Seconds

Rating:
Summary: Second-to-None
Review: We've all had days where we wished we could escape our ourselves and our lives, to be someone else somewhere else. But even if it were possible, could we really start over? Seconds asks and answers that question - some might argue quite cynically - through some of the most searing and surreal images and dialogue on film, in a story both jarring and emotionally resonant because it tells truths about humanity.

Without giving up too much of the plot, it is difficult to convey just how profoundly disturbing and haunting this film is, even after multiple viewings. From the pipe-organ score by Jerry Goldsmith that breathes with an eerie, heretic fervor; to the distorted faces in the titles by Saul Bass; to the stunning wide-angle black-and-white photography by James Wong Howe; to the peerless direction by John Frankenheimer; and of course, to the career-topping performance of Rock Hudson as the protagonist striking the faustian bargain to trade in his humdrum, middle-age existence for a new beginning, this film is simply one of the most overlooked and underrated gems of '60s cinema.

That it was made nearly 40 years ago is evident because of the film's many on-location shots, but the movie transcends its era and its genre (science fiction?) because it deals with timeless themes and a premise that in today's world of cloning and biotechnology seems increasingly plausible (at least physically). Seconds also remains more chilling than Frankenheimer's more popular masterpiece, The Manchurian Candidate, because it speaks poignantly about something we can all identify with: identity.

The new DVD is very much worth the price of admission: the picture transfer is really superb, and the sound isn't bad relative to most films of its time period. The disc also contains a trailer and a commentary by Frankenheimer. While Frankenheimer's thoughts are informative, I was disappointed that he focused mostly on technical aspects of the movie (e.g., "here's James Wong using the wide-angle lens again . . . ). I wish he had provided more insights about plot and thematic elements; maybe he thought these were better off left to the viewer to figure out. You likely won't be able to rent this one at Blockbuster, because unfortunately it remains a cult classic only.

Seconds is director John Frankenheimer and lead actor Rock Hudson's finest hour, and I can't recommend it more highly. This is one movie that will make you think differently about yourself, your life, and your loved ones.

Rating:
Summary: Second to None
Review: We've all had days when we wished we could escape our ourselves and our lives, to be someone else somewhere else. But even if it were possible, could we really start over? Seconds asks and answers that question - some might argue quite cynically - through some of the most searing and surreal images and dialogue on film, in a story both jarring and emotionally resonant because it tells truths about humanity.

Without giving up too much of the plot, it is difficult to convey just how profoundly disturbing and haunting this film is, even after multiple viewings. From the pipe-organ score by Jerry Goldsmith that breathes with an eerie, heretic fervor; to the distorted faces in the titles by Saul Bass; to the stunning wide-angle black-and-white photography by James Wong Howe; to the peerless direction by John Frankenheimer; and of course, to the career-topping performance of Rock Hudson as the protagonist striking the faustian bargain to trade in his humdrum, middle-aged life for a new beginning, this film is simply one of the most overlooked and underrated gems of '60s cinema.

That it was made nearly 40 years ago is evident because of the film's many on-location shots, but the movie transcends its era and its genre (science fiction?) because it deals with timeless themes and a premise that in today's world of ..biotechnology seems increasingly plausible (at least physically). Seconds also remains more chilling than Frankenheimer's more popular masterpiece, The Manchurian Candidate, because it speaks poignantly about something we can all identify with: identity.

The new DVD is very much worth the price of admission: the picture transfer is really superb, and the sound isn't bad relative to most films of its time period. The disc also contains a trailer and a commentary by Frankenheimer. While Frankenheimer's thoughts are informative, I was disappointed that he focused mostly on technical aspects of the movie (e.g., "here's James Wong using the wide-angle lens again . . . ). I wish he had provided more insights about plot and thematic elements; maybe he thought these were better off left to the viewer to figure out. You likely won't be able to rent this one at Blockbuster, because unfortunately it remains a cult classic only.

Seconds is director John Frankenheimer and lead actor Rock Hudson's finest hour, and I can't recommend it more highly. This is one movie that will at least make you think - perhaps even differently - about yourself, your life, and your loved ones.

