Man on a Swing

source: Man on a Swing

This is a Virtually Unknown Film Featuring Joel Grey, Fresh From an Oscar, Dominating the Police Procedural of a Murder-Investigation that is Decidedly Not Normal Procedure. Law Enforcement and Other Conservative by Nature Foundations have an On-Going "Love-Hate" Relationship with Anything Perceived as "Paranormal". For Example, the U. S. Govt. Using "Psychics". Behind the Scenes for 20 Years in What was Called "Stargate", Developing a "Remote Viewing" Program of Out of Body Explorations of just About Anything. They Concluded that the Program was a Failure and Halted the Study. But Not Before Funding the $20 Million and Staying with it for 20 Years. The Facts Tell a Different Story. The Insiders Insist there were Many "Hits" well Beyond Chance and the Announcement of Termination was just PR and the Remote Viewing Program just went "Under the Radar". This Film is a Low-Budget Foray Highlighting Law Enforcement and Their Ultra-Skeptical Inclusion of a Clairvoyant in a Murder Investigation. The Mystery that Maybe His Information is Coming by Way of More Sinister Methods. Virtually a 2-Man-Show with the Highlights Grey's Embodiment of a "Trance" Whereby He is "Shown" what Could-Be a "Record" of What Took Place. Cliff Robertson, Constantly Sucking on Cans of "Bud" and Other Alcoholic Beverages, and What Today Would Never Pass as a Reality, On the Job, at Work with a Fridge by His Desk at Work. Otherwise, Robertson's Character is a Non-Descript Non-Entity. It's the Joel Grey Show because Not Much Else Stands Out. But it's a Show Worth Catching, to "Catch-Up" on Hidden Gems of the 70's and Films Neglected, Forgotten, or Otherwise Lurking in the Shadows for "Buffs" to Discover.

On June 16, 1968 the * body of Barbara Ann Butler, a 23-year-old junior high school teacher, was found in her car at a store parking lot near Dayton, Ohio. William A. Clark, a reporter for the Dayton 'Daily News', covered the subsequent police investigation—an investigation made far more complicated by the involvement of a psychic named Bill Boshears. Barbara Butler's murder was never solved. Nonetheless, Clark turned his reportage into a minor classic of the true crime genre entitled 'The Girl on the Volkswagen Floor' (Harper & Row, 1971). When David Zelag Goodman ('Straw Dogs') adapted Clark's book to the screen, he turned the William Clark figure into Police Chief Lee Tucker (Cliff Robertson) but did not really account for the fact that a busy police chief's routine duties and investigative methods would surely differ from those of a newspaperman. For example, Tucker takes a somewhat unlikely trip to a distant university to confer with para-psychology expert Dr. Nicholas Holnar, played by George Voskovec. Furthermore, Cliff Robertson plays Chief Tucker in a mostly deadpan fashion, making for a less than inspired performance. In stark contrast to Robertson's stereotypical tough guy cop is the manic, fitful, and deeply unsettling performance of Joel Grey as Franklin Wills, the psychic who wants to help Tucker solve the crime but makes Tucker suspicious that Wills may have some direct involvement in the crime. At any rate, Grey's performance is so good that it makes up for Goodman's muddled script and Frank Perry's trite direction. DVD (release date unknown).

"Man on a Swing" is a movie based on a book which was about some actual murders that occurred near Dayton, Ohio. However, I couldn't find any information about the actual crimes, so I have no idea how close to the truth the movie actually is. Cliff Robertson plays a sheriff in Laurel County who is in charge of investigating the murder of a woman found in a parking lot...stuffed in the floorboards of her VW. There aren't many clues and out of the blue, a man proclaiming he's psychic (Joel Grey) offers to help the police in the investigation. However, over time two unexpected things happen...another body turns up and the psychic seems to know too many details about the crime for him to not be a suspect as well. The film was interesting and the acting pretty good (aside from a bit of overacting by Grey when he has his trances). But the film also felt a bit anticlimactic at the end...and wasn't a bad film but a slightly disappointing one.

If you are looking for absolute, clearcut solutions, do not see this film. It is a fascinating study in the area of physic phenomena, real or imagined. Grey is excellent as a man who claims he has visions of the murderer. Or does he? No clear answers, but top notch film making and acting.

I've been curious to see this since it came out (I was too young then), as it sounded interesting. But no one has ever really claimed this as some underrated classic, and while many idiosyncratic suspense films and cop thrillers of the 1970s have since gotten some of the appreciation they didn't get then, "Man on a Swing" is still a misfire--a movie whose intriguing elements never really turn into "something," or "go anywhere." Even the ambiguity of providing no conventional resolution (because the real-life case didn't have one) doesn't really work, because Perry's direction doesn't make a central virtue of paranoia and ambiguity, unlike better films such as the same year's "The Conversation" or "The Parallax View." So what we get is a long, somewhat plodding murder mystery with a glum Cliff Robertson not making enough of his role, a host of good supporting actors not really given the chance to do much with theirs, and Joel Grey simply making too much of his part as the clairvoyant. He certainly livens up the film, but as the movie is primarily naturalistic in tone and cinematic style, his very showy, theatrical performance is kind of like placing a snow leopard in a pen of domestic cats and expecting us to think "Yeah, I suppose that makes sense." There are moments when the mixture approaches a kind of chill uncanniness that would have made a bolder film truly haunting. But this one doesn't commit to any path enough to make an impression more than of strong but elusive potential frustratingly unfulfilled.

