Deux sur la balançoire

This is a film of a play, and it looks it. With a couple of exceptions, all of the dialogue is between the two characters played by Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine. To be honest, Mitchum seems badly miscast here. I don't think he was the best choice for a lonely, insecure and lost bachelor in New York City; Mitchum begging for help from a woman who appears to be half his age? To me, it doesn't work. MacLaine surprised me, however, with some very fine acting, much better than I have ever seen her before; she was quite stunning when she was young. And she even does a bit of dancing in this movie.

I am a big Robert Mitchum fan, but he is too old, and the physical mismatch with MacLaine is too distracting.

The sets are static; the action, such as it is, rarely leaves the two protagonists' apartments. There is an interesting application of split screen; M & M are speaking on the phone to each other from their separate apartments. The left half of the shot is MacLaine's home, the right Mitchum's. The two apartments are very distinct in furnishing and style. Suddenly, the camera pans right, to focus on Mitchum, and you realize that it is one set, cleverly made up to look like a standard split screen; that is, it is arranged exactly as if it were on a stage, the left side one apartment, the right the other. Very clever! Another interesting note: during the opening credits, Mitchum is seen to be walking around various parts of Manhattan, apparently all in one day; he states shortly thereafter that he spends his days and nights tramping the streets endlessly. In order, he first appears in the Bowery, feeding pigeons in front of St. Mark's Church, then downtown in front of the landmark Woolworth Building, then in midtown, on what may be 42nd Stret, and finally in front and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He sure got around in one day!

I am not a big fan of movies made to look like plays, but this is beautifully and cleverly photographed. It may be worth a look.

I call this film surprisingly great not because I was shocked that Mitchum or MacLane delivered fine performances, it's surprisingly good because of everything else this film has... in addition to M&M's delicious performances. I had no idea what to expect before watching this, just the way I like it. Because then I get the 5-10 minute rule to takeover -- either I'm hooked or I'm not.

Well it started right away. This thing was shot in B&W anamorphic, and shot beautifully. The opening shots drew me in for their wide angles and good framing and nice dramatic lighting(ie what normal people call a good mood setter)... noirish in some respects. And then it sucked me right in.

Maybe because it started on the stage and the scenes were so long but the dialogue was so well crafted that you just had to pay attention.

Maybe the fantastic real life portrayals by M&M - not straying nor betraying.

But I found myself constantly wanting to talk some sense into Jerry and Gittel -- ah thats what cinema is -- the desire to find out how it ends. And what an ending it is... I'll leave it at that.

I give it a 10 because it maybe is among the very best of this category - the "realistic character dialogue romance featuring two very odd strangers (think Stewart and Novak in Vertigo)". Shot well, acted well... kept me glued to the end. I give it 10 and not 9 because well, without spoiling it -- they didn't go where they could have gone. And I think that most audiences won't understand that final point once they see it. Thats a shame. But those who understand will agree - brilliance all around.

10 from me. And thats saying a HELLUVA lot.

This film is a good example of why I love black & white movies.

Director Wise, cinematographer Ted McCord, and production

designer Boris Leven craft light, shadow, and line into two hours of

absolutely lovely images, making the most of such elements as

the contrast between MacLaine's hair, eyes, and skin, and the

juxtaposition of the hard lines of doorframes and shadows with

the softness of rumpled fabric and fluid dancer's movement. (And I

loved the split set.) Total eye candy for B&W lovers, and an

incidental, abrupt reminder of what a beautiful woman the young

Shirley was.

Unfortunately, the script seems very dated here in the twenty-first

century. The characters' relationship is frustrating, and (reported

offscreen chemistry notwithstanding) MacLaine and Mitchum look

very much mismatched. (Supposedly it was originally to be Liz

Taylor and Paul Newman. I can't see Liz here, but a MacLaine- Newman pairing could have been hot. But we'll never know.) I

found MacLaine's character to be much more believable--more

rounded, containing more nuance--than Mitchum's. While this

seems mostly the script's fault, I do feel that MacLaine here brings

more quirky humanity to her work than does Mitchum (who I like

very much in general).

"Seesaw" stands out for me as one of those films that, because of

its meticulous attention to visual detail, becomes an archetypal

period piece as it ages--firmly among the films everyone making a

movie set in the early 1960s should study carefully.

The frustrating loop-de-loops of an uncertain love relationship between a Greenwich Village kook-dancer and a Midwestern suit-and-tie lawyer on the verge of divorcing his wife of 12 years. Though highly entertaining, this light-drama obviously derives from a play, as the lines of dialogue have not been reworked for the screen. It gets awfully pedantic at times; for instance, we know the characters' names, they know their names, so why do they keep saying to each other, "Jerry?", "Yes, Gittel?" "I'm sorry, Jerry." "I know, Gittel." The performances by Shirley MacLaine and Robert Mitchum are excellent (we like them even before their self-doubting, insecure characters take shape), but this stage-vehicle hasn't been turned into a star-vehicle. The leads banter back and forth in a curiously under-populated vacuum, however their increasingly tense conversations contain the startling ring of truth. Ted McCord's black-and-white cinematography provides a terrific compensation for the film's minor weaknesses; André Previn's "Apartment"-like score is rapturous as well. *** from ****

The post-beatnik / pre-hippie party scene is truly spectacular as a snapshot of a time/place rarely caught on film. While most of America was still living a black & white Eisenhower existence, this film shows the cutting edge NYC scene that had already moved beyond bebop and Kerouac and was just about to stumble full tilt into the Warhol Factory. The party scene probably seemed about as weird to middle America as the alien bar scene in Star Wars, fifteen years later. But one kid in every high school across the country changed their plans to attend 'State' and filled out last minute applications to NYU; they knew that they would grow old waiting for that world to reach their hometown.

A little known treat for anyone into the early days of "alt".