Rebirth. Life again. Begin again all new, all different. The way you always wanted it. You got another chance. Heck, nobody’s going to miss you, are they?
– Will Geer in Seconds (1966).
The term “midlife crisis” was coined in 1965. Somehow, the English language got by without that phrase for the previous six hundred years, but today we probably couldn’t get along without it.
No one in the Middle Ages lived long enough to have a middle age, at least as we understand it. In 1930, American male life expectancy was 59. In 1960, it was 67. That’s almost an additional decade of existence — thousands more hours of time to fret about how your time is running out.
In this as in so many instances, art preceded (social) science. Before the expression “midlife crisis” came into existence, the phenomenon was explored through farce — The Seven Year Itch (1955) — and high-brow drama — John Cheever’s 1964 story “The Swimmer.”
The first movie made in the wake of psychologist Elliott Jaques’ “discovery” was Seconds (1966).
I first saw this film on Canadian public television in the 1990s, and thought it was “cool” because it was “weird” and grimly satirical, and because it was directed by John Frankenheimer. His Manchurian Candidate (1962) was and is a personal favorite, and Seconds displayed a similar sensibility: jarring forced perspectives and camera angles, and a plot revolving around a sinister, secret cabal. Although is was made two years after I was born, Seconds compared favorably to the movies of Terry Gilliam and David Lynch, both of whom were highly in vogue when TVOntario broadcast this rarely seen 1960s “paranoid thriller.”
Along with Frankenheimer as director, the film boasts a perfect score by Jerry Goldsmith, opening credits by Saul Bass, and most of all, mind blowing cinematography from the master of black & white, James Wong Howe (Seconds makes the “top ten” of many cinematographers’ “best-of” lists).
My Seconds “initiation” was similar to that of “keelsetter,” who blogs at TCM’s MovieMorlocks.com and has written the best essay I’ve read on this film:
I’ll confess that when I first saw Seconds what really blew me away was the virtuoso cinematography. But repeat viewings have always rewarded me with even deeper meanings that suddenly seem to bubble up to the surface and take center-stage (not coincidentally, my getting older and going into mid-life certainly helps).
When Seconds begins, we meet Arthur Hamilton (played by John Randolph), an aging banker living the stereotypical mid-century American suburban life: comfortable, well appointed house, proper but distant wife, well-adjusted daughter, most likely a job for life, or until he retires with the proverbial gold watch and a handshake.
It’s the kind of safe, successful existence millions of people around the world would give almost anything to have, but for Hamilton, it’s not enough. Something’s missing.
Through a series of bizarre encounters, Hamilton is offered – and then forced to take – an opportunity to start life all over again.
“The Company” will fake Hamilton’s death and ensure that his family will be taken care of financially. Then through plastic surgery, Hamilton will become one Antiochus “Tony” Wilson: a younger, handsome and successful painter living in Malibu, played by Rock Hudson.
It’s a similar premise to The Stepford Wives, except the husband decides to make himself over instead of his spouse.
So what man wouldn’t want to wake up looking like Rock Hudson, living the life of a famous, wealthy painter, frolicking on a California beach with a stunning, vivacious new girlfriend?
Hamilton, that’s who.
But by the time he realizes his exciting new life is as empty as he believed his boring old one to be, it’s too late to turn back…
A great deal has been written about the multiple subtexts of Seconds — the Hollywood “blacklist,” as well as Hudson’s then-secret (more or less) gay identity and faltering career; the crazy “Brian Wilson connection”; the extraordinary lengths Howe and Frankenheimer went to realize their vision — and all these do indeed add invisible yet palpable depth to the film.
Yet it was all too much of a good (or bad, or just plain disturbing) thing, as recalled at MovieMorlocks.com:
Unfortunately, despite good reviews, the film was a failure upon its release because the people who wanted to see Rock Hudson did not want to see this kind of film, while the people who wanted to see this kind of film did not want to see Rock Hudson in it. “As a result” [Frankenheimer said on the commentary track for the laserdisc edition] “that leaves an audience of about five or six… this was literally a movie where you could call up the theater owner and say “What time does Seconds go on?” and the guy would say “Well, what time can you get here?”
