I don't know about you,but I love the episodes from this relatively unknown series from the early 1970s called Wide World Of Mystery.The Cloning Of Clifford Swimmer is just as the title implies,about the evil practice of cloning humans.I personally think the cloning of any living entity whether animal,plant or human is not a good idea, and I am amazed at the arrogance of so-called people of science that spit in the face of God by trying to change his master design.Anyway back to the movie..,Peter Haskell an excellent actor,along with Sheree North and the sweet young actor of his day,Lance Kerwin.What a cast!If you have not seen this movie,you are missing a rare treat.I have this movie.
The Wide World of Mystery (TV Series)
The Cloning of Clifford Swimmer (1974)
User Reviews
Review this title2 Reviews
One of the unknown episodes from Wide World Of Mystery
climbingivy19 February 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Decent Story Needed More Work
Michael_Elliott26 December 2012
The Cloning of Clifford Swimmer (1974)
** (out of 4)
Fair entry in "The Wide World of Mystery" series has an abusive Clifford Swimmer (Peter Haskell) agreeing to be cloned so that he can escape the wife (Sheree North) and stepson (Lance Kerwin) that he hates. Once out on his own the clone takes his place back at the house and he begins to start fresh with the wife and stepchild but soon the real man grows jealous and gets into some major trouble. THE CLONING OF CLIFFORD SWIMMER is the first film I've seen from this series so I can't comment on the series as a whole. This film here had several interesting ideas but I think they needed to be developed a lot more because it seems the 66-minute running time really hurt because there are just so many things that happen so fast that they see forced. One such example is how the wife and stepson change to this "new" person who enters their life. I think it would have been much more believable had there been one or two more scenes where they really question what's going on. I also thought it would have played better had we believed the real man's need to get back with his family. There are several twist and turns along the way but most of them you will see coming from a mile away. Another problem is that the low-budget really didn't help and especially early on during the futuristic laboratory, which looks worst than some of the ones seen in those bad 50's sci-fi movies. With that said, I thought the performances were rather good and this is especially true for Haskell. I thought he was very believable as the bad guy and the nice guy clone. Still, there were just a few too many problems to make this story fully work on me but I think it would make for an interesting remake with a bigger budget.
** (out of 4)
Fair entry in "The Wide World of Mystery" series has an abusive Clifford Swimmer (Peter Haskell) agreeing to be cloned so that he can escape the wife (Sheree North) and stepson (Lance Kerwin) that he hates. Once out on his own the clone takes his place back at the house and he begins to start fresh with the wife and stepchild but soon the real man grows jealous and gets into some major trouble. THE CLONING OF CLIFFORD SWIMMER is the first film I've seen from this series so I can't comment on the series as a whole. This film here had several interesting ideas but I think they needed to be developed a lot more because it seems the 66-minute running time really hurt because there are just so many things that happen so fast that they see forced. One such example is how the wife and stepson change to this "new" person who enters their life. I think it would have been much more believable had there been one or two more scenes where they really question what's going on. I also thought it would have played better had we believed the real man's need to get back with his family. There are several twist and turns along the way but most of them you will see coming from a mile away. Another problem is that the low-budget really didn't help and especially early on during the futuristic laboratory, which looks worst than some of the ones seen in those bad 50's sci-fi movies. With that said, I thought the performances were rather good and this is especially true for Haskell. I thought he was very believable as the bad guy and the nice guy clone. Still, there were just a few too many problems to make this story fully work on me but I think it would make for an interesting remake with a bigger budget.
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