The Cloning of Clifford Swimmer (1974)

Clifford Swimmer (Peter Haskell in a wonderfully punchable performance) is the living embodiment of all the shittiest bits of 70s masculinity: he’s egotistical, self-serving, and much dumber than he clearly believes to be. He’s also emotionally abusive towards his wife Janet (Sheree North), undermining her wherever and however he can; obviously, his little stepson Todd (Lace Kerwin) does not fare any better. At least Cliff seems not to use physical violence on the both of them, for whatever that’s worth under the circumstances.

Despite his humongous ego and even bigger mouth, Swimmer is also a bit of a loser in his job, where his only real success seems to be that he’s having an affair with his assistant Madeline (Sharon Farrell). Though even she’s getting rather impatient with his unwillingness to commit. Why anyone would want to be chained to this asshole is anybody’s guess, there. Though, to be fair again, she is his chosen squeeze in his one day plan of just running away, buying a boat in the Caribbean and living the lazy life there, which is more thought than his family gets.

However, because it is the 70s, even macho shitheels like Swimmer go to a therapist. As it turns out, Dr Laszlo (Keene Curtis) moonlights as a mad scientist and thinks this particular patient is just the man he could use for an experiment in cloning, so Swimmer could run off and leave his family none the wiser with a clone taking his place. As it happens, the clone has parts of Swimmer’s memories and personality, but also shows all the kindness and sense the original must have lost ages ago, the kind of a guy a family could learn to love. Of course, continuing his shitty streak, Original Swimmer does leave his better version and family in debt to a loan shark he uses to actually finance his running away; and the Caribbean life doesn’t turn out to great either, because Swimmer’s taking himself with him wherever he goes.

This ABC TV movie was part of a late night series of cheaply produced films under the “The Wide World of Mystery” umbrella. The line was clearly budgeted quite a bit lower than your Movie of the Weeks at the time, and so TV cameras and a handful of studio sets is all the film at hand has to work with. Director Lela Swift does her best with what she’s got, but then, she directed quite a bit of TV in this budget bracket, like a lot of “Dark Shadows” episodes for Dan Curtis, so she was probably used to suffering, and had experience with making do, and so manages to make the film as visually appealing as she could under the circumstances.

So the film’s actual star has to be the script by George Lefferts. It’s a weird concoction, really, a mixture of an angry critique of a very specific type of 70s male shithead with a bit of low budget science fiction and a couple of noir tropes treated seriously. It’s not the most surprising thing you’ll ever encounter, but like Swift’s direction, Lefferts’ script is crafted well enough to work, particularly when the very decent acting ensemble get their fingers on it. Things are also just weird enough to be fun, elements like the wonderful dead pan junk science and the film’s non sequitur twist ending suggesting a certain degree of irony from the filmmakers that’s never getting in the way of the things they try to treat seriously, namely the portrait of a shitty man in decline.