Rating:
Summary: Seconds
Review: This film is the next to be written by the guy who wrote "Psycho", the classic Hitchcock horror thriller.
This is Rock Hudson's best acting performance on screen. A perfect role for him and he is wonderful.
John Frankenheimer is the perfect director for this film, based on a Faustian theme, and makes a matching set with his "Manchurian Candidate"

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, Thought-Provoking Drama! 4-and-a-half Stars!!
Review: Rock Hudson is exceptional in his role in "Seconds". Disillusioned with his lot in life, a 51-year-old bank employee seeks a change via "the company", a mysterious organization that can completely alter a person's physical exterior, right down to brand-new fingerprints. This 51-year-old businessman is transformed into the youthful Tony Wilson (Hudson). Mr. Wilson very soon discovers that his new life is not at all better than the one he just left behind.

This picture plays very, very much like an episode of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone TV series. In fact, there IS a "Zone" program that is nearly identical as far as content [entitled "The Trade-ins", where an elderly couple grapple with the mighty life-changing decision of whether to trade in their bodies for younger models].

"Seconds" offers many good performances. In addition to Rock's stellar outing, look for veteran actors Will Geer (as the head man of the nameless "company") and Murray Hamilton (as a fellow "reborn").

I had never quite been able to accept Rock Hudson in any roles other than the lighter, fluffier stuff .... until I saw this movie! He was commanding in every scene, especially the very emotional final reel, during which he nearly bursts a blood vessel or two in a struggle with "company" doctors. This surely must be Rock's finest dramatic performance.

Watch for some unique camera angles and unusual trick shots here as well. It's an unsettling hour & three-quarters, but worth the trip.

The next time you wish you could have "seconds" in life .... you may want to think twice, and watch this picture!

Some Facts & Figures..............

"Seconds", filmed in 1966.
Black and White.
107 minutes.
Directed by: John Frankenheimer.
A Paramount Release.
Rated: R (some nudity).

Rating:
Summary: frankenheimer's seconds
Review: People today, if they know who he is, berate or underappreciate the work of John Frankenheimer. The director should have been catapulted to fame with The Manchurian Candidate, but instead the film tread too close upon the actual assassinations and subsequent paranoia of the 60's. It was pulled from release for decades. His masterpiece having never had existed, Frankenheimer, who always oscillated between being a premier action director and an iconoclastic arthouse director, was forced to take jobs when he could get the funding. Under these circumstances, his productivity remains remarkable.

Seconds is key to proving his unrecognized excellence. More or less relegated to a cult film, the film has stayed in print most likely because Rock Hudson is the star power in the film. Those watching this film expecting Pillow Talk or Giant must have been unwittingly traumatized. The film deals with a businessman given another identity to live out for the rest of his years. The cinematography by the master James Wong Howe (check out Hud for proof) never allows the viewer to settle passively into the film. The viewer is always too close or too far, his/her vision is blurred and myopic. And when we share Hudson's point of view, we are pulled along through his life as we share his groggy paranoia. Hudson is excellent although one wonders if this excellence is due to the fact that his uncomfortable departure from his established "softy" roles mirrors the uncomfortable transition from one troubled life to another. Hudson being a closeted homosexual must have understood what living a lie truly meant for he plays it astonishingly well (Doris Day surprisingly could also do thriller roles so convincingly that she avoided them in order to not become them). The rest of the cast is filled with solid B actors' performances and unknowns. But the true kudos goes for Frankenheimer making a paranoid shocker years before it was laudable to do so.

In short, Frankenheimer may join ranks with Robert Aldrich and Bud Boetticher of being the best of the underappreciated and before-their-time directors. But there are many true underground gems that move beneath the day-glo veneer of 1955 to 1968. Seconds is one of those gems--unsettling at first, but worthy of seconds.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, one of a kind thriller
Review: It's great to see that this superb film is being released on DVD uncut and with a commentary by director John Frankenheimer. This is without question one of Frankenheimer's best works. Based on a novel by the always inventive David Ely (read his other novel Mr. Nicholas for a startling look at the issue of privacy), the feeling of dread has rarely been captured as well anywhere else.