With the dying days of the Hays Code the Catholic Church demanded cuts from a scene from Hamilton’s new life, one depicting a real life annual California wine festival that featured a giant vat full of naked people stomping grapes. The cuts backfired, though: Frankenheimer claimed the crude splicing made the scene “really look like an orgy” instead of the bizarrely innocent bohemian spectacle it actually was.
(Even the French found something to cut: not surprisingly, they left the nudity intact but a “reference to [Hamilton’s] counterfeit diploma from the Sorbonne was missing — apparently the French censor wasn’t bothered by the nudity, but couldn’t abide the suggestion that the Sorbonne’s integrity could be compromised.”)
Seconds even got booed at Cannes.
As a result of all this, Seconds remains a highly praised but hard-to-find (and therefore expensive in DVD format) cult film.
The good news is: TCM broadcasts it with some regularity, and it’s available in streaming instant video format on Amazon.com. The bad news is, subsequent movies about male mid-life crises are readily available yet deeply inferior, if not downright amoral. (Do I even need to mention American Beauty…?)
Liberal fans of Seconds praise it as a chilling condemnation of shallow materialistic American consumerism and conformity. Yet few of them mention that when Hamilton gets a twice in a lifetime opportunity to junk all that and become a free spirited bohemian artist he’s miserable then too. The perfect progressive lifestyle doesn’t satisfy Hamilton, either.
I had to find out where I went wrong. The years I’ve spent trying to get all the things I was told were important. That I was told to want. Things, not people or meaning, just things. California was the same. They made the same decisions for me all over again, and they were the same things really.
In fact, coming out as it did in that pivotal year between the early sixties New Frontier/Mad Men/Kennedy era and the late sixties of Woodstock and Manson, Seconds could just as easily be read as “a critique of the then-nascent youth counterculture.”
What Hamilton’s old life and his new one have in common – besides their “top down,” poorly-grafted-on nature, neither of which he truly, consciously chose for himself — is success. Yet, especially in his second life, success came too easily. What if Hamilton had struggled to become a banker, or an artist?
Hamilton’s real problem may be that he doesn’t feel he deserves his success because he didn’t have to work very hard for it, either time.
Frankenheimer and James Wong Howe worked very hard on Seconds. For those who have seen the film and appreciate it, one adjective crops up again and again: “haunting.”
The final seconds of Seconds are particularly disturbing. I thought about those last images for days afterward. Having endured the movie’s final, harrowing, tragic finale — which I won’t give away — just seeing the stills, and remembering the sound of the drill that accompanies these images on screen pierces my heart all over again:
I still find this last scene, even after repeat viewings, absolutely gut-wrenching, a richly enigmatic shot that makes we wonder if Arthur’s last thought was of himself as a father, or a child, or even simply him thinking of another family altogether? This ending image may have only been an afterthought, but it nonetheless provides a knock-out poetic punch.
As an aside: I’d love to know if the child’s drawing in the last scene of About Schmidt is an intentional nod to the finale of Seconds. Granted, Schmidt is in his Lear years and is having more of a “late-life crisis,” but still…
Despite Seconds’ commercial failure, it remained one that Frankenheimer was particularly proud of. “This picture means a lot to me for many reasons,” he once said. “One of the reasons it means so much to me is that this movie says something that I firmly believe in. That, in life, you are the result of your experiences. The result of your past. Your past makes you what you are today. If you take away your past, you don’t exist as a person. And that’s what he tried to do, and that’s why it doesn’t work. And by your past I mean your mistakes as well as your triumphs, whatever they are.”
“No one in the Middle Ages lived long enough to have a middle age.”
Oh, for the love of God. Not this [stuff] again!
