An inexpensive story with stars that were finding it was difficult to get parts, but they do their job, and the story itself is gripping.
Glenn Ford is a highly respected professor at some institute in California and twenty-two years ago was initiated into a select secret society at elite St. George College. It was obviously shot in southern California rather than, say, New England, in order to save money, but it was a mistake to do so. The lunatic sects and fraternities of California are not secret. They're out in the open. They relish their exposure. And none of the colleges, real or fictional, are two hundred years old. Santa Clara University and the University of the Pacific, the two oldest, were both established in 1851.
Where was I? Yes, anyway, Glenn Ford joins these secret elite society, The Brotherhood of the Bell, which is rather like Skull and Bones at Yale. Nobody is supposed to talk about it. Members open doors for other members. In this instance, they order Ford to blackmail an academic friend into refusing a job so that another Brotherhood member will get the job. If Ford's friend, the intended victim, refuses, a list of his collaborators will be sent behind the Iron Curtain and more than forty innocent men, women, and will die.
The Brotherhood is cheerfully serious about the deal but Ford is more than edgy. And it gets worse when he presents his close friend with his demands. The friend commits suicide, and Glenn feels sufficiently distraught that he reveals the secrets of the Brotherhood. Only he finds out that the people to whom he appeals also belong to the Brotherhood, or else they don't really care or they think Ford is irretrievably mad. The Brotherhood puts pressure on Ford, gets him fired, causes his wife to leave him, is responsible for his father's death, and in other ways acts in a manner unbecoming a rich, powerful, elite organization.
Desperate for an audience, Ford agrees to go on a raucous TV talk show hosted by William Conrad, who is given some hard-hitting lines by the writers. But the show turns into a brawl. Conrad calls Ford an "idiot" and calls the entire audience "idiots." This is a variant of a familiar scene in which a man or woman, finally given a chance to tell an eager audience that something is terribly wrong, turns to jelly and becomes hysterical. (See Jack Lemon in "The China Syndrome" or any number of other conspiracy movies.)
At his wit's end, hysterical, Ford pleads with a very young freshman at St. George, newly inducted into the Brotherhood, to join him in his crusade. If the authorities won't believe one witness, they'll certainly believe two, who have nothing to gain by revealing what they know. (This doesn't apply to UFO sightings, where even presidents and secretaries of the Navy have been dismissed.) The recruit must realize that behind the ritual arrogance, both he and the Brotherhood have nothing -- and nothing will come of nothing, as a king once observed.
Ford gives a tense performance. Make up has applied some sort of concoction to his tanned face that makes him look always sweaty, but this is adventitious because in fact all the men's faces looks shiny, while the women look freshly powdered. It's a decent performance, though, and it carries some of the weight of Ford's obsession in "The Big Heat." As his increasingly doubtful wife, Rosemary Forsythe is tall and pretty. A fine performance by Will Geer as Ford's father. He was a splendid character actor and was able to pass as the most gentle, kindly, understanding mass murderer you could imagine in "Seconds." Paul Wendkos directed. There is a moment towards the beginning when Ford becomes aware of just how pernicious The Brotherhood is, and Wendkos tilts the camera delicately to reflect Ford's confusion, but then he goes and ruins it by tilting the camera over and over, sometimes on its side. No kidding. There are monumental close ups of Ford's eyeballs that are positively embarrassing, and Wendkos uses wide-angle lenses to turn some faces into those of cartoons or gargoyles or dolphins. He almost ruins the second half of the film.
Still, it's not a movie to be easily dismissed, particularly in this era of rampant paranoia when all of us are raving about being caught up in a conspiratorial web, some of which, for all we know, may be real.
Glenn Ford is a highly respected professor at some institute in California and twenty-two years ago was initiated into a select secret society at elite St. George College. It was obviously shot in southern California rather than, say, New England, in order to save money, but it was a mistake to do so. The lunatic sects and fraternities of California are not secret. They're out in the open. They relish their exposure. And none of the colleges, real or fictional, are two hundred years old. Santa Clara University and the University of the Pacific, the two oldest, were both established in 1851.
Where was I? Yes, anyway, Glenn Ford joins these secret elite society, The Brotherhood of the Bell, which is rather like Skull and Bones at Yale. Nobody is supposed to talk about it. Members open doors for other members. In this instance, they order Ford to blackmail an academic friend into refusing a job so that another Brotherhood member will get the job. If Ford's friend, the intended victim, refuses, a list of his collaborators will be sent behind the Iron Curtain and more than forty innocent men, women, and will die.
The Brotherhood is cheerfully serious about the deal but Ford is more than edgy. And it gets worse when he presents his close friend with his demands. The friend commits suicide, and Glenn feels sufficiently distraught that he reveals the secrets of the Brotherhood. Only he finds out that the people to whom he appeals also belong to the Brotherhood, or else they don't really care or they think Ford is irretrievably mad. The Brotherhood puts pressure on Ford, gets him fired, causes his wife to leave him, is responsible for his father's death, and in other ways acts in a manner unbecoming a rich, powerful, elite organization.
Desperate for an audience, Ford agrees to go on a raucous TV talk show hosted by William Conrad, who is given some hard-hitting lines by the writers. But the show turns into a brawl. Conrad calls Ford an "idiot" and calls the entire audience "idiots." This is a variant of a familiar scene in which a man or woman, finally given a chance to tell an eager audience that something is terribly wrong, turns to jelly and becomes hysterical. (See Jack Lemon in "The China Syndrome" or any number of other conspiracy movies.)
At his wit's end, hysterical, Ford pleads with a very young freshman at St. George, newly inducted into the Brotherhood, to join him in his crusade. If the authorities won't believe one witness, they'll certainly believe two, who have nothing to gain by revealing what they know. (This doesn't apply to UFO sightings, where even presidents and secretaries of the Navy have been dismissed.) The recruit must realize that behind the ritual arrogance, both he and the Brotherhood have nothing -- and nothing will come of nothing, as a king once observed.
Ford gives a tense performance. Make up has applied some sort of concoction to his tanned face that makes him look always sweaty, but this is adventitious because in fact all the men's faces looks shiny, while the women look freshly powdered. It's a decent performance, though, and it carries some of the weight of Ford's obsession in "The Big Heat." As his increasingly doubtful wife, Rosemary Forsythe is tall and pretty. A fine performance by Will Geer as Ford's father. He was a splendid character actor and was able to pass as the most gentle, kindly, understanding mass murderer you could imagine in "Seconds." Paul Wendkos directed. There is a moment towards the beginning when Ford becomes aware of just how pernicious The Brotherhood is, and Wendkos tilts the camera delicately to reflect Ford's confusion, but then he goes and ruins it by tilting the camera over and over, sometimes on its side. No kidding. There are monumental close ups of Ford's eyeballs that are positively embarrassing, and Wendkos uses wide-angle lenses to turn some faces into those of cartoons or gargoyles or dolphins. He almost ruins the second half of the film.
Still, it's not a movie to be easily dismissed, particularly in this era of rampant paranoia when all of us are raving about being caught up in a conspiratorial web, some of which, for all we know, may be real.