THE SWINGER
US, 1966, 81 minutes, Colour.
Ann Margret, Tony Franciosa, Robert Coote, Yvonne Romaine, Horace McMahon?.
Directed by George Sidney.
The Swinger is a piece of '60s permissive nonsense. It was directed by George Sidney, director of many musicals at MGM in the '40s and '50s (including Showboat. He made other musicals in the '60s including Bye Bye Birdie and Half A Sixpence. He also made a number of costume melodramas including The Three Musketeers and Scaramouche.
This is a vehicle for Ann Margret. The camera rarely takes its eyes from her. She is presented as glamorous and as a sex symbol - and seems to enjoy it. It is in marked contrast to some of her roles ten to twenty years later in serious drama.
The film pokes fun at a permissive girlie magazine, its English owner (played comically pompously by Robert Coote) and the criteria for articles. Ann Margret is allegedly a serious writer who writes a pop lurid paperback and alleges that this is her life. She is expected to live it out and live it up. Tony Franciosa has ambitions to reform her - along the lines of My Fair Lady.
The film is corny in plot, reflects the atmosphere of toying with permissiveness in the '60s and uses a lot of montage material to signal its contemporary style. A view of the '60s.
1. Entertaining sex comedy? Spoof? Of the '60s?
2. Production values, Los Angeles, location photography, fashions and style? Montage sequences? The musical score? The credits sequence and its music? The focus on Ann Margret?
3. The title and its reference to Kelly's novel? Her life? The expectations of the 1960s - and this type of sex comedy?
4. The credibility of the central character: Kelly as a serious novelist, bringing her work to the magazine, the reaction of Sir Hubert, of Richard? Invited to be a model? Her friends at the commune? Police friends? Her anxious parents and their phone calls? Her sitting down and writing the best-seller? Taking it to the firm, the swinger, her being expected to live it out - and her going to the gambling casino, to the striptease, on the street etc.? The film's poking fun -leeringly? Fashions? Richard, romance? Her parents? The police? The happy ending? A vehicle for Ann Margret?
5. Sir Hubert and the voice-over, the satire on the proprietor of a girlie magazine? The old lecher? His behaviour? His prim daughter? Richard? His eye on the girls, scandal? Interest in Kelly, wanting her to live out her life? The film's poking fun at him?
6. Richard as hero, working for the magazine, attempts at reform, his aunt Cora and her help? Karen and her formality? The clashes with Kelly? Exploiting her, the happy resolution? The ironic car crash - and the rewind for a happy ending?
7. The world of Los Angeles? Its being visualised in Sir Hubert's comments - permissiveness, sex in Los Angeles of the 1960s? The film’s comment? Exploitation?
8. Moral stances - having one's cake and eating it?
