...an investor...undressed as Burt Lancaster...is attempting to bring back the bull market by swimming...under water...through every pool in FUNDSVILLE...
...the story takes place in the affluent suburbs of Westchester County, New York, and focuses on Bully Bulltard, who despite being middle-aged, wants to grow his pension fund and believes that he is a shrewd investor...
...he marvels at his trail-blazing idea of "swimming the county"...
...at the beginning of the story, Bully is at a cocktail party at a local investment club and realizes that by following an imaginary chain of private and public pools in his affluent community he can literally swim to retirement...
...next we have a succession of similar scenes, as Bully enters the backyard of his neighbours...
...sometimes bursting into a party, sometimes engaging in conversation, and most of the time having a drink - but always swimming the length of their pool. Soon it becomes clear to the viewer that something has gone awry.
...at first Bully is well-received in the backyards and pools, but after finding a dried pool and waiting for a storm to pass in a gazebo, he starts to feel tired and disillusioned with his idea...
...although he is still determined to go on, he can hardly remember the excitement he first had at the investment club...
...Bully is terribly upset to find out that the Welchers' pool was dry, in fact their house was up for sale...
...he recognizes that his memory must be failing him or he is repressing unpleasant facts for not remembering what had happened to the other bulls...
...at the Halloran residence, Mrs. Halloran tells Bully she is sorry to hear of his misfortunes which, again his memory seeming to fail him, cannot remember, although Mrs. Halloran mentions Bully selling his house and something about his children...
at the Biswangers’ he is received as a gate-crasher and even their barman treats him with disrespect...
...he overhears Mrs. Biswanger saying that someone, possibly Bully himself, showed up one day asking for money since he went bankrupt...
...further on, bully's former mistress Shirley Adams, whom he cannot even clearly remember having an affair with, tells him that she won't "give him another cent".
...several signs indicate that time is passing more rapidly than Bully realizes...
...he slowly observes that each pool is significantly colder and much more difficult to swim...
...by the end of the story, Bully is unable to recognize the constellations of the midsummer sky, instead finding the northern constellations Andromeda, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia, implying a change of season....
...in the story's conclusion, Bully reaches his retirement...
...as he looks inside the locked and deserted home, he wonders why his money is not there anymore...
in fact...it's all gone!
REVIEW...John Cheever's "misery in suburbia" short stories, brief and to the point, have always proven excellent TV fodder. Director Frank Perry's The Swimmer, adapted for the screen by Perry's wife Eleanor, is a rare, and for the most part successful, attempt at offering a Cheever story in feature-length form. Dressed only in swimming trunks throughout the film, Burt Lancaster plays a wealthy, middle-aged advertising man, embarked on a long and revelatory journey through suburban Connecticut. Lancaster slowly makes his way to his split-level home by travelling from house to house, and from swimming pool to swimming pool...."
petey : don go near the water...don do the swim...
