Pendulum

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George Peppard, Richard Kiley, and Jean Seberg in Pendulum (1969)

When police captain Frank Matthews is accused of murdering his adulterous wife and her lover he avoids arrest and sets out to find the killer.When police captain Frank Matthews is accused of murdering his adulterous wife and her lover he avoids arrest and sets out to find the killer.When police captain Frank Matthews is accused of murdering his adulterous wife and her lover he avoids arrest and sets out to find the killer.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.2/10

894

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination total

Photos33

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
During location filming in Washington, DC, Martin Luther King was assassinated. The resulting riots in the capital caused the shooting company to wrap early and return to Los Angeles. Visible in the rear window of the cab during Jean Seberg's ride through the city, buildings are burning and smoke is obvious.

Goofs
In the opening sequence, under the main titles, the taxicab starts out as a 1964 Plymouth. Upon arrival at its destination, the car has changed to a 1968 Plymouth.

Quotes
Judge Kinsella: On your last appearance before me, Mr. Sanderson, it was my unpleasant duty to sentence you to death in the electric chair. Now, the duty I have before me now is in some respects even more unpleasant. I have no quarrel with the principle of law involved, it's a good and wise application of our constitutional guarantees, but in this case, it results in turning loose upon society a degraded and immoral person.
Judge Kinsella: [he continues] There's no doubt that in the first half of the twentieth century, we - and I mean the press and the public as well as the courts - had looked the other way as our police, in the name of law and order, showed a patent disregard for individual liberties as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. But it seems now that the pendulum is swinging a little too far the other way.
[sighs heavily]
Judge Kinsella: Well there is hope; gravity will bring it to rest at some point where the interests of both individual liberty and the community as a whole are best served. Motion is granted.

Connections
Referenced in Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the '70s (2012)

Soundtracks
The Pendulum Swings Both Ways
Music by Walter Scharf
Lyrics by Mack David
Sung by The Lettermen (as The Letterman)

User reviews22

Featured review

7/10

Good cast, direction; hard to believe script

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.