LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

mark.waltz 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.

PimpinAinttEasy Dear John Frankenheimer,first of all what a terrific visual style. It is films like yours that makes American cinema such a pleasure to watch. Though you did overdo it a little bit. Some of the images like when the plastic surgery was going on, were truly scary. The visuals conveyed the anxiety and paranoia of the characters. The train sequence at the beginning was simply terrific. The weird camera angles and the jolty editing created a terrific effect.It is an extremely depressing film. I still do not understand why the protagonist was unhappy with his new life. The guy had everything. I would have gone for it. But then, you Americans have to prove to the rest of the world that you guys are unhappy no matter what. I mean, what did this guy not have? But I loved the story. You made the film nearly ten years before Antonionini and more than 20 years before Singeetham Sreenivasa Rao.Rock Hudson was probably a bit too good looking for the role. But he does not take away anything from the film.Best Regards, Pimpin.(8/10)

spelvini 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.

zetes A fantastic existential nightmare. A middle aged man (John Randolph) is contacted by an old friend whom he thought dead. The friend offers him an opportunity to escape his ho-hum life and start a new one. For a hefty sum, an underground company gives him plastic surgery (turning him into Rock Hudson) and set him up with a new identity, faking his old identity's death. What the man quickly learns is that you might be able to change your face, but you can never change who you are. Unfortunately, the company that has provided him this opportunity isn't too keen on that discovery, and is secretly watching his every move. I feel like the second part of this film maybe needed to be a bit longer, because there are some narrative progressions that didn't quite work for me (I'm interested in reading the original novel to see if it's more fully developed). It doesn't matter too much, though, because, as cinema, this is just tremendous. It's most notable element is James Wong Howe's revolutionary black and white cinematography, which is amongst the best ever done. It really heightens the paranoia of the film. Jerry Goldsmith's subtle and sad score is also masterful. And enough credit can't be given to Frankenheimer himself! I'm woefully unfamiliar with his work, I now realize, despite being a huge fan of The Manchurian Candidate. I need to rectify that mistake immediately! The performances are also great. It's probably Hudson's best work ever. The rest of the cast is uniformly terrific, as well. A great movie.