It’s a shame that “The Twilight Zone” ended its television run just before John Cheever’s short story “The Swimmer” appeared in The New Yorker – Rod Serling’s half-hour anthology drama would have been a perfect environment for adapting Cheever’s surreal and disturbing 12-page tale. Instead, the husband-and-wife team of Frank and Eleanor Perry opted to greatly expand the Cheever story into a feature-length film. The result was the cinematic equivalent of building a three-story home on a one-story foundation.
Continue reading →