Ann-Margret had just completed filming a remake of Stagecoach in Colorado when she returned to Los Angeles to shoot The Swinger.

The Swinger was filmed in and around Los Angeles with locations on Mulholland Drive, the Sunset Strip (there is a brief shot of the Whiskey A-Go-Go), and Malibu.

In The Swinger, Ann-Margret rode a 500cc Triumph T100C Tiger motorcycle and used the same model fitted with a non-standard electric starter in her stage shows. The actress was also featured in Triumph Motorcycles' official advertisements during the sixties due to her well-known love of the brand.

According to Ann-Margret in her autobiography, The Swinger was intended as "a send-up of the psychedelic sixties." She also noted, "It proved to be some of the most fun I'd had on a movie set in a long time, even when I was reprimanded again by the studio execs for riding my motorcycle on the lot. But Roger [Smith] solved the problem by surprising me with a custom-made gold-leaded golf cart with my signature on the front. I tooled around the lot just fine, and everyone had time to get out of the way. When the movie wrapped, I hoped that my career was again getting "hot." Theatres were showing Once a Thief [1965] and doing respectable business. The Cincinnati Kid [1965] premiered lavishly in New Orleans to good reviews. Made in Paris [1966] was due out Thanksgiving. The Motion Picture Exhibitors of America honored me as their "Star of the Year.""

In the pre-title musical sequence for The Swinger, Ann-Margret directly addresses the camera as she had in her pre-credit opening to Bye Bye Birdie (1963), also directed by George Sidney. Instead of advancing and retreating on an unseen treadmill as in the later film, however, she is photographed against moving, multi-shaped white cut-outs and black borders. A wind machine, a swing and a trampoline were also employed to eye-catching effect.

Sidney provides Ann-Margret with a mix of the old and new in terms of musical selections in The Swinger. The aforementioned "Swinger Theme" was a new composition by Andre Previn with lyrics by his wife Dory. Among the classic standards are "That Old Black Magic" by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen which Kelly (Ann-Margret) performs as a half-hearted strip tease (which was severely edited for the U.S. release version - here is a link to the uncut version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncAzW535amk) and "I Wanna Be Loved" (by Billy Rose, Edward Heyman and Johnny Green), performed as a bedtime seduction song by Kelly to Ric (Anthony Franciosa); this was another sequence which was severely cut for the U.S. release version. An instrumental version of Rodgers and Hart's "Lover" accompanies the fashion show photographic still sequence.

The pop-art paint orgy sequence in which Ann-Margret becomes a human paint brush, being slung and rolled around a huge floor canvas, prefigures her equally viscous gyrations in Ken Russell's film version of The Who's rock opera, Tommy (1975). In that film, she was covered with a shower of chocolate, baked beans and soap suds that erupted from a television screen.

by Jeff Stafford

SOURCES:
Ann-Margret: My Story by Ann-Margret with Todd Gold, G.P. Putnam's Sons
George Sidney: A Bio-Bibliography by Eric Monder, Greenwood Press
Filmfacts
IMDB