Review of Seconds

Seconds (1966)
8/10
A real downer
10 December 2004
Warning: Spoilers
but that's not a bad thing. Someone on this board says they are remaking it.

Will they have the courage to avoid punching up the ending so that all walk out happy? Probably not.

The opening tells us something is wrong; camera angles are unsettled, and as John Randolph walks, the shots from his shoetops give us the feeling that he is moving his upper body, but not his feet. The crowds look so threatening.

Btw, how many films have been set in Grand Central Station?

Randolph finds his way into the office of the chief honcho, but no one appears and he wanders off down the hall, goes through double doors into a room where people sit at tables, with a monitor in the front, as if they were taking their mid-terms. No one listens to his questions. I don't know about you, but I've been there, done that before and it is frightening.

The saddest scene is that of Hudson returning to his former home, to the wife who does not know that Mr. Wilson is her husband, the late Arthur Farrell. As she paints a warts-on picture of her departed hubby, Wilson sees he cannot go back, but that he hasn't changed in his new guise and thus his infatuation that somewhere, in some place, there is the character he wants to be.

A truly chilling story which gives the viewer little hope, but we knew that early on, when we saw the interrogator from Manchurian Candidate serve as Wilson's guidance counselor.
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