Seconds (1966) User Reviews

Depressing as they get

[preppy-3 · 8/10 · 18 September 2002]

Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is a middle-aged man. He has a nothing job and feels he has no purpose or direction in life. He can't even make love to his wife anymore. He is offered a new life by the Company--a secret organization. They will "kill" off Arthur and give him a new face, a new body and a new identity. He comes back as Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson). However, can he be happy in his new life?

Exceptional black and white cinematography by James Wong Howe; great direction by John Frankenheimer (all the extreme closeups and off kilter camera angles keep you uneasy); a perfect score by Jerry Goldsmith (the organ fits perfectly)...but this is almost unwatchable.

It's VERY depressing, very downbeat and (at times) way too slow (the beginning). It's easy to see why this was a box office bomb--it's way too depressing for the average viewer. The things I mentioned above help make the film bearable as does the acting.

Randolph is superb as Hamilton--you feel his pain and misery. Hudson, surprisingly, is pretty good. Sometimes he's not that good but there are certain sequences when he's exceptional--particularly at a wine party, a cocktail party (where he actually got drunk to play it realistically) and he explodes during the harrowing ending. The ending is one of the most horrific sequences I've ever seen. I felt like bolting from the theatre.

A one-of-kind horror thriller. I can't say I enjoyed this, but I'll never forget it. It has a big deserved cult following.

Convincing, noiresque, nightmare of modernity. Superlative camera work and probably Rock Hudson's best performance.

[babblon26 · 8/10 · 21 February 2015]

Just had to add a note of admiration for this greatly overlooked masterpiece of modern angst. I saw it when a student in Glasgow in 1969. That is probably why it has stayed to haunt me - possibly to the grave. Beyond that, I really don't know.

I'm no film critic but like several of the cinema cognoscenti, I was surprised Rock had a movie like this in him. Probably his best. The camera work takes you right in. You don't remember willingly suspending disbelief. It is as plausible and convincing as a good nightmare. Bleak, black and white, terse like John Boorman's Point Blank. Round about the same time as Blow Up appeared. Also a surprisingly mature performance from David Hemmings, matched the mood of powerlessness and fatalism that pervades Seconds.

A little further off it recalled the Incredible Shrinking Man. The same mood of fatalism pervades but from a different perspective. In the latter, the isolated individual is redeemed by some metaphysical union with the universe. In Seconds the isolated, narcissistic self implodes.

John Frankenheimer's modern Frankenstein. Or another parallel universemight be Dorian Grey. It is a multi layered movie.

Abre los ojos,thirty years ago.

[dbdumonteil · 9/10 · 17 April 2003]

Some movies which failed when they were released became sleepers ,and in the case of "seconds" quite rightly so.It predates "Abre los ojos" (and thus "Vanilla Sky" so to speak) by 30 years !"Carnival of souls" did the same for "Jacob's ladder" and "the sixth sense".Those two works did more:they invented what we call the "indie cinema" and David Lynch's first -and best- two works owe them a great deal.

By far Rock Hudson's best performance -with the eventual exception of ,in a diametrically opposite style, "all that Heaven allows"and his other Sirk melodramas-,"seconds" is what we can call a movie ahead of its time.The weakness some users are complaining of -the lack of psychological depth - is intentional;and if some sequences may seem long,this length inspires their vital nightmarish side -the drunken revel ,the bacchanalian dance are so unexpected that they pack a real wallop.The camera uses disturbing angles and Frankenheimer does not need a ton of special effects to exude pure primal fear.

This movie ,"the Mandchurian candidate" and "Birdman of Alcatraz are enough to make Frankenheimer go down in History of seventh art.

Where do I sign up?

[rmax304823 · 14 December 2004]

SPOILERS.

The director, the late John Frankenheimer, once commented that the problem with this movie is that it doesn't have a middle act, and he's right.

The beginning and the end are gripping, in a Twilight Zone kind of way. The use of fish-eye lenses, although sometimes excessive, helps lend a surreal quality to the proceedings, which is apt.