Cliff Robertson plays a very frustrated small town Sheriff, trying to solve a murder case. Mucking things up is Joel Grey claiming to be a psychic, who can help Robertson find the killer. Unfortunately, Grey supplies just enough officially withheld information to tantalize the police, but not enough to solve the case. This causes Robertson to challenge Grey's psychic abilities with professional testing that is inconclusive and only further muddy the waters. "Man on a Swing" is based on a true murder investigation, and is superbly edited so that it never bogs down. The viewer is interested right up to the open ended conclusion, and is left wondering, just as the creative script intended. - MERK

The completely serious film (Man on a Swing) opens with a one minute-20 second scene shot with a camera mounted on the police car roof about a foot behind the flashing light bar. While I am sure it seemed dramatic in 1974, it's impossible to view now without remembering the comedic rendition of the same viewpoint that forms the opening of "The Naked Gun". While I can't be sure this was the only "cop movie" that had a similar opening sequence, it's pretty clear to me that this film alone would have been sufficient to inspire the Naked Gun spoof scene.

Frank Perry's "Man on a Swing" is one of the most haunting movies that you'll ever see. Cliff Robertson plays a police detective investigating a murder who enlists the help of a man (Joel Grey) who claims to be clairvoyant. During his trances this man describes things that he couldn't have learned from the media...but is it real clairvoyance? There are a couple of focuses. There's the investigation, but also the presumed psychic's trances that make you wonder if he's about to do something sinister. And then there are the strange things that start happening to the detective and his wife. Is it the presumed psychic or is something else going on? The most haunting thing is that this movie is based on a true story that was still unsolved at the time of the movie's release (I don't know whether they solved it afterwards). Joel Grey puts on what must be the most impressive role of his career. Far from the jolly emcee in "Cabaret", his character here makes you feel as if you're walking on eggshells. It's one of those movies that keeps you guessing every step of the way. I recommend it. The rest of the cast includes Peter Masterson (the husband in the original "Stepford Wives"), Lane Smith (the DA in "My Cousin Vinny"), Josef Sommer (Harrison Ford's superior in "Witness") and Penelope Milford (Jane Fonda's friend in "Coming Home").

***SPOILER ALERT*** Starts off as your average run-of-the-mill psychic helping the police solve a crime flick to later becoming something totally different. Something so strange and baffling that the local police chief Capt. Tucker, Cliff Robertson, starts to wonder if he's not the one who needs some kind of psychiatric therapy. Not the person he later suspects in Maggie Dawson's, Dianne Hull, murder self-confessed super psychic Franklin Wills, Joel Gray. After teacher Maggie Dawson was found murdered in her Volkswagen in a Laural shopping mall parking lot it became apparent that the killer covered his tracks very carefully. Leaving no fingerprints and having no one, in broad daylight, see him the case begins to run cold until out of nowhere Franklin Wills suddenly comes on the scene. Knowing things about Maggie Dawson's murder that only her killer and the police know Wills is taken seriously by Chief Tucker even though he really didn't, or up until then, gave as much as a rat's a** about the occult or clairvoyance that Wills' obviously has. Given all the leeway he needs by Chief Tucker Wills slowly uncovers more and more of the missing pieces of Maggie Dawson's murder. Wills is so good in his ability to track down the clues about what happened to Maggie that fateful afternoon at the Laural Mall that Chief Tucker starts to suspects that maybe, just maybe, he's, Franklin Wills, the person who murdered her! The first half of the movie "Man on a Swing" is pure gold in it's buildup to what Franklin Wills is all about and what exactly he knows about Maggie Dawson's, and later in the film Virginia Segretta, murder. You get the impression, just like Chief Tucker, that Wills is the real deal not some phony trying to make both a name and money for himself masquerading around as a crime solving psychic. It's the last half of the movie that really gets a bit overindulgent in trying to cover all the bases, instead of tracking down Wills' very accurate clues, in finding out if in fact Franklin Wills is really the real McCoy that he claims he is. Wills himself is anything but normal in his actions like going into spasmodic fits while putting himself under self-hypnosis, to find out who Maggie's killer is, but hell he's been right all along so why complain? We have Chief Tucker go so far as to almost kill Wills when he's wife Janet, Dorothy Tristan, felt that he was somehow threatening both her as well as his life. Admittely Wills is somewhat off the wall and even a bit dangerous in his demanding that Janet accept his handkerchief to the point where she became terrified of him. It was as if Wills felt insulted or hurt by Janet in not accepting his gift! Still Wills' never goes so far as even laying a hand or even finger, with the exception of Chief Tucker in showing him how Maggie was strangled to death, on anyone but himself in the movie. *****SPOILER ALERT****The film ends on a sour note with the audience as well as Chief Tucker not really finding out if Wills is real or not in his ability to mentally solve crimes. We can only guess, like Chief Tucker,that Wills is really on to something in his crime solving methods but what that is anybodies guess. All we get from Wills, who's predictions in the movie were dead on, is a sinister grin in that he knows something that we don't know as the movie suddenly comes to an end!