That was an excellent one.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

SECONDS is a science fiction drama about the alienation and the midlife crisis. It is a kind of psychological conflict between life dissatisfaction, and a sort of rebirth with the limits. It is based on the novel of the same name by David Ely.Arthur Hamilton is a middle-aged businessman whose life has lost purpose. He lives with his wife in the New York suburbs. He's achieved success, but finds it unfulfilled. Arthur has completely neglected his family. Through a friend, Charlie, he thought was dead, Arthur is approached by a secret organization, known simply as the "Company" which offers him a new life. The Company is a high-tech service which, for a price, provides older men with plastic surgery, a beefed-up body, and a fresh start in life. Arthur submits to the operation that will turn him into a "Second". He becomes Tony Wilson, an attractive man and successful painter...but...A gloomy and bizarre atmosphere is the biggest asset of this film. A disturbing transition from a business to a hedonistic expression is quite well designed. Mr. Frankenheimer has used a kind of expressionist symbols to avoid a generalized existential questions. I think that, the obsession with eternal youth is not the main theme of this film. I think that each of us, from time to time, wants a new opportunity or a new beginning that is associated with with our youth. Of course, a new life and identity change is a radical move, but it fits in the theme. A paranoid character gets shocking proportions in this film.Rock Hudson as Antiochus "Tony" Wilson has offered an intense performance, especially after his revelations and conclusions. Jeff Corey as Mr. Ruby is a vivid agent which offers new life. Will Geer as Old Man is an embodiment of a false kindness. Salome Jens as Nora Marcus is a young woman who has chosen hedonism as a kind of salvation.The modernity of broken parts.

Just had to add a note of admiration for this greatly overlooked masterpiece of modern angst. I saw it when a student in Glasgow in 1969. That is probably why it has stayed to haunt me - possibly to the grave. Beyond that, I really don't know.I'm no film critic but like several of the cinema cognoscenti, I was surprised Rock had a movie like this in him. Probably his best. The camera work takes you right in. You don't remember willingly suspending disbelief. It is as plausible and convincing as a good nightmare. Bleak, black and white, terse like John Boorman's Point Blank. Round about the same time as Blow Up appeared. Also a surprisingly mature performance from David Hemmings, matched the mood of powerlessness and fatalism that pervades Seconds.A little further off it recalled the Incredible Shrinking Man. The same mood of fatalism pervades but from a different perspective. In the latter, the isolated individual is redeemed by some metaphysical union with the universe. In Seconds the isolated, narcissistic self implodes.John Frankenheimer's modern Frankenstein. Or another parallel universemight be Dorian Grey. It is a multi layered movie.