Here we have John Randolph, a nonentity, with a face that has all the appeal of a hard-boiled egg. He's converted into Rock Hudson, which is a considerable improvement, in appearance anyway. But both the organization and Hudson have botched it. Under hypnosis Rock has revealed that maybe his true desire is to be a painter, an artist.

He winds up at a very nice beach house in Malibu, with an understanding servant, a studio with all the amenities, and Salome Jens as a woman he picks up on the beach. Not bad, eh? And all this for a mere $30,000. (The house alone would run 30 or 40 times that much now.)

Well, to tell the truth, Rock seems a little unhappy in his new life. He dabs perfunctorily at his canvas. He doesn't smile much. He doesn't seem to be having a good time.

So far, so good, but then we enter the befouled middle act. Salome Jens hustles him off to a Saturnalian bacchanal in the forest. Everybody gets drunk, strips, plays musical instruments, and dances around in a vat full of grapes. Rock is at first repelled but is dragged into the vat anyway and gets drunk and ecstatically happy.

Fine, right? But then later, Rock is urged to give a party for his neighbors, all of whom turn out to be retreads like himself. Rock begins to drink cocktails and gets loaded. But what is the reaction of his guests? This time it's disgust. Jens cautions him to "take it easy" on the booze, but why? It's the only time we see him happy, and what's so worrisome about being drunk at a party where everyone else is drinking too? Disgust turns to a deeper concern when Rock begins making allusions to his previous life. He's a Harvard graduate and you can't keep them down.

Finally he realizes that he's not really made out for this kind of life, for reasons never made entirely clear. Well, not made clear at all. Not even explored in the dialogue. Was his dream of being a painter just a childhood fantasy, like wanting to be an astronaut? What is the source of his dissatisfaction?

There is a good scene in which he visits his wife, who now believes her husband to have died in a fire. He asks about some watercolors he'd done in his previous life and discovers that they were thrown out. No question about his original identity having been dismal.

So he complains to the organization that he wants yet ANOTHER identity. The very sensible and reassuring Will Geer handles him and tells him that everything is fine and they'll re-do him. Geer, in a perfect performance, doesn't tell him that a second renovation involves his death. Rock will provide a cadaver as a substitute for a new guy entering the program.

Nothing is more scary than the doctors, having strapped Rock down, lowering a bone drill onto his skull behind the ear.

How does Rock perform? Pretty well. It's certainly his best dramatic role.

And the supporting cast is flawless. The logic behind the middle of the story is its greatest weakness. The rest is well worth watching.

the best midlife crisis film

[dr_foreman · 10/10 · 16 March 2004]

Midlife crisis films are rare beasts, but everybody loves them. Look at the success of "American Beauty," probably the most stereotypical depiction of middle-class America that I've ever seen. Quite shallow in its way, "Beauty" was a hit because of its subject matter - it tackled some taboos and had the nerve to portray the problems of "ordinary" people. But you know what - it had been done before, and better, here.

"Seconds" is the story of a middle-aged banker who undergoes surgery to become - this part is really a gas - Rock Hudson! He's given an outlet to escape from his loveless family life and tedious job, and he becomes a swinging painter/playboy with a beautiful house on the coast. Of course, he soon finds that good looks and money are no substitute for what he really wants - some kind of genuine intimacy in his life.

Is this message a bit too predictable? Oh, I dunno - we all seem to agree that the pursuit of wealth is an empty one, yet we indulge in it all the same. The social problems explored in "Seconds" are still very much with us, and our awareness of these problems certainly hasn't solved them. The film ultimately acts as a powerful, sobering reminder that most of us aren't doing what we really want to do.

Plenty of great style on display here from director Frankenheimer. There's a wonderful "wobbly camera" drunk scene that is so realistic, you'll feel as though you've been hitting the bottle yourself. There's also consistent effective use of point-of-view shots and unusual angles. In terms of subject matter and directorial flair, this film is incredibly innovative...it's taken years for us to catch up to this kind of material, and yet we still haven't topped it. Definitely in my top twenty.

