The Insomniac’s Movie Review: Seconds
By Bud White on November 28, 2008 at 10:20 PM in Age Discrimination, California, Media, Television
Seconds (1966)
Director: John Frankenheimer
Rating: 4 Ambien (out of 5)
On the surface, Seconds is the story of the myth of the ultimate male fantasy. Imagine The Truman Show voyeurism with the lustiness and self-loathing of a Woody Allen character.
Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is a successful but miserable banker, the man in the gray flannel suit who is known for his silences. He has a loving wife but their marriage is on life support. His grim life will soon end, one feels, without him experiencing real passion or joy.
A mysterious phone calls leads him to a company who promises to a give him a new life. It’s the world’s swankiest witness protection program. Plastic surgery transforms him into the handsome Rock Hudson. He’s given a beach house in the Malibu Colony, a servant, and the life of an artist. On the surface it seems ideal.
Of course not all is well in paradise. Hamilton (now Hudson) is still the same morose man underneath the good looks and enviable lifestyle. He meets Nora Marcus (the beautiful and underrated Salome Jens) on the beach. She’s the divorced mother of two who is the opposite of Hamilton. Her beauty is faded by the weariness of her life. She left her wealthy husband and the lifestyle he provided in order to live as a bohemian. In the best scene in the movie, she takes Hamilton to a nudist grape stomping “bacchanal” in Santa Barbara. Hamilton can’t relax enough to enjoy himself in a genuine way and, later, he uses drink to loosen up enough to be the man he has been “reborn” to be.
The critic Peter Wilshire writes that Seconds “is a disturbing film to watch. With its unresolved, horrific ending, it’s possibly one of the most depressing films ever made.” I disagree. I didn’t find the movie depressing at all. The movie did leave me with the feeling of 1960s Cold War paranoia, although that’s not the topic in any respect. But I don’t think it’s an accident that Seconds feels foreboding. Frankenheimer directed the ultimate paranoid thrillers of that decade, The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May. In a Frankenheimer movie, things are not what they seem; the world is disjointed, fragmented, and people wear masks — either of their own making or masks that have been forced onto them.
I believe that if Seconds had been directed by another young director of that era, Mike Nichols, for instance, it would have felt far less paranoid and more bittersweet, akin to Nichols’ The Graduate, released in 1967.
Seconds is an imperfect movie but exhilarating in its own way. It’s risky, and for that reason The Insomniac gives it 4 out of 5 Ambien.
Pauline Kael, in her famous essay, “Why are movies so bad?” says “if a movie doesn’t have an easily paraphrasable theme or big stars, it’s hard to sell via a thirty-second TV commercial.” Seconds is complex and disjointed. Does the trailer adequately explain the movie?
What did you think of Seconds? Did you find it depressing? What do you interpret as the main theme? Who was the best actor/actress?
What other movies from the 1960s do you love?
No review next week. The next review will be on December 12. We’ll be discussing The Salton Sea, which comes recommended by OBAMA IS A FRAUD.
h/t to TexasMirth for tonight’s recommendation.
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In an interesting historical aside, Bobby Kennedy was staying at Frankenheimer’s Malibu home during the California Democratic Primary in June 1968. Frankenheimer drove RFK in his Rolls-Royce to the Ambassador Hotel on election night. RFK was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan in the kitchen pantry. An interviewer asked Frankenheimer if RFK’s death was a defining moment in his life. He answered: “Absolutely. It was the defining moment of mine.”
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
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