Seconds (1966)

Summarizing what I found from the film: a good idea, almost always poorly developed throughout the narrative, with many annoying moments. Despite having some merits, the best of the film is still the first 35/40 minutes, still without the main character "transformed" into a new identity. I was a little disappointed, because the film is from the same director (John Frankenheimer) of the fantastic "manchurian candidate", made just 4 years earlier. I can only rate it with 6/10.

SECONDS is a science fiction drama about the alienation and the midlife crisis. It is a kind of psychological conflict between life dissatisfaction, and a sort of rebirth with the limits. It is based on the novel of the same name by David Ely.Arthur Hamilton is a middle-aged businessman whose life has lost purpose. He lives with his wife in the New York suburbs. He's achieved success, but finds it unfulfilled. Arthur has completely neglected his family. Through a friend, Charlie, he thought was dead, Arthur is approached by a secret organization, known simply as the "Company" which offers him a new life. The Company is a high-tech service which, for a price, provides older men with plastic surgery, a beefed-up body, and a fresh start in life. Arthur submits to the operation that will turn him into a "Second". He becomes Tony Wilson, an attractive man and successful painter...but...A gloomy and bizarre atmosphere is the biggest asset of this film. A disturbing transition from a business to a hedonistic expression is quite well designed. Mr. Frankenheimer has used a kind of expressionist symbols to avoid a generalized existential questions. I think that, the obsession with eternal youth is not the main theme of this film. I think that each of us, from time to time, wants a new opportunity or a new beginning that is associated with with our youth. Of course, a new life and identity change is a radical move, but it fits in the theme. A paranoid character gets shocking proportions in this film.Rock Hudson as Antiochus "Tony" Wilson has offered an intense performance, especially after his revelations and conclusions. Jeff Corey as Mr. Ruby is a vivid agent which offers new life. Will Geer as Old Man is an embodiment of a false kindness. Salome Jens as Nora Marcus is a young woman who has chosen hedonism as a kind of salvation.The modernity of broken parts.

A middle-aged man accepts a creepy offer of a change of identity and a new life, but turns out it ain't that simple.Hmmm. Lots of interesting stuff going on with the camera, but the story is muddled and lacking motivation. I suppose it's about the search for an identity always beyond the individual's grasp, so the distortions and off-kilter close ups play a role.Starts off with Hitchcock mystery menace, switches to Kafka paranoia, followed by stick-it-to-the-Man liberation mixed with free-love silliness, then back to Kafka. The hero's final line is not, "Just like a dog", but a muffled aaarrrggggh! All along the dialogue is never really engaging, and gets daft in the California scenes where the actors seem to be in a panic over the weakness of the material. Hudson is well cast, because you get the uncertainty and lack of direction in his face, and there are some other interesting actors in there too - although the love interest is unconvincing. And I really would not recommend quaffing the wine - earthy with a hint of cum and ... touches of jam and chocolate? Music is good. Pace is OK, but the whole thing feels odd because the second act is so different.Overall - laboured historical oddity, worth a viewing.

The movie that Rock Hudson considered to be a horror story and a big gamble for his otherwise steely screen persona, Seconds from 1966 is a stark black-and-white parable o the dangers of wishful thinking. A dark side to the same theme that made It's a Wonderful Life so potent a story for the working class, Seconds makes the same statement for the urban professional who after climbing the corporate ladder to succeed finds himself deplete of the very thing he was competing for, namely his vitality.Next in line for the top job at his bank, Antiochus 'Tony' Wilson (Rock Hudson) is disturbed when he gets a late night phone call from his old tennis buddy and school chum whom he thought was dead for many years. What he discovers is an organization that will give him a new youthful life and lifestyle for a fee, and he accepts after some coercion. Tony gets a new life but finds an empty existence inside him after he has left his wife and old comfortable surroundings. When he requests to return to his former life and start over he finds that those in charge demand an even higher sacrifice than he had imagined.This is one of those dark films that stand today as one of the landmarks of the sixties, when real disappointment was rising in the working class, and those dropouts from society who saw the formal institutions of home and family and career as vapid social constructs. It's a bold statement, a protest film in a way because it highlights how society functions on a base of empty values, yet the filmmakers offer no real alternative. When Tony attempts to recover his place and start again, the organization demands severe loyalty.There's also the supposedly "new" community that Tony enters. As an artist, he lives the free-spirited life admired by all his neighbors. The real test comes when he is required to follow though with his new identity, something in which he discovers is to demanding to support. Knowing what we know today about Rock Hudson, the layers of meaning in the film run deep making this one of those quintessential Hudson vehicles for any academics classroom.The stark imagery highlights the noir qualities of the film. This is certainly film noir at it's most existential, as the fantasy-like atmosphere of the world of the film contains enough everyday trappings to keep us identifying with the characters, even as the action veers off kilter and meta-horror situations occur.