What would you do if you had the chance to live your life, well, not exactly all over again, but from about 30 years or so before today--if you had a second chance? Would you revel in the glories of sensual pleasure? Or would you find that your personality has undergone so severe a trauma from the transformation that things just don't seem to fit into place--no matter what you do?

As we approach the era--not long in coming--when genetic manipulation, advanced biochemical agents, and nanobiology will all make these kinds of changes more likely than ever before, this film is an increasingly relevant work. Made in 1966, it was way ahead of its time, which may explain why the commercial video appeared and then disappeared almost immediately.

The powerful plot drives the film, but it's great to see Rock Hudson in a role that significantly de-emphasizes his playboy mode and underlines something far more sinister. Equally strong are Salome Jens as his 'girlfriend', Richard Anderson as the surgeon, and Will Geer, Jeff Corey and Khigh Dhiegh as the three company men whose business it is to insure compliance on the part of the customers--or else. And Murray Hamilton turns in a solid performance as Hudson's fellow 'reborn' traveler, as does John Randolph as Hudson's former self.

The pacing is tight as a drum, the script is sharp and tough, and Jerry Goldsmith's score is absolutely one of the best he's ever done. It's a shame the soundtrack is not available on CD; it's great.

This is the film to see when you are thinking, Gee, why didn't I do THAT when I was younger? The answer may surprise you....

Rating:
Summary: One of Frankenheimer's finest
Review: Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966)

Something happened to John Frankenheimer in or around
1980. Since then, he's managed flop after flop (anyone
remember the remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau?),
coming up with a single decent film, Andersonville
(and due to its length, it was relegated to miniseries
status on TNT). Worse yet, he's presently filming a
prequel to The Exorcist.

Better to focus on what came before: the brilliant,
underrated Prophecy (1979), Black Sunday (1977), The
Iceman Cometh (1973), and a slew of other films
ranging from the above-average to the truly excellent.
While Seconds didn't quite live up to Frankenheimer's
pinnacle The Machurian Candidate, it does a pretty
good job in the running for the second slot.

Imagine a world where anyone who wanted to could, for
a price, enter the Witness Protection Program. Dump
your former life, have your death faked, go through
major plastic surgery, and get set up in the life you
always wanted. So you think.

Banker Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is called by an
old college buddy whom he believes to be dead. He's
sufficiently intrigued by the idea that he ends up
donig it himself, becoming Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson),
an artist living in California. Problem is,
Hamilton/Wilson wasn't entirely sure he wanted to do
it before he did it, and the conflicts he has with
himself comprise the film's main tension.

Frankenheimer uses many of the same techniques that
were so successful in The Manchurian Candidate to
create the same atmosphere of dissociation and
paranoia here: out-of-focus shots, distorted camera
lenses, quick cuts from a character's point-of-view to
an omniscient one. They work here just as well. While
the storyline isn't quite as they-can't-DO-that
brilliant as TMC was, everyone involved does an
excellent job at keeping both the paranoia and the
believability at maximum levels throughout. The ending
is sheer perfection.

Highly recommended. **** 1/2

Rating:
Summary: "...but they were just things...not people...not meaning"
Review: [From the Plains of Troy ...
awake from the dream...]

This film haunted me when I first
saw it in its original release...it
is confusing, mystifying, unsettling...
because there seems to be something
missing from the understanding in order
to really know what is being said...
but, now, after having gone through
much...after having awakened...and
having just seen the ending again
on a cable t.v. station, it seems
to make sense...
The plot seems to be about the
ability to be put into a young,
youthful body after one has
reached an aged time...there
is much unspoken, but implied
ironic commentary on our culture's
worship of youth...and beauty...but
not values and meaning...about defining
worth and value in terms of money,
and position, and influence...rather
than on the basis of the quality
of the life as it is lived and
the positive things which it might
contribute...but this film is even
darker than that, for it takes
the definitely dark Gnostic view
that the world system is permanently
corrupt and tainted, and that even
someone with the best of intentions
will be tainted and twisted and
programmed by the system's illusions
and goals once they are back into
the system...so "doing good" within
this demonic, damned system is, as
Herman Melville said, in one of his
darkest poems: "The good man pouring
from his pitcher clear, but brims
the poisoned well..."
So, the larger allegory here seems
to be about souls...having lived one
life, then being given the ability
to inhabit another body for another
go around in the system...while the
souls are waiting, they seem to understand
where they have gone wrong...but the
demonic administators of the system
are the ones in charge of the reinsertion
procedures and of deciding who gets to
go around again...thus, the re-incarnation
is a curse, not a blessing...
From all that we have been programmed
to believe, and hope for, and wish for