Seconds : a realistic tale of suffocating paranoia

[urick · 10/10 · 11 April 1999]

"Seconds" is a fascinating and engrossing realistic fantasy tale that deals with the question of the identity and above all, the exploration of madness symbolized by the search of material happiness and the search of eternal youth which leads to the most claustrophobic fate. "Please be yourself !" can be the warning of this film. The innovative and the post-expressionist cinematography of James Wong Howe (the use of the 9.7 mm fish-eye lens, extreme chiaroscuro, tilted low angle shots, hand-held camera shots) combined with the stylish graphic work of Saul Bass and a cold, taut and harsh music of Jerry Goldsmith makes it like a Faustian tragedy with a Kafkaesque approach. The whole film is about distortion. The twisted vision of the main character trapped in his own nightmarish world, full of "re-borns" and "employees". But the real nightmare is the dreary routine of his existence. For instance, the scene of the train when Arthur Hamilton is reading his newspaper and feels suddenly sick with his life. We see very short shots of the train window and his sad face. The more oppressive scenes are silent just extreme close-ups of faces. Perhaps, the best film directed by John Frankenheimer and the best paranoiac film ever created. "Classic" is a weak word to define this masterpiece of modern terror. "Seconds" is the last film of the John Frankenheimer's paranoiac trilogy, without forgetting : "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Seven days in may".

Surf's Up

[Lejink · 7/10 · 5 June 2020]

Wouldn't it be nice to break away from your current going-nowhere lifestyle and make a fresh start in a newer, better body living your dream existence. That's what happens here to rich, bored, middle-aged banker Arthur Hamilton, who long ago lost his smile and after being contacted out of the blue by a friend he believed was long dead, finds himself presented with that very chance.

Despite himself and somewhat against his will he signs a Faustian pact with an organisation referred to only as "The Company" set up by its suitably patrician, offbeat founder who gives Hamilton, now given the name and identity of a deceased young artist called Tony Wilson, his final pep-talk before the procedure goes forward. Said procedure involves faking his own death, then undergoing excruciating plastic surgery and placement in a remote community by the sea at the nearest faraway place, alongside like-minded individuals who have already undergone the same treatment.

So it is that Wilson finds himself free to indulge his long-ago thwarted ambition as a budding artist by day and when not working, catch a wave with strolls along the beach. Boy, it seems he has the idyllic existence he thought he always wanted, especially when he makes friends with his very own surfer girl and seemingly completes his assimilation by immersing himself with her in an orgiastic naturist bacchanal.

But that's not the end of the story. Constantly encouraged by his zen-like man-servant to hold a party for his neighbours, under the influence of too much alcohol, Wilson becomes aware he just wasn't made for these times and returns in his new guise to his former wife and realises that the warmth of the sun is no compensation for what he's lost. This leads to him basically requesting the Company to reset his reset button, but it seems that this isn't Company policy, leading to a suitably Kafka-esque, nightmarish conclusion.

A commercial failure at time of release, John Frankenheimer's dark, dystopian movie has much to commend it, beginning with Saul Bass's title credits sequence with grotesquely distorted facial close-ups anticipating a key plot development, Jerry Goldsmith's doomy soundtrack and James Wong Howe's usual marvellous, deep-focus black and white photography. I also liked the quirky, almost surrealistic touches of having Randolph rendezvous with the Company via a meat-packing factory and his sponsor's predilection for crispy chicken as he encourages Hamilton to sign his life away.

However, God only knows I was bored by the over-indulgent grape-making scene and irritated somewhat by this reborn Peter Pan's new Wendy, an ocean-loving hippy-chick he encounters on the beach.

In the end while there was much to admire, I wasn't quite convinced by this here today, gone tomorrow fantasy although I can see why it might have spooked another famous Mr Wilson, Brian, the genius pop producer who apparently when he saw this film, experienced far from good vibrations and which only further upset his already damaged psyche.

Apparently Brian read lots of references to himself in the movie, but I just can't see how he'd imagine that, can you...?

Unnerving and Claustrophobic

[gbheron · 8/10 · 28 November 1999]

SECONDS decries the dehumanization of the middle class. The protagonist is a successful banker, though successful at banking, in late middle age finds his life devoid of purpose. Given an opportunity to completely start his life over he jumps at the chance even though it means he must "die" and be reborn in a new body.

