A man spends a summer day swimming home via all the pools in his quiet suburban neighborhood.A man spends a summer day swimming home via all the pools in his quiet suburban neighborhood.A man spends a summer day swimming home via all the pools in his quiet suburban neighborhood.
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- (as John Garfield Jr.)
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaBurt Lancaster always insisted that this was both his best and his favorite film of his career.
- GoofsIn the second shot of Ned pounding on the door of the empty house, the film is being run backwards - it's the same shot as before the interior of the house is seen through the broken window.
- Quotes
Kevin Gilmartin Jr.: They took the water out of the pool because I'm not a good swimmer. I'm bad at sports and, at school, nobody wants me on their team.
Ned Merrill: Well, it's a lot better that way, you take it from me. At first you think it's the end of the world because you're not on the team. Till you realize...
Kevin Gilmartin Jr.: Realize what?
Ned Merrill: You realize that you're free. You're your own man. You don't have to worry about getting to be captain and all that status stuff.
Kevin Gilmartin Jr.: They'd never elect me captain in a million years.
Ned Merrill: You're the captain of your soul. That's what counts. Know what I mean?
- ConnectionsFeatured in TCM Guest Programmer: Gilbert Gottfried (2013)
When Neddy is ready to leave the garden cocktail party he has been invited to, he looks out across the valley and sees the row of pools, all belonging to his neighbors. He's obviously a poet, and sees the chain of pools as a river (Metaphor). He decides to swim back home. Little does he, or we, know at this point what going home means! He goes from house to house, he greets his friends and jumps into their pools. We become a little worried as things seem to get a little out of hand--a little more so at each house. It's not long before we realize that this "river" is (Meta-Metaphor!) a trip through time, through his life--and that he has made one fine mess of it. The ending is amazing, and almost unbearable.