GOTTA SEE IT # 1 - "SECONDS"
“SECONDS”
Starring: Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, Wil Geer, Jeff Corey, Frances Reid
Written by: David Ely (novel), Lewis John Carlino (screenplay)
Directed by: John Frankenheimer
B&W – 1966
107 mins.
Call it “It’s A Wonderful Life” redux or John Frankenheimer’s French New Wave film, or resist all temptations of labeling and just sit back and marvel at this mid-sixties mind bender about a man who falls victim to a secret corporation’s promise of rejuvenation.
Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is a middle-aged suburbanite loan’s officer who is adrift. No longer able to show anything but cold detachment to his wife Emily (Frances Reid) and looking like a poster boy for the American Dream gone sad, Arthur receives a call one night from an old friend. Arthur’s upset and thinks it’s a bad joke because, you see, his friend is supposed to be dead. From this intriguing, Rod Serling-like opening, “Seconds” staggers forward in strange, hallucinatory steps towards an ending as fitting and profound as any in the history of film.
Director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May) and writer Lewis John Carlino (working from a novel by David Ely) echo Frank Capra’s celebrated ode to the common good in man, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, but come to some very different conclusions. Whereas IAWL was ultimately optimistic, “Seconds” is thoroughly pessimistic. Whereas IAWL ended with a concrete and closed ending which promised genuine, sustainable happiness and self-satisfaction, “Seconds” picks the story up some twenty years later and suggests that it was all just a passing illusion. The film also contains the equivalent of the Peter Bailey character in the form of a kindly old man (brilliantly played by Will Geer as half grandfather/half casually ruthless CEO) and Arthur Hamilton himself, like George Bailey, is a loan’s officer. In fact, the differences in the two films can be summed up by a brief early scene where Arthur rejects a loan application. As we know, much to Potter’s dismay, George Bailey never turned anyone down for a loan.
The performances are remarkable and strange – from John Randolph’s pitch perfect rendering of a man at the end of his rope to Salome Jens’ kooky turn as the wild and earthy Nora Marcus. Oh, yeah, and Rock Hudson is in the film as well. Lest I spoil anymore plot, let’s just say he grabs the baton and runs with it - giving a performance that reveals both his limitations as an actor and a previously untapped emotional power.
On the technical side, famed cinematographer James Wong Howe (Body and Soul, Sweet Smell of Success, Hud) plays around with fish-eye lenses, uses suitcases as dollies and mounts cameras on the actors to create a disorienting and playfully warped look. Composer Jerry Goldsmith (Lilies of the Field, Planet of the Apes, Poltergeist) matches the bold images with a full-blooded score that is equal parts loud, aggressive, intimidating and quiet, gentle and haunting.
“Seconds” is a film about greed, not in the financial sense, but in the mortal and spiritual sense. The clever title spells out Arthur’s problem – he is an unsatisfied man who is lead to believe that all can be corrected with one more helping. It’s also about vulnerability and how the great, amoral machine of American Capitalism races forward to exploit it. Above all it’s a cautionary tale for anyone who seeks a cosmetic solution to a deep emotional problem.
Starring: Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, Wil Geer, Jeff Corey, Frances Reid
Written by: David Ely (novel), Lewis John Carlino (screenplay)
Directed by: John Frankenheimer
B&W – 1966
107 mins.
Call it “It’s A Wonderful Life” redux or John Frankenheimer’s French New Wave film, or resist all temptations of labeling and just sit back and marvel at this mid-sixties mind bender about a man who falls victim to a secret corporation’s promise of rejuvenation.
Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is a middle-aged suburbanite loan’s officer who is adrift. No longer able to show anything but cold detachment to his wife Emily (Frances Reid) and looking like a poster boy for the American Dream gone sad, Arthur receives a call one night from an old friend. Arthur’s upset and thinks it’s a bad joke because, you see, his friend is supposed to be dead. From this intriguing, Rod Serling-like opening, “Seconds” staggers forward in strange, hallucinatory steps towards an ending as fitting and profound as any in the history of film.
Director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May) and writer Lewis John Carlino (working from a novel by David Ely) echo Frank Capra’s celebrated ode to the common good in man, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, but come to some very different conclusions. Whereas IAWL was ultimately optimistic, “Seconds” is thoroughly pessimistic. Whereas IAWL ended with a concrete and closed ending which promised genuine, sustainable happiness and self-satisfaction, “Seconds” picks the story up some twenty years later and suggests that it was all just a passing illusion. The film also contains the equivalent of the Peter Bailey character in the form of a kindly old man (brilliantly played by Will Geer as half grandfather/half casually ruthless CEO) and Arthur Hamilton himself, like George Bailey, is a loan’s officer. In fact, the differences in the two films can be summed up by a brief early scene where Arthur rejects a loan application. As we know, much to Potter’s dismay, George Bailey never turned anyone down for a loan.
The performances are remarkable and strange – from John Randolph’s pitch perfect rendering of a man at the end of his rope to Salome Jens’ kooky turn as the wild and earthy Nora Marcus. Oh, yeah, and Rock Hudson is in the film as well. Lest I spoil anymore plot, let’s just say he grabs the baton and runs with it - giving a performance that reveals both his limitations as an actor and a previously untapped emotional power.
On the technical side, famed cinematographer James Wong Howe (Body and Soul, Sweet Smell of Success, Hud) plays around with fish-eye lenses, uses suitcases as dollies and mounts cameras on the actors to create a disorienting and playfully warped look. Composer Jerry Goldsmith (Lilies of the Field, Planet of the Apes, Poltergeist) matches the bold images with a full-blooded score that is equal parts loud, aggressive, intimidating and quiet, gentle and haunting.
“Seconds” is a film about greed, not in the financial sense, but in the mortal and spiritual sense. The clever title spells out Arthur’s problem – he is an unsatisfied man who is lead to believe that all can be corrected with one more helping. It’s also about vulnerability and how the great, amoral machine of American Capitalism races forward to exploit it. Above all it’s a cautionary tale for anyone who seeks a cosmetic solution to a deep emotional problem.
