6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A small-town police chief investigating a murder is offered help by a self-described psychic. However, when the chief discovers that the "psychic" is in possession of information known only to the police, he suspects that the man may be more involved in the case than he lets on.
Starring: Cliff Robertson, Joel Grey, Elizabeth Wilson, George Voskovec, Lane SmithThriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
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.
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 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.
There are no supplements of any kind on this Blu-ray disc.
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.
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