Seconds (1966) A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp (C) 1997 by Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: Paranoid, bleak, hopeless and devastating. Also damn near perfect. Frankenheimer's "ultimate nose job" movie is now back out on laserdisc, better-looking than ever, and, if anything, even more terrifying and relevant than ever before.
SECONDS is, next to JACOB'S LADDER, JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN and M, one of the most emotionally devastating movies ever made. That is also precisely what it aims for. Like any good movie, it tells a strong story, populates it with believable characters, and gets under our skin. And brother, does this one ever get under the skin.
This film was directed by John Frankenheimer, whose most legendary film was THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, long unavailable no thanks to Frank Sinatra's objection to that movie's political overtones. SECONDS was also out of circulation for a long time, mostly because of its incredibly painful subject matter. But now it has been reissued in a gorgeous laserdisc edition, with restored footage and a pristine audio track, all the better to hear Jerry Goldsmith's incredibly intimidating organ-and-orchestra score.
SECONDS opens with Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph), a worn-out businessman who takes the train from his job in the bank every day. His relationship with his wife is perfunctory and tired; he doesn't even know his daughter anymore. He has about twenty years left to live and nothing to do in them.
He receives a call from a friend he thought long-dead -- an invitation to participate in a clandestine, nameless organization that specializes in giving people a second chance. First they fake your death, in the manner of your choosing, and then with surgery, therapy and some careful social engieering, they give you, literally, a new life. Hamilton wants to think it over. Then the organization blackmails him, and in he goes.
With a good deal of work, Hamilton is remade into Antiochus Wilson (Rock Hudson), an artist. Hamilton doesn't know anything about painting, but they contrive things to allow him to grow into his new life. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out like that, and soon Hamilton/Wilson is in desperate struggle with his new captors.
This was one of Hudson's most ignored roles, and it's a good one: he does a great job of suggesting a transition between the burned-out Hamilton and the refurbished Wilson. The camerawork, a collaboration between the director and James Wong Howe, is fearful, kind of over-the-shoulder. Even the innocent scenes look disturbing, like the walls are ready to fly apart any second. The cumulative effect is exhausting and overpowering: by the movie's horrifying climax, we're wrung out. There's almost nothing in the movie that's out of place or that breaks the flow. The events unfold with the inevitability of death.
SECONDS is not an easy film to take, especially if you're in the trap that Hamilton himself is in. Or even if you just think you are. I foresee coming back to this movie in twenty years, much the same way I came back to LA DOLCE VITA or BLADE RUNNER, and seeing something new. Maybe also something even more horribly seductive. I hope I don't.
Four out of four sutures.
syegul@ix.netcom.com EFNet IRC: GinRei http://www.io.com/~syegul another worldly device... you can crush me as I speak/write on rocks what you feel/now feel this truth UNMUTUAL: A Digital Art Collective - E-mail syegul@ix.netcom.com for details =smilin' in your face, all the time wanna take your place, the BACKSTABBERS=
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