Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Man on a Swing Blu-ray Movie Review

Back and forth, forth and back. . .

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 30, 2012

Does one arresting performance make an otherwise questionable motion picture worth watching? That may be the most salient question that confronts potential viewers of Man on a Swing, an interesting if flawed Frank Perry film that claims to be based on fact but which has a decided air of unreality about it. Perry made an instantaneous name for himself with his debut feature, David and Lisa, garnering an Academy Award nomination for Best Director in the process. And he followed that debut with a number of other high profile and at least occasionally highly regarded films, including widely lauded if underappreciated at the boxoffice films like The Swimmer and Diary of a Mad Housewife, as well as the film that put the phrase “no more wire hangers!” on the cultural map, Mommie Dearest. But Perry’s films were often plagued with a certain pretentiousness, a self-conciously “arty” ambience that tended to undercut what was often Perry’s kind of high gloss take on the independent film spirit. That pretentiousness is rife throughout Man on a Swing, a film which wants to be a police procedural about uncovering what may be a serial murderer, but which turns out to be more of an extremely odd star vehicle for Joel Grey, who at the time of this film’s release was just coming off of his Oscar win for Cabaret. Grey plays psychic Franklin Wills, a natty little man who seems to have inside knowledge of a gruesome murder, knowledge which either comes from some spiritual keenness or because he either knows or is the murderer. That’s the central conceit of Man on a Swing, and the film is a tour de force for Grey’s overly mannered performance style. Countering Grey is an almost somnambulistic turn by Cliff Robertson as Lee Tucker, the police chief trying to figure out who Wills is and what his connection to the crime (and actually, later in the film, crimes) is.

Things don’t get off to an especially auspicious start in Man on a Swing as Perry mounts his camera on top of a moderately speeding police car and then adds some hyperbolic screeching tire sound effects that may in fact strike some viewers as downright funny. Once the police show up at the crime scene and it turns out they’re getting to a body that has been there for at least a day, one simply has to ask in best cop fashion, “Where’s the fire, buddy?” A beautiful young woman has been found murdered, left in her little Volkswagen curled up on the floor underneath the dashboard. There are several disturbing aspects about the killing that intrigue Police Chief Tucker, but he has virtually nothing to go on other than a long ago rape of an older woman by a young tough, a kid who evidently has an almost alibi for this latest crime. Suddenly Tucker gets a mysterious phone call from a man claiming to be a psychic, a man who talks about a pair of glasses found at the crime scene that Tucker hadn’t revealed to anyone, not even his fellow cops.

Once Franklin Wills shows up, the rest of the film plays out like a slightly strange cat and mouse game, as Chief Tucker attempts to discern two things: is Wills actually clairvoyant, and whether or not he is, is he somehow implicated in the murder? That’s pretty much the sum total of the film, and there’s the rub. Either Wills is actually a seer, in which case we have an unidentified murderer, or Wills is the murderer, in which case his prophecies are a show. Man on a Swing wants to echo its title in a way, wavering back and forth between these two ideas and never coming to rest firmly in one camp or the other.

Grey is a force of nature in this film, though that may not be a completely good thing. This is one of the most intentionally over the top performances on film in this era. Grey does everything from jumping on a table to (repeatedly) falling on the floor in severe twitching, and doesn’t hesitate to inform his performance with all manner of grimaces, tics, and bizarre business. It makes the thesis that Franklin Wills is just your normal, everyday kind of neighbor who just happens to “see dead people” or something similar a little hard to swallow. On the other hand, it makes Man on a Swing a decidedly magnetic viewing experience, at least when Grey is on the screen. (In the unintentional irony and/or humor department, keep your eye on some of the office cops in the background outside of Tucker's office when Wills goes through his manic motions the first time. They don't bat an eye. They've seen it all before.)

The central mystery on the other hand starts to peter out, even with the infusion of more deaths as the film trundles along. Tucker has his sights set on Wills, but there are also a number of other likely suspects lurking in the wings, and by the time the film comes to its spectacularly anticlimactic climax, some viewers are probably going to feel like they’ve been cheated. The film does offer a tantalizingly ambiguous ending, however, where Tucker attempts to corner Wills but ends up finding himself more the prey than the predator. It ends the film on a deliberately unsettling note, a tone this whole film could have exploited to better effect.

Note: Not really a propos of much vis a vis this film's quality, I couldn't let this review pass without mentioning the rather incredible product placement of Budweiser beer throughout some of the police station scenes. Watch how ubiquitously it's displayed, it might be fodder for a completely appropriate drinking game.

Man on a Swing Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Man on a Swing is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a typical early to mid-seventies lo-fi looking affair. It's not particularly sharp or well detailed, but the elements are generally in decent shape. There are occasional little specks, flecks and couple of very minor scratches that pop up, but that's about it in terms of damage. What is a more niggling concern is the pallid color. I never saw Man on a Swing theatrically and so can't state with any certainty what the film looked like in its original exhibition (I did see it broadcast many years ago, but have little memory of it). It does seem like this might have been sourced from a slightly faded interpositive. Flesh tones veer just slightly to the red-purple side of things (more so with Grey than with some of the other actors, perhaps due to Grey's own skin tone), which is usually a sign of a situation like this. Still, this offers decent if not overwhelming clarity and some of the close-ups do offer good fine object detail.

Man on a Swing Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Man on a Swing features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that is surprisingly febrile courtesy of the film's completely over the top sound effects. I absolutely loved how cars kind of make gentle turns going about 20 miles per hour and still emitted blood curdling tire squeals (and this happens repeatedly throughout the film). There's a nice, if awfully low key, Lalo Schifrin score which uses some interesting effects itself as well as Schifrin's typical vocabulary of Latin percussion and cool jazz cues. Dialogue is very cleanly and clearly presented and the mix is well prioritized.

Man on a Swing Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements of any kind on this Blu-ray disc.

Man on a Swing Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Man on a Swing may be the filmic equivalent of a train wreck, but, to paraphrase a certain Toy Story character, it's a train wreck with style. Grey is just so patently bizarre in this film it's almost impossible not to be sucked into his nonstop array of quasi-seizure like behavior. The central mystery, however, is a good deal less compelling and the film goes the Grand Guignol route a couple of times, especially with regard to Tucker's pregnant wife. There's a fine supporting cast as well with faces that look like they've been ported over from a nearby Fellini film, but Robertson, perhaps intentionally wanting to contrast Grey's hyperbolic performance, is all mumbles and monotone. The best part of this film comes in its closing moments, when a foreboding mood of menace and ambiguity suddenly reach a simmer, and in a very real way, the tables subtly turn in terms of the relationship between Tucker and Wills. This is a flawed film, but Joel Grey fans will probably want to check it out as it presents the diminutive Broadway star in one of his very few starring film roles.