Filmed in black and white SECONDS has that unsettling jumpy-jangly editing and sound track I associate with 50s film noir. It keeps the viewer off balance and out of kilter, like the banker who slides slowly, effortlessly into a more ominous dehumanized existence than the one he left. An oddly (but successfully) cast Rock Hudson gives a great performance as the 'reborn' banker. Recommended when in the mood for something different.

"The Twilight Zone" did this type of thing cheaper, faster and about as mean...

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 8 October 2006]

"Seconds" plays like an elongated episode of TV's "The Twilight Zone". While that isn't particularly a bad thing, it does point out the fact the series may have done this story some justice simply by paring down its excesses. Rock Hudson is convincingly benumbed playing a handsome artist in Malibu whose life is a lie, whose friends are a fake, and whose real history haunts him. At first I thought the extended preamble with John Randolph as an elderly banker seemed a little sluggish, but it builds momentum carefully, deliberately. Still, there's no reason for the rest of the picture to be so slow except to prolong the inevitability of the very slim plot. Hudson's performance is good though not great--this due in part to the writing; by the time he arrives on-screen, "Seconds" has already used up most of its resources and has to fall back on filler (such as the grape-stomping bacchanal, which begins as cinematic eye-candy and then goes on forever). It's a handsome piece of work, startlingly photographed and with a haunting ambiance, but eventually the movie drops its own big red ball. **1/2 from ****

A real downer

[Pamsanalyst · 8/10 · 10 December 2004]

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.

Second, but not Third Chance in Life

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 21 November 2010]

In Scarsdale, the bored banker Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is contacted by his former friend Charlie Evans that supposedly died several years ago giving information about a secret organization that offers for US$ 30,000.00 a second chance in life to wealthy people. He visits the company and they explain that they use a cadaver with the same characteristics to stage the death of the client and give a new identity after plastic surgeries with new documents.

The reborn Arthur is the painter Antiochus 'Tony' Wilson (Rock Hudson) that lives in California with his butler John (Wesley Addy) that helps him in the transition. Tony meets the lonely Nora Marcus (Salome Jens) on the beach and they have a love affair. But sooner Tony realizes that his fake world does not give satisfaction to him and he returns to the company requesting another life. But the rules are not so easy to be changed.

"Seconds" is a weird film by John Frankenheimer with potential of cult- movie. The creepy and disturbing story is quite absurd, but the screenplay never uses clichés and it is impossible to guess what will happen with the lead character. The conclusion is totally unexpected. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Segundo Rosto" ("The Second Face")

Word Of Mouth Into A New Life

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 19 September 2008]

In Seconds life's become pretty boring for John Randolph, no interest in the little woman any more, a dead end job, all the money in the world, but no interest in spending it anywhere.

So when he gets a call from an old friend who he's heard has died, the possibilities are intriguing. Start over with a newly reconstructed body and a little more spring in your step so to speak.

As you can gather this is a service that only the people that Robin Leach talks about can afford. It's kind of hush/hush and news of it is passed on by word of mouth. We just don't want any slug out there being able to have something like this. Imagine going in for some heavy duty surgery going in John Randolph and coming out Rock Hudson?

Of course not everyone quite takes to the new life, but The Company that provides this new life and identity has their ways of dealing with unsatisfied customers.

John Randolph/Rock Hudson plays the man seduced by the promise of eternal youth and health and pleasure. It's one of Rock Hudson's most highly rated performances and deservedly so.

Production wise, Seconds does resemble a rather long episode of the Twilight Zone, but that's not a derogatory comment. The Company provides some people to help newbies transition. Two of the best performances are Wesley Addy as a rather creepy factotum assigned to Hudson and Salome Jens as a woman who evinces interest in the new man that is Hudson.

Seconds is not a feel good movie, but it's a great horror story told without any of the usual monsters, blood, and gore associated with the genre. If you see Seconds, it will raise some disturbing questions.

The slippery slope of evil

[hpmc6 · 7/10 · 27 February 2009]

It's probably an update of Faust. It's in many ways one of the most depressing movies I have ever seen. It's a portrayal of how a weakness can make one prey for evil, sucked in by someone weaker already fallen, and how far they can pull you down.

