Frank Perry
Play It as It Lays is the rare adaptation of a literary masterpiece that lives up to the source material.
Frank Perry ’s 1968 film The Swimmer is adapted at length from the 12-page short story of the same name by famed American author John Cheever . It is the story of Ned Merrill (perhaps the finest performance of Burt Lancaster ’s impressive career), whose summer culminates in a trip through various neighbours’ pools until reaching his own home at the end of a large and affluent county of mansions. Only, what starts as a summer begins to feel as if it goes on for years.