It’s always tricky to film a beloved book. Clint Eastwood found that out when he directed the movie version of the 90s bestseller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. His version (1996) is fine as a stand-alone, but the numerous rabid fans of the book savaged it because he made so many changes to the characters and plot.
So it goes with_ The Girl in a Swing (1988)_, a forgotten gem that suffered even worse than Eastwood’s film from comparisons to the source material— Richard Adams’ 1979 novel of the same title. Starring 80s “it girl” Meg Tilly at the height of her brief day in the sun, it’s directed by Gordon Hessler.
Hessler was a journeyman British director and producer who made a couple of notable horror films (The Oblong Box, 1966; Cry of the Banshee, 1970) with American International Pictures, producers of the fabled Roger Corman-Edgar Allen Poe films of midcentury cinema. The Girl in a Swing was savaged at its release by some influential critics like Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin, but it’s filmmaking and production values are too good to let it remain forgotten, especially when compared with many of the poorly made supernatural films of today.
The story follows an affluent antiques dealer from Britain named Alan (Rupert Frazer, John Carter–2012). He’s a middle-aged bachelor who brushes off the devoted local girl (Hammer veteran Lorna Heilbron). Shortly thereafter, he spends a few weeks in Copenhagen on an antiques buying spree. While he’s there, an agency sends him a German woman named Karin (Tilly) to serve as a temporary secretary. She’s beautiful, charming, and sexually adventurous.
Alan becomes totally besotted with Karin, despite her odd personality traits. She coldly kills a wounded bird without pity. She dislikes churches. One day, when she and Alan are walking together in a park, they see a young woman with a small girl. The woman is Karin’s friend, Ingrid, who’s a single parent recently engaged. Alan wonders offhandedly if Ingrid’s fiancé minds her having a child. He tells Karin that in the same position, he’d resent the child terribly. Thus remark seems to upset Karin, but she recovers smoothly. Not surprisingly, Alan pops the question and Karin happily accepts. She promises to join Alan in England in a week after tying up loose ends in Denmark.
When Karin arrives in England, Alan introduces her around his social circle. His friends are captivated by the lovely Karin. They eventually get married in Florida after a wealthy American client of Alan’s offers them a stay at his vacation home. While swimming in a lake there, Karen becomes hysterical, claiming she’s seen a body under the water. Alan investigates and finds it’s just an old tree stump.
Back in England, Karin seems to have psychic powers. She smiles mysteriously as she buys a box of odds and ends at a country auction; it turns out to contain a priceless 18th Century porcelain figurine called The Girl In a Swing. But she also seems to be haunted by a green plushy toy in the shape of a turtle and telephone calls from a mysterious child, which make her hysterical.
Throughout the film we are given hints that Karin isn’t exactly human. She may be The Girl in the Swing come to life. She may be a mermaid or sea nymph. In one dreamy scene, she sits naked on a flowery swing like the porcelain figurine, and claims that she is known by many names, suggesting that she’s a demon or even Beelzebub himself. (After all, she hates churches.) She and Alan also have a lot of mind-blowing sex and share some steamy nude scenes, which Tilly was known for in the 80s.
We never really find who/what Karin is, unfortunately, but we do find out her secret. It’s revealed toward the end of the film after a terrifying otherworldly attack on her and Frazer’s house, and it's tragic and horrible. Without indulging in spoilers, the ending reveals why Karin was so upset when Alan said he wouldn’t like to marry a woman with an already existing child.
Tilly’s performance as the difficult, mysterious, and strange Karin is captivating and very erotic. Frazer’s performance is low-key, but decent. There’s great support from redoubtable British character actors like Elspet Gray as Frazer’s mother.
The dreamy, atmospheric cinematography by Danish cameraman Claus Loof adds a lot to this film. I hope it will find a wider audience at some point.