I don't think the movie's definition of 'reborn' is exactly what the popular meaning has in mind. Nevertheless, it's a heckuva sci-fi movie from beginning to end. Frankenheimer pulls out all the stops in his camera work. The angles and effects are weird even for the close-ups, while that hectic bacchanal still has me panting for breath. We're kept off balance the whole time by those angles, which is as it should be. The style fits the material perfectly.Poor Arthur (Randolph). He's a dutiful husband and breadwinner, but he's also terminally bored with his life and wife. It seems he's grown old, even at middle-age. So, now he's ready for the big change the Company provides for a price. Still, he should have known when he signed up that he was in for the wrong kind of rebirth. After all, he first has to go through an infernal steam cloud at the pants presser, then through carcass-strewn meat lockers in a slaughterhouse. It's all this just to get to the Company offices. That should have told him that the price of a new identity would be more hellish than the 30,000 in dollars.But then, what guy wouldn't trade a 45-year old tired mug for Rock Hudson's handsome features and a new chance at life, especially the swinging kind. Okay, so maybe there's something sinister behind the smiling bureaucrats of The Company, especially when Mr. Ruby (Corey) scarfs down the fleshy edibles. But not to worry, they'll fake his death with some poor soul's cadaver and his unexciting former life will be left behind for good. So, after a lot of bloody plastic surgery, Arthur gets his new chance with a handsome new face, reborn now as Tony Wilson (Hudson). Plus he gets to move from his boring old house in the suburbs to where else but swinging Malibu, CA. The Company, it seems, fixes up everything. Then there's that adoring young playmate to help (Jens) him settle in. She's sure a long way from the drab wife he's left behind. Okay, maybe there's something odd about John (Addy), the hovering house servant of his beach cottage. Nonetheless, he waits on Tony's every need, and now Tony can live life as a king.And get a load of those merry- making hippies snaking up the canyon to their wine-soaked retreat that Nora's roped him into. Trouble is you can change a person outwardly, but it's not so easy inwardly. Besides, as Arthur, Tony has a whole lifetime of habits and hang-ups to overcome. So now he just sort of stands there, uptight, amid all the naked wine-stomping bodies. A real party-pooper until playmate Nora strong-arms him into drunken abandon. Now he's got what he thinks he wants, a new swinging life to replace the glum old businessman. At last, life is good, but is it. I'm not surprised the film has a big cult following. On the whole, it's that good. The cast is superb, even Hudson who I suspect gives a career performance. That's along with the Walton's Will Geer as the kindly old head of The Company, his perpetual smile a mask for what turns out to be a Faustian bargain. To me, the movie's final third lacks the kind of clarity that's gone before. But maybe that's as it should be. That way the sinister undercurrents remain clouded in their exact depths.It appears the plot pivots at this point on the question of personal choice, certainly a defining feature of personal fulfillment. But without giving away too much, it seems The Company has engineered everything, right down to guaranteed unhappiness. So the Company program perhaps amounts to a recycling of clients through pre-planned stages that Tony too must go through. The movie doesn't spell out what The Company is really up to; instead, we have to piece things together. I guess my only gripe is with the ending. Frankly, the kicking and screaming may raise the viewer's dread-level, but I think the ending should come as a sudden surprise with kindly old Will Geer looking on.Nonetheless, the movie appears to be an original reworking of the Faustian legend of selling one's soul. But whether taken as a Faustian parable on middle- class discontent or not, it's still a riveting 100-minutes.

At some point, everybody takes a good look at their lives and wants to change something about it. Maybe you're unhappy with your job. Maybe you wish you could have a hotter girlfriend. Maybe you're worried that life is passing you by, and you want to be young again and live it up some more. Maybe it's time to reinvent yourself. In this film, a guy reinvents himself to rectify all of these things. The big twist is, he does so with the help of an ominous and mysterious corporation.This film has a pretty interesting premise. Combined with its style, it comes off as a fairly gripping thriller; there is a sense of anxiety that permeates key scenes and keeps you wondering what will happen next. The film drags in just a few spots (mostly in the middle), but it is interesting and sobering to watch this guy go through an artificial rebirth and live a second life.The story is pretty well-structured. The momentum sputters a bit in the middle, as the character wanders around in his new body and figures things out. However, the set-up and conclusion are solid, and the characters overall are fairly well-developed. Above all, this is a film that boldly holds a mirror up to the 1960s culture and shows a rather eerie reflection. I could see it as the man's transformation mirroring the transformation of culture, moving from the conservative 50s to the radical free-loving 60s counter-culture movements, but the film makes it out to be a total nightmare. As such, the film challenges the notion that people have to be young and successful to be happy. It also puts a pretty ominous spin on corporations, using people like putty to shape them into whatever they determine, all for the sole purpose of making money.The film is phenomenal, for it boasts some incredible photography. There are a ton of wild and unusual camera angles, many of which seem less like what you'd find in the 60s and more like what you'd see in modern films (especially when the camera tracks a person's head or body, keeping it still while the background moves; that is very much the same kind of thing you get with webcams, which many modern movies use, and I think it's an awesome achievement for Seconds). Camera moves are especially fluid and interesting. Editing is really great, especially with some of the more surreal scenes. Acting and writing are impeccable. This production has some great-looking sets, props, and costumes. The music score is pretty effective too.Despite a few slow parts, Seconds is a bold film with a bold style and a ton of bold messages. I'd gladly recommend it to anybody.4.5/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Very Good | Film: Perfect)