Sun 23 Aug 2009
Movie Review: SECONDS (1966).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews , SF & Fantasy films[8] Comments
SECONDS. Paramount, 1966. Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, Will Geer, Jeff Corey, Richard Anderson, Frances Reid, Murray Hamilton. Based on the novel by David Ely. Cinematography: James Wong Howe. Director: John Frankenheimer.
There are moments in the movie, filmed in glorious black-and-white, that are among the creepiest — not the scariest, per se — but the get-under-your-skin or the into-your-mind-and-can’t-get-it-out kind of nightmares that haven’t been surpassed by any other film that I’ve seen in a long, long time.
Basic scenario: a secret organization has discovered ways of changing your identity, if you’ve gotten tired and weary of the one have, into another.
It takes a skilled medical staff, a large support system, and a lot of stuff you really don’t want to ask about — and voila! An aging banker (John Randolph) whose marriage has long ago had all its passion sucked out of it becomes someone who looks a lot like Rock Hudson.
And if things don’t go well, don’t ask about that either.
A lot of the credit for what makes this movie work as well as it does has to go to cinematographer James Wong Howe, who uses innovative lighting, extreme closeups, high angle shots and hand-held camera work to create a world of depressive darkness that’s infinitely capable of causing heartfelt, emotional screaming not so much verbally — although there is that, too — but on the inside, where it really counts.
It’s what’s in our heads that makes who we are, no matter how well disguise our facades to the world, and the older you get, the more you’re aware of that, and the harder it is to get away from it.
It’s not an entirely successful movie, though, and by taking a few days to think it over, I believe I know why, at least in part. Individual scenes are often small gems, but there’s no cohesion, not enough connective tissue between them.
It’s not that there’s not enough back story, as I thought at first — the actors in this film are utterly perfect in their parts, and we can see from their faces alone who they are and why they are doing what they are doing — and also that they’re wrong, most of them, or evil without knowing that they are and convinced they’re doing good; or in case of others, that they’re making the right decisions, only to find out that perhaps they’re not.
Sagging the most is the middle of the movie, the transition from opening scenes to end game that needs the most support and doesn’t quite get it, wherein Arthur Hamilton/Tony Wilson begins to discover, belatedly, that a new body is not enough, not even when he meets a good-looking neighbor on a lonely California beach (Salome Jens).
A long wine-crushing festival with a commune of naked hippies is followed by an even longer cocktail party literally from hell, but neither packs a wallop as solid as, well, when Tony Wilson does try the impossible: to go home again.
A foolish attempt, that. It can’t be done.
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:44 am
I agree that this film does not work entirely, and yet the shocking setup and the stunning ending in many ways make up for that. The performances are all perfect, and anyone who thinks Hudson was merely a pleasant presence on screen should see this.
As you say individual scenes are better than the whole, and yet those scenes almost compensate for that, and even when the film drags a bit or slows down enough that you may dwell too long on how unlikely it is John Randolph could be changed into Rock Hudson, the good scenes keep you with the film — rooting for it.
My problem was that I didn’t find either Randoplh or Hudson’s character all that involving, though both actors are fine in the role(s). Luckily I had read David Ely’s novel, and I used that mentally to fill in the blanks.
The one thing I would add to the criticism of the film is that it is too distanced from its protagonist. In one sense all we ever really see of him is the exterior, and his desire to find some connection with his old life would be more compelling if we ever connected really.
As it is, in the film the character ends up seeming a bit shallow, as if he could never be happy in any circumstance. The ending might have even more power if we could have been more involved with his predicament, though I don’t fault either Randolph or Hudson here, but rather the screenplay and the direction which is great to look at (agree about Howe’s work here) but never really lets us penetrate much below the surface.
That said, this film may be flawed but it is also a stunner.
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Agreed in all respects, David, but for one moving scene in which Hudson’s character does try to reconnect with his former life, after the interlude with Salome Jens has failed.
This is a key to the story. For the most part we see Wilson from the outside, as you say. In this scene you finally get a sense of his emotions, what he’s begun to feel on the inside.
Without this scene the movie would have curled up and died, with nothing to connect the beginning with the end, as good as each of them are.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I agree about that scene. It redeems the character and Hudson plays it superbly, but it almost comes too late and too little. At times the film seems almost like a film study rather than a movie. The near documentary style of some scenes is there so we buy the extreme premise, but it also makes it harder to buy the character.
But even flawed it is a movie you won’t forget.
That said, and much as I like Frankenheimer, his films sometimes looked like episodes of the original Outer Limits to me.
August 24th, 2009 at 3:50 am
Strange but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this film — when it sounds like it would have been right up my street.
August 24th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Gary
It came out on DVD five or six years ago, but I think it’s out of print now. I taped it from one of the Cinemax channels earlier this summer, so maybe it will show up there again sometime soon. In spite of the flaws that David and I have been talking about, it has all of the pluses too, making it worth whatever effort it takes to track it down.
— Steve
August 25th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Ian Cameron referred to this film as a “cinematic Xanadu” a random collection of striking bits that add up to something we never quite grasp.
I don’t think I can add much to that.
January 9th, 2015 at 3:13 pm
Its’ one of my all-time faves. Glad to see it reviewed. I agree with the criticism above that ‘the second act is saggy’…wine-making with naked hippies, groan! And I remember being slightly frustrated that the protag ‘couldn’t make a go of it’ even with this astounding makeover.
But otherwise I had no issues with ‘connectivity’. I found the plot premise audacious, and the story quite linear enough. I don’t recall disjunction-between-pieces; and anyway the entire tale was (I think we all agree) tied up neatly at the end with a climax that stemmed–just as great climaxes should–from a key protagonist event in Act I.
You can also say this: the power in that climax exactly parallels the tying up of the action in the plot, too–this happens in stories like that from O. Henry or deMaupassaunt (I don’t know how else to describe what I mean here). But the ending simply has ‘snap’, ‘finality’, and ‘finish’ to it. No ‘trailing’ threads. Its the rare film that delivers this.
Now about the graphic nature of the picture, heightened and accentuated to almost unbearable intensity by James Wong Howe: shudder!!!!! It is extremely unnerving to say the least. Some scenes: utterly simple but enough to make one climb the walls to get away. I generally never thought too much of Hudson’s acting skills but he takes this roll, bounces it in one hand for a moment, and then clobbers it out of the ballpark.
September 12th, 2022 at 12:36 pm
The film is perfect in every respect. I understand that a few scenes had to be excised because of length (the protagonist was supposed to visit his daughter), but they are not missed. I cannot understand the comments about ‘sagging’, etc. The film is astounding, far beyond anything made before or since.