For the last damned time, people: a life expectancy of 40 years old does NOT mean that people were considered “old” at 40; nor does it mean they were dropping over dead and 40. It means that a whole bunch of people were dying before the age of 2 and dragging the average way down. There were still old folks on the Earth at that time. If you had money, could stay indoors during the winter, and managed to avoid disease, you fared OK enough to reach old age. Mozart died at 35 in a time when the life expectancy (by average) was around 40 and that was considered a tragedy for one so young. If you survived the Bemuda Triangle of health known as infancy and childhood, you were expected to reach old age. Our founding fathers lived to ripe old ages. It was the poor people who worked in the fields; the ones who got cold around October and weren’t going to be warm again until May – they were the ones who died early – again: dragging the average down.
I thank you, RKae, I scrolled down to make a similar comment.
Look at the line of English kings who, in many cases, fought in battles and campaigned strenuously: William I died, after falling off his horse, aged 58 or 59; William II was 43 or 44 when killed; Henry I died aged 66 or 67; Stephen died at 60 or so; Henry II died at the age of 56; his son, Richard I, died (from wounds) aged 41, and another son, John, died at 49; John’s son, Henry III, died at the age of 65; his son, Edward I, lived to 68; his son, Edward II, was murdered when 43; his son, Edward III, died at 64; his grandson, Richard II, was killed at 33; Henry IV died, perhaps of leprosy, aged 49; his son, Henry V, died of dysentery aged 35 or so; his son, Henry VI, was averse to bloodshed and a weakling, but he still made it to 49; Edward IV died, suddenly and mysteriously, aged 40; his son, Edward V, perhaps, was murdered at 13; Richard III was treacherously killed at 32; Henry VII made it to 52; and, though we’ve passed out of the middle ages now, Henry VIII died at 55.
You are absolutely right. And if anyone needs further proof, try this experiment: every one of us had 8 great-grandparents; of my 8, I know who six of them were. All six lived into their 70s, passing away in the 1920s and 30s, well before the advent of antibiotics. There is a reason why the Bible (compiled in the Bronze Age, nota bene) says that man’s years are threescore and ten.
And that reason is?
Born in 1941, all of my great-grandparents were deceased, as was my maternal grandfather, and my paternal grandfather died when I was eight.
Sorry to “prove the rule”.
I remember seeing this on TV. Must have been in the 70′s or or early 80′s. The reviewer is right: it is haunting, and I think about the subject matter to this day.
Thanks for jogging my memory as to the name of the film. I will be looking for it again.
Sorry RKae, next time I’ll say “lower class people (and Mozart)”
Even people of the lower classes in mediæval England, could have a reasonable expectation of reaching at least fifty is they survived childhood:
“Our founding fathers lived to ripe old ages. ”
Our founding fathers were pretty well off: Many were landowners, others were professionals like doctors and such. They were well-fed and had servants to do the menial labor that wore down others.
Whereas one-third of the settlers of the West died along the way, victims of starvation, dehydration, disease, marauding Indians, etc.
Periodic epidemics of smallpox claimed many adults too.
But to get back to the issue at hand:
“Seconds” is a true hidden gem, not widely seen anymore but I recommend it. It has a couple of nice plot twists that are reminiscent of one or two Twilight Zone episodes. The whole movie could have been a two-part Twilight Zone episode, in fact.
I wish I could say more but I don’t want to put any spoilers in here.
RKae has it exactly right. Remember what the Bible says? “Three score and ten are a man’s year, or eighty if he is strong”? Even in Old Testament days, a healthy adult could expect to live 70 or 80 years, just like today.
“Hamilton’s real problem may be that he doesn’t feel he deserves his success because he didn’t have to work very hard for it, either time.”
Maybe that’s why people in rich, developed, countries today are so unhappy with their lives. The post World War II or “Baby Boom” generation were given everything and therefore didn’t really want for anything. I find it hard to believe that someone that had to endure the Great Depression, had to fight in World War II, had to live through the Cold War (especially the Cuban Missile Crisis), and had to do all of this while supporting a family and holding on to a good job, really would consider himself or herself a failure if they successfully navigated their lives through all of those horrors. You never seem to see movies about people from the Greatest Generation moaning about a mid-life crisis if they didn’t grow up with a lot of money, let alone very little money. The old man in this movie probably could have lived through the “Roaring Twenties” and been a friend of Jay Gatsby. Maybe he was.