("dream-fulfillment") the reinsertion
procedure seems like a "dream come true"...
but it is really a NIGHTMARE...a false
lure...simply another endless chance to
go back around again and be subjected to
same demonic forces and drives and
illusions...
...the bottom line seems to be
that matter itself is corrupt and
tainted and damned, no matter how
beautiful its form and lure...but
it is very difficult to resist the
lure of so much that we have been
programmed to believe that we should
want, should strive for, should define
ourselves in terms of....
...the last minutes of this film
are some of the most claustrophobic,
paranoid, horrifying, and hopeless
on film...but maybe they will jar
someone awake...
* * * * * * * * *

Rating:
Summary: A tribute to Rock Hudson.
Review: The case of 'Seconds' is a bit like that of Jennifer Lopez's recent thriller 'The Cell' - does one deplore it as pretentious and derivative (which it certainly is), or does one stare gobsmacked and celebrate the sheer mind-boggling unlikeliness of such a film ever emerging from a major Hollywood studio, even in the late 60s and 70s, when it was more open to experimentation?

this is a film that could only have been made in the 60s. From the opening Saul Bass credits, you know you're going to be in for all sorts of visual and editing trickery, fish-eye lenses, trolley close-ups, jump cuts. The film, like many Hollywood films of the period trying to cash in on the crazy stuff the kids were watching, is a slavish attempt to imitate European culture, with 'borrowings' from Kafka (the opening chase sequence; the bureaucratic nightmare; the exam hall; the plot of a consciousness in a new body, like the 'Metamorphosis'), Franju (the graphic surgery scenes), 'The Prisoner' and 'The Avengers' (the paranoid plot about a Company planting the real world with doubles), honorary European Sam Fuller and many more.

Unlike most Hollywood films ripping off the arthouse, though, Frankenheimer's trickery is thematically relevant, his visual experimentation creating a world where the everyday becomes unstable and distorted, where vision is skewed, where there always seems to be someone beyond looking at you. The ingenious sets emphasise huge spaces that mark the characters' loneliness and alienation, while extreme, screen-filling close-ups suggest their inability to escape.

In many ways, 'Seconds' is a 50s film made in the 60s, about the soul-destroying consequences of giving your life to capitalism and family. it is a film deeply suspicious of conspiracies, like Frankenheimer's masterpiece 'The Manchurian Candidate', with shadowy mandarins reorganising lives wholesale, making illusions reality and vice versa - the whole film is an allegory for the repressive apparatus of the State. But it also critiques the burgeoning hippie ethos as contrived and complicit.

'Seconds' is best enjoyed as an investigation into the image of Rock Hudson, of what it is to be a real person, with needs spectacularly unaddressed by mainstream Hollywood, and forced to inhabit this mask of hulking identity. The first time we see Hudson, the result of surgery on his middle-aged first incarnation, he is like Frankenstein's monster, all scars, stitches and scary hair, as if this is the reality behind the smooth public image. Its's irresistable to see this as a cry for help, with the Company's minions as Hollywood brokers, forcing the actor into public marriages etc. In this way, the film becomes quite moving.

Rating:
Summary: Not Your Father's Rock Hudson Video!
Review: An outstanding chiller from John Frankenheimer. director of "The Manchurian Candidate", "Seconds" is a "Twilight Zone" like tale of Greed, Lust, and Capitalism. But to say more is to give it away. By the way, it's fun to recommend this to people who love Rock Hudson for his stupid Doris Day comedies!