It was odd how quickly the man was willing to give up his old life without questions, but it may be explained by his 'sponsor's insights about him, and the immediate blackmail that was put in place before the decision.

The 'grapes' scene was a time capsule of mid 1960s 'forced freedom', but it went on way too long.

The scene where he visits his old wife was one of the most depressing movie scenes I have ever seen, both for it's frank, but not unkind portrayal of his old self, and the coldheartedness of his new self to intrude on her after what he'd done to her. It may be a brilliant scene, in that he could come back into his old house and life and have no recognizable soul that would give him away - maybe that was the point.

It was in some ways brilliant how universally cold hearted everyone was once they entered this world - surgeon, businessman, new 'girlfriend', friend, minister. Will Geer as the ringmaster really gave me the creeps.

For the movie buff, it' worth seeing, it's a different idea, the acting/actors/actresses are good. As a horror movie, it is in many ways brilliant, and the most terrifying. What really makes the movie work, is that it's somewhat plausible, and that the central character is participant in his own destruction.

Seeing it a second time, I thought more highly of the movie, it was more tightly crafted than I had given it credit for first time around. Some very nasty foreshadowing, in his entry to the company.

Intriguing, but dated

[Chris-195 · 5/10 · 23 February 2002]

Only in the 60s could a movie like this have been made. That's a statement I've used both as a positive and a negative. With "Seconds", I'm somewhere in between.

The beginning is unbearably slow. The audience is expected to deal with this massive concept, but we're saddled with a character who doesn't ask even the most obvious questions. Arthur Hamilton is given the opportunity to fake his own death, undergo plastic surgery, and start a new life. While some attempt is made to convey why he would agree to this, it still feels too easy, as if they just want to get it over with and bring on Rock Hudson as Hamilton's new self. Characters tell Arthur what he's going to do, but we don't dig much deeper into why he's being offered this opportunity.

Things do improve some when Hudson arrives, but it's not really until he begins to question what his life has become that things take off. Hudson does a great job in this film, and the critical and commercial panning he took was unwarranted. There are flaws in this film, but Hudson's performance isn't one of them.

By the end, we see Hudson coming to the realization that too much of his life has been spent chasing material things, a conclusion that just seems trite in view of the larger issues here. In fact, the whole concept seems underthought. Yes, these people get younger-looking bodies, but aren't they still the same age they were before? Perhaps my view's tainted, because for years I had thought this was a movie about group that made people younger, sort of a fountain of youth treatment, an idea I found interesting. After finally watching it tonight, the reality felt like sort of a letdown.

Still, the film does have some genuinely disturbing moments, and the ending is chilling. It's something of an ancestor to films like `The Game', and shows like `The X-Files', with its conspiracies and shadowy concepts. It's definitely worth checking out, but I can't help but feel that there's a better film buried in here somewhere.

One of the greatest thrillers ever made, and one of the most overlooked American movies of the 1960s.

[Infofreak · 27 March 2003]

You could make a strong case for the late John Frankenheimer being the most unappreciated American film director of all time simply by mentioning his two astonishing 1960s movies 'The Manchurian Candidate' and 'Seconds'. Frankenheimer made many others movies both good and not so good, but these two are amazing pieces of work and rarely get the praise they deserve. 'Seconds' is one of the greatest thrillers ever made. Intelligent, complex, and extremely depressing. It doesn't talk down to its audience and perhaps this is the reason why it was a box office flop and is still all but ignored today. Rock Hudson isn't an actor with much credibility to most film fans but he is brilliant in this film in easily his most powerful and believable performance ever. The rest of the supporting cast are excellent, especially the underrated character actors John Randolph ('Serpico'), Will Geer (TV's 'The Waltons') and Jeff Corey ('Mickey One'). 'Seconds' is a minor masterpiece. A very disturbing story with an unforgettable climax. Highly recommended!

