THOSE SUPERNATURAL SEVENTIES Part Two

MAN ON A SWING (1974: Dir. Frank Perry)

When I was young in the Seventies, the world seemed obsessed with the supernatural. Television shows such as: In Search Of.., Ripley's Believe It Or Not, and That's Incredible dominated the ratings. The paperback racks of my local drugstore were filled with books like Chariots of the Gods?, The Bermuda Triangle, The Amityville Horror, and The World Almanac Book of the Strange, and my hometown cinemas were always showing genre films about UFOs, Bigfoot, Telekinesis, Reincarnation, and Demonic Possession drawing crowds of people willing to explore the unknown. Clairvoyance was a particular interest of mine. To me, the idea of being able to communicate with spirits, sense the history of inanimate objects, and read the minds of others in distress, was both a thrilling and frightening possibility. Director Frank Perry (Diary of a Mad Housewife) must have also felt the same way, having brought to the screen in 1974 one of the most credible depictions of a clairvoyant ever, in Man On A Swing. As personified by the recent Oscar Winner for Cabaret Joel Grey, self-proclaimed psychic Franklin Wills is an unnerving study in narcissism and neurosis. A man who is convinced that his extra-sensory abilities can help skeptical police chief Cliff Robertson solve a small-town sex murder. Based on a true story, the screenplay by David Zelag Goodman (Straw Dogs, Farewell My Lovely) expertly draws the audience into the investigation as Robertson becomes more and convinced that Grey's supposed "powers" are merely a smoke-screen for his direct involvement in the crime. Director Perry had a reputation for getting courageous performances from neophyte talents as well as established Hollywood stars, and with this offbeat genre exercise, he continued his near perfect string of psychological character studies. At first it seems as if Grey has the more flamboyant role, physically acting out his violent "visions" in front of an audience of cynical cops, but as the mystery deepens, Robertson rises to the emotional challenge of his role, as a man whose beliefs and even sanity, are put to the test. The result is a disturbingly enigmatic whodunit and although some viewers are left unsatisfied, its opaque atmosphere only serves to rekindle my fond memories of an era before the mysteries of the paranormal were replaced in the public's imagination by the explainable wonders of technology. DVD REGION 1