Pendulum

Peppard is ideally cast as inflexibly hard-nosed cop who gets sucked through the looking-glass when indicted for his cheating wife's murder. Charles McGraw and Richard Kiley are both magnificent in the key supporting roles. Dana Elcar and Isabel Sanford also add poignantly amusing support. Director George Schaeffer's pacing and choice of score is perfect for the genre. And, many of the key ironies are even more appropriate today than when the film was made. Very highly recommended.

Peppard is frank matthews, who has just left his job as a cop to work for a senator. When someone close to him is knocked off, he's the lead suspect! So now he's got to find the real killer before he gets locked up.. or even gets the death penalty. Lots of talk about one's rights when someone is arrested. The miranda warning had just been instituted in 1966. A fair amount of suspense. First, matthews keeps meddling in the investigation, and might screw up his own defense if it goes to trial. Then, later, it looks like matthews really has done the murder himself. It's pretty good! Nothing too new or earth shaking, but it was during the era of discussions of civil rights. Keep an eye out for isabel sanford as the maid; she will play louise in "the jeffersons". Peppard made this after tiffany's and crossbow, but just before banacek. He was nominated for a bafta for "home from the hill." directed by george schaefer. Story by stanley niss. He died young at 53, soon after this film was released. It's good!

I readily admit that I know very little about Director George Schaefer, who appears to have done more TV film than cinema.

The title PENDULUM comes from the words of a circuit judge reluctant to release on technical grounds proven rapist cum murderer Sanderson (coyly played by Rpbert Lyons, with typical connection to Mom Madeleine Sherwood).

The movie opens with an interesting relationship between police captain Matthews (Peppard) and cheating wife Jean Seberg, looking somewhat plumper than nine years earlier in Jean-Luc Godard's A BOUT DE SOUFFLE but still extremely gorgeous in her 1960s attire, and in her translucent gowns. You know instinctively that her deception will not last and that Sanderson, who Peppard put behind bars, will seek revenge.

That part of the movie is engrossing. The part of Peppard being immediately found guilty by his own copper colleagues, escaping, and using the street phone booth to gain access to Sanderson at his mother's place beggars an excessive amount of suspension of disbelief.

In any event, PENDULUM remains quite watchable. Seberg comes across as a charming cheat, Richard Kiley does well as lawyer Woodrow Wilson King (familiar names, ain't it?), interesting to see Charles McGraw as deputy police chief (up from police detective in the great B picture, NARROW MARGIN, of 1952) and cinematography by Lionel Lindon is quite professionally done. 7/10.

The film Pendulum came out when use of the Miranda decision was fairly new and police departments all over the nation were still grumbling about it as convictions were being overturned. Such a conviction overturned was that of rapist Robert F. Lyons and that really bothers the arresting officer George Peppard.

Still Peppard is ready for a career change. He's been appointed to the staff of the crime committee of US Senator Paul McGrath. By the way McGrath is one smooth politician and definitely not one to be in a foxhole with.

Peppard is going to need all the friends he can get because he is accused of murdering his wife Jean Seberg and her boyfriend Harry Lewis while catching them in the act. I've always found it amazing that some of the biggest law and order types when they get in a jackpot always want to make sure those rights are available.

Still of all the lawyers he could have picked Peppard chooses civil libertarian Richard Kiley, the same man who got Lyons's conviction reversed. That has all his cop buddies raising their eyebrows like Charles McGraw, Frank Marth, and Dana Elcar.

Pendulum concentrates on its ironical message to the extent that it really forgets to put in a good mystery. No doubt who is the doer of this deed from the gitgo.

A lot of familiar faces are in Pendulum, but possibly the best performance in the film is from Madeline Sherwood. As Lyons's much put upon mother she has an aura of quiet desperation in her role and her scenes with Lyons and Peppard really count.

Nice picture with a message that is still relevant today.

This movie is incredibly underrated. The performances are all top notch, from Peppard and Seberg down to the smallest role, though Seberg's part is short. In my opinion, Madeleine Sherwood and Robert F. Lyons deserved Oscar nominations for their performances. They were flawless and mesmerizing as the white trash woman and her psycho son. I couldn't take my eyes off them when they were on screen. I so wish the movie was available on DVD! This film should have made a star of Robert F. Lyons. I have no idea why it didn't. It's well-written and believable, nicely directed. Someone please put this out on DVD! I want to watch this again and again.