If You Had A Choice

[thinker1691 · 10/10 · 19 June 2007]

During one's life, there comes a time when the wisdom accumulated during the early years does not serve to make a choice any easier in later life. There are not too many films which offer the viewer a choice to finish watching or not. When one is a youngster and watching a monster film, one can always run screaming from the theater if the scenes get frightening. That will be the reaction when you're watching this film. It starts easy enough when a middle-age man, John Randolph (Arthur Hamilton) decides to accept an offer to 'exchange' his given life, and trade it for a more youthful one. The transition is casual enough, but director John Frankenheimer, adroitly uses the Black and White images to lure not only the audience, but the subject into a false sense of security and tranquility. During the fantastic transformation from old John Randolph to youthful, handsome and attractive Antiochus 'Tony' Wilson, (Rock Hudson) he and the audience is gently beaconed and eased into the new, but alien life by a calm and compassionate guide, called the "Old Man. (Will Geer)" It's his job to ally the fears and reassure suspicions that 'everything is going to be alright.' The fact is the film is so tranquil, one hardly suspects the new life, unless the subject and the audience want to go home. John/Tony choose this option. The way back however is impossible, but only the audience is privy to it. The subject is removed from his 'second' life and given a quiet room, to collect his thoughts. It's here, the subject and the audience are once again joined by the Old Man, who will ease us not to the comfort of a New Life, but to make us aware that escape and the exit doors are twenty feet away. It's time to choose again, but you'd better hurry. The end is terrifying in it's finality. *****

*** out of ****

[kyle_c · 7/10 · 14 December 2002]

John Frankheimer directed this dark thriller about a man who gets a new identity and life through a secret company. It's well made and incredibly disturbing. Every frame of the film has a sense of uneasiness about it, and the viewer never really becomes comfortable. This works sometimes but fails at others – regardless of final result it means that the viewer is probably going to have an unpleasant experience along the way. The premise feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone (in fact, it does bear something of a similarity to one), and if the film were tightened up a little more in would've been incredibly effective. The beginning is slow going but absorbing, and at the end it becomes fascinating and disturbing. However, the midsection of the film lags and meanders, with extended sequences such as the hippy party and the other party dragging on for far too long. Very flashy direction by Frankheimer - while many of the compositions are immaculate, others are simply showing off. For all its flaws, it is definitely original, and among the weirdest films ever made.

A Second Chance

[moviemanMA · 10/10 · 31 May 2006]

The psychological thriller has been twisted, contorted, and mangled as of late. The main attraction seems to have changed from the thrill aspect to the gross-out and disturb factor. How these movies have strayed is a testament to a new generation of filmmakers and audiences. The thirst for "blood" as it appears on the screen isn't what thrillers used to be. Blood was reserved for the horror movies. It used to consist of all mind games.

John Frankenheimer's premise behind his classic thriller Seconds is just that: a mind game. Seconds is the journey one man takes into a new life. Arthur Hamilton is a depressed, boring, and trapped individual. His life revolves around work. He has become virtually asleep at home, not saying much or doing much. His wife seems bothered by his silence at home and in the bedroom.

While taking the train home from work, Arthur is given an address. What he will find there he doesn't know. That night he receives a strange phone call from his old tennis buddy who was presumed dead. He tells him to go to the address and everything would be alright. Upon arriving at the address, he is told to go to another location. From the new local he is taken by meat truck to a different location. This is where his life would change forever.

Arthur is given the chance millions would kill for: the chance to start a new life, a "rebirth", free of all previous ties and problems. Confused and frightened at first, Arthur is reassured that the procedure is reliable and affective. The recovery process is long and difficult. The operation itself is a full body makeover, using a cadaver for physical transplants, a new voice, and even a new signature. Arthur Hamilton is transformed into Anthony Wilson. Now it is up to Wilson to change his ways and become his new self. This all leads to one of the most dramatic endings in cinema history.

The film's opening sequence of credits is a thrill to watch itself. Using different, almost uncomfortable camera angles on one man's face. Throughout the film there are awkward close-ups and shots, but this is intended. It is almost like a normal person's point of view, fixed on one thing at a time, not just a scene. The lighting too is intended to have an impact on the story, throwing shadows in all directions. The shining quality of the film hands down is the cinematography. James Wong Howe, whose previous work include Hud, Sweet Smell of Success, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, goes above and beyond, making the film exciting to watch and hard to look away from. Howe uses a host of camera angles and techniques to get the emotion of the characters across.

