Seconds (1966)
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Seconds Movie Review
Seconds is a 1966 science fiction drama film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Rock Hudson. It’s an effective and very interesting, but deeply flawed genre picture.
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“Isn’t it easier to go forward
when you know you can’t go back?“
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Seconds follows an older man who gets a surgery to become younger and eventually comes to regret it and yearn for his old body. Because this movie is very uneven in the quality of its parts, I will thus discuss it accordingly – split in three acts.
The first act is phenomenal. It immediately reminded me of ‘The Twilight Zone’ in its approach and storytelling and that is my favorite television series of all time so the film grabbed my interest instantly. I found the premise excellent, the effects superb and the approach is very horror, suspense thriller-like which led to a stark and dangerous atmosphere.
But the second act unfortunately ruined the entire movie for me as the other two acts are so great and this one is clearly inferior that it becomes an easy sore point for me. The paganism angle was somewhat interesting, but overplayed and overlong. The entire middle section of the film is very prolonged, very slow, highly boring and particularly uneventful. It just came to an unfortunate halt that left a big effect on the movie’s lasting appeal.
Thankfully the third act is so much better and is my favorite part of the movie actually. I loved its nostalgic, very melancholic approach and atmosphere and emotionally speaking it’s the richest and deepest part of the picture. But the ending itself is incredibly disturbing, horrific and unexpectedly immensely dark that it instantly became the movie’s biggest selling point and the most memorable thing about it in my opinion. Masterfully done for sure.
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Seconds features one very good, uncharacteristically demanding performance from Rock Hudson who fitted the role like a glove and gave a very good, empathetic performance for sure. The same goes for John Randolph who’s terrific and both actors look alike and were thus perfectly cast for these roles.
The dual nature of the film is both its weakness and strength. It strives to be both artistic and intellectual and it only succeeds in the first area splendidly whereas in the latter one it left a lot to be desired as this particular theme needed more exploration and certainly much more screen time for me personally.
So it’s obviously more of a drama in the end instead of a science-fiction film and also a thriller in a way, very similar to the tone of ‘Solaris’ interestingly enough. But Seconds truly does look amazing in its absolutely amazing cinematography from the famous James Wong Howe who here delivered one of his finest works as the camera movements are very authentic and different, creating some very striking takes and shots which made the movie more suspenseful and creepy.
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The film’s also beautiful in some of its imagery and very tender in terms of emotion, but unfortunately the middle section simply has too many unnecessary plot points and sequences that prevented the movie from becoming a classic that it was destined to become. The score is superb though as are the effects and the direction from John Frankenheimer and the dialogue too. Just the pacing issues and the structure left me disappointed.
Seconds is a very effective and artistic sci-fi drama film which was masterfully shot by hugely talented James Wong Howe, well acted, directed and also quite melancholic in tone and suspenseful in some scenes. The first act is a superb ‘Twilight Zone’-inspired story and the ending is very memorable and immensely disturbing, but the mid section is so slow, prolonged and often even unnecessary leading to an unfortunately uneven genre film which could have ultimately been so much greater.