Rock Hudson as Arthur Hamilton post-operation as Wilson gives his best as the confused and altered patient. His character obviously wants to change, but he is held back just out of his sheer nature. He hasn't been capable of living life freely, no strings attached in a very long time. His performance couldn't have been better for the role. Also giving note worthy performances are John Randolph as Arthur pre-operation and Will Greer as the man at the company who convinced Arthur to proceed with the procedure once he was informed of what his intent was.

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Seconds breaks boundaries in film-making and storytelling. Seconds is a trailblazer, setting the mark for thrillers and what they are capable of. It is rare to find a film so moving and at the same time make you think long after the film ends.

The final chapter of director John Frankenheimer's paranoia trilogy

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 28 December 2017]

The final chapter of director John Frankenheimer's paranoia trilogy (after THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE 1962 and SEVEN DAYS IN MAY 1964), SECONDS posits the possibility of a second chance to start one's life with a clean slate, through proper plastic surgeries and a fake death, and our protagonist is a 51-year-old bank manager Arthur Hamilton (Randolph, cogently laying bare his ambivalence concerning the wacky proposition), who is consequentially, reborn as Tony Wilson (Hudson), assumes his hobbyhorse as an amateur painter, lives in his seaside studio and falls in with new female acquaintance. But soon his past catches up with him, because needless to say, plastic surgeries can only offer a new physiognomy and there is the conspicuous loophole in the undertaking if a reborn's previous memory wouldn't be obliterated, the promised new life would very probably ends up like Fata Morgana.

With the missing link of amnesia, the story doesn't live up to the scrutiny of its intrinsic logic, for one thing, there is no clear justification of why Tony insists on taking another new identity in the third act, it is not the mutable outlook which hinders a reborn's fresh start, but some ingrain factors that cannot be modulated by surgeries, which renders Tony's desperate action arbitrary and its consequence moot. Also, the story heedfully skirts around the process of rejuvenation, Hudson is a decade younger than Randolph, so what special regiment does Arthur must undergo in order to attain the corporeal sea change (no liposuction is mentioned)? We would never know.

Above-mentioned gripes aside, SECONDS is commendable even it is solely for the avant-garde monochromatic cinematography from Hollywood doyen James Wong Howe (justly accorded with an Oscar nomination even the film was tanked upon its release), his camera angles are often oddly askew and heightened close-ups are put into extensive use in conveying through a distorted point-of-view that something is terribly amiss, underpinned by Jerry Goldsmith's mind-bending incidental music, together they constitute a sterling oracular-and-aural combo to stagger the audience witless.

Rock Hudson, mining his own faculty in a genre he rarely sinks his teeth into, stoutly brings about a sympathetic commitment to the downward spiral of Tony's mental agony on top of the tall-tale's ineffectual effort to purport its legitimacy, and a grace note is the sign-of-the-times grape-stomping hippie frolic when Tony whiles away time with Nora Marcus (a mettlesome Salome Jens) in his ephemeral embrace of euphoria, which only to be dashed a moment later, to ascertain that living the life of Riley has its insurmountable underside, a mythos forcibly culminated in its preposterous finale (a lingering question is why Tony cannot just decamp and live somewhere else afresh?), for what it is worth, SECONDS is erring on the side of its cautionary-tale tantalization to mire its protagonist in the venal corporation whereas ostensibly astute alternatives are conveniently on tap elsewhere.

A very disturbing film...

[lotus_chief · 8/10 · 12 August 2003]

After just seeing Seconds, I can't fully describe my feelings about it. For its time, it was VERY innovative and its no suprise that it didn't do well at the box office. The camera angles, especially the ones where it was 'pinned' on the actor's shoulders were genius. I'm amazed that movies back then, even in black and white, look better than most movies in color today....the cinematography was excellent. There's something very appealing about black and white films when they're done right. As far as the story, I was very suprised at how the film ended. Its a suitably depressing end to a very depressing and disturbing film. I'm curious as to why the lead character thought he failed at his 'second chance'. But like Mr. Wilson said, maybe he never had a dream to be fulfilled, which is why he ultimately failed.

This is a film that I wish could be exposed to more people. This is very effective and daring filmmaking, something we need more of today. Although, this film is only for people who like to think. Seconds is a wonderful film that I was privileged to experience.

*** out of **** stars.

Unusual film with striking close-ups

[tlovesmovies · 6/10 · 19 March 2011]

The filming and editing of this movie as well as some of the performances are what make this worth watching. The story line is bizarre and depressing and frankly not all that compelling. Rock Hudson is surprisingly not what you would expect. This is one of his standout, while odd, roles.

The way the camera zooms in on faces and has them fill the screen is unique. I cannot recall seeing this technique very often. In one sense this was distracting, but since I found the plot so disturbing I began focusing on dramatic, technical aspects of this work.

I think it might have been a better film, and one that would have received more critical recognition, had the plot been reworked some, perhaps demonstrating more clearly why certain choices were made. As it stood it had the feel of an expanded Twilight Zone episode as opposed to a powerful full length suspense film.

A rare bird -- a science fiction film that comments just as much on the human condition as it does technology.

[kingdaevid · 10/10 · 20 July 2004]

...it's difficult to review SECONDS without turning into a spoiler right away, but I'll try. From Saul Bass' opening title sequence through to the next-to-last shot, SECONDS is a perfectly-realised vision of unrelieved discomfort and anxiety. Throughout the picture, the lead character is in one circumstance after another in which he distinctly does not want to be. And yet, every step he takes to extricate himself simply leads into another disagreeable circumstance. Much of the cast certainly knew how to convey that feeling, as three of the most important roles were taken by actors (John Randolph, Jeff Corey and Will Geer) who were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era; indeed, for two of them (Geer and Randolph), this was the first major studio production they'd appeared in for fifteen years*. For many, this is a depressing film, because so much of it can be related to out of our own lives; even the plastic surgery aspect that made it science fiction in '66 is science fact in this day of Michael Jackson. And, to say the least, it's one of the few times Rock Hudson was given truly demanding material, and he rises to the occasion, giving perhaps the finest performance of his entire career...

*Geer had appeared in ADVISE AND CONSENT four years previously, but that film was produced independently and distributed by Columbia.

Only one life per person.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 4 May 2016]

When a quiet middle aged man decides that his life isn't for him, he decides to start all over. New face, new identity, new career, new outlook. But is that really feasible? In the cold, cold world of new wave director John Frankenheimer it is, and the shock of a new existence takes its toll, especially as he finds it difficult to let go of his old life.

Character actor John Randolph becomes hunky Rock Hudson, leaving behind wife Frances Reid, his home, career and occasional visits from his grown daughter. What? Walk out on Alice Horton? Yes, the sands go through the hour glass but as the younger looking Hudson, he can't help but re-visit his old life, basically disgusted by his new one.

This created a lot of shock in its day, the fear factor of society having this as an option from evil scientists who mess with nature and have no regards for the ethics of birth, life and death.

The life Randolph/Hudson gets isn't what he dreamed of, ending up in an amoralistic society where he meets mystery woman Rita Gam. Veteran character actor Wesley Addy is quietly creepy and icy as Hudson's butler in his new life, and Murray Hamilton is the morbid head of the agency Hudson switches his identities in.

Like dramas about eternal youth, this has many disturbing, moralistic warnings, and often, it makes you wonder if there are agencies buried deep in society doing this exact same thing.

Like a stretched "Twilight Zone" episode .....

[merklekranz · 5/10 · 1 June 2017]

I cannot jump on board the positive review bandwagon for "Seconds". Although the acting is good, Frankenheimer stretches scenes that just plain lack interest. One example would be the grape stomping orgy. It goes on and on without moving the story forward. The concept of leaving one life for another is nothing that hasn't been seen before, so to have the audience basically in neutral for what seems like at least ten minutes is unacceptable. In other words, let's get on with it, especially since the story is not unpredictable. Frankly I was disappointed, not with the acting, or the black and white photography, or even the musical score. I just thought the story played like nothing more than a "Twilight Zone" episode that had been padded with over long scenes. - MERK