Yes, you wonder if Dick Winters ever had a mid-life crisis, or was just everlastingly thankful that he had a mid-life.
It has been years since I last thought about this movie. I do agree, it was a very good presentation of a life examined and the questions one asks when they reach a certain age.
One particular scene I remember is when the main character is sitting in front of the “administrator” and he is given a plate of food. For his own reasons the main character is not hungry and the administrator asks if he is going to eat the chicken leg. When told no, the administrator takes the leg and starts to eat it, making a comment on how it is prepared in a special way with unique spices.
The almost cold indifference to the plight of the main character was very telling. In some ways, it is a reflection on how an “administrator” must be in today’s business world. Not judging, just as observation.
I had forgotten about this film. I saw it by accident one night many years ago and also found it to be very thought provoking. Thanks for reminding me of it’s existence.
Saw the movie with my older cousin when it came out, and I was nine. Didn’t really get it, but you’re right about the ending — I still remember that (albeit not with full comprehension of what the message was supposed to be) 45 years later.
I will agree that the visuals in “Seconds” are indeed stunning. Frankenheimer and Howe photographed nearly every scene a little off-kilter which added a subtle nightmarish quality to the film. The acting is also top-notch. I’ve only seen the film a few times but I’ve never forgotten the “intake” interview at the Company between John Randolph and Jeff Corey. Randolph is nervous, fumbling, unsure and obviously feeling guilty. Corey is brisk, businesslike and almost brutally cheerful. And kindly old Will Geer effortlessly projects a sinister menace under his grandfatherly charm. Hudson is good but I never for a minute believed that there was a paunchy midle-aged man living inside his body.
It’s a facinating film but not a particularly profound one. It’s tempting, given it’s chronological proximity to the dreaded “McCarthy Era” and the presence of the closeted Rock, to read too much into it. If it has any point of view at all it’s probably that some people (straight, gay, old young, commie…whatever) are doomed to be dissatisfied and lonely no matter what their station is in life.
Of course you are spot on….
Averages can be deceiving, quite often not being the “most common” at all.
Numbers games can be “true”, yet unrealisticly false at the same time.
For instance, everyone in the world has the SAME shoe size,
if you measure it in MILES..
The answer being “less than one” for all of us.
Correct, but not “true”
I have an above-average number of arms, ears, eyes and toes.
Thank you RKae! It is surprising how few people seem to understand averages even ones I enjoy reading. If one doesn’t even have the dimmest understanding of statistics, how can one possibly evaluate any modern argument?
Success is failure and failure success.
Beware!
Ice Station Zebra is the best Rock Hudson movie. No it doesn’t have the shiny sheen of an inverted social status but I don’t have to think so much when I watch it which hurts.
Plus I like submarines.
I didn’t care for “Ice Station Zebra.”
The plot is quite thin and predictable. For much of the movie the characters sail in a submarine in which nothing much happens but they get to talk a lot.
It was a submarine; in my world that’s Oscar territory. Another plus is that there is not one woman in the movie unlike that despicable “Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea” which had one woman.
“Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” had two women on board.
That may happen in real life too someday. Already the Canadian navy allows mixed gender crews on submarines.
The U.S. may do the same someday (they already have mixed-gender crews on surface ships).
I knew you’d mention the psychiatrist which I had successfully blocked out; thanks for nothing. Although she WAS a guest. Anyway she got a fatal dose of radiation but also got killed by a shark which is like Monty Python’s “heart attack and fell out of window onto exploding bomb, and was killed in shooting accident.”
Great film, especially the bizarre “grape stomping” scene.
I’d like to give “Seconds” a try. It sounds as if it is thought-provoking and interesting to look at. I’ve seen some other movies which looked very impressive because of James Wong Howe’s camera work.
With a bit of self-examination, who among us do not have any regrets, or do not wish sometimes that we could escape from some aspect of our lives? And which of us who are at least middle-aged would not re-live our youth with the knowledge that we gained later? I love Edith Piaf, but I could never truthfully sing her song “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” about my entire life. Yet it seems that attempts to find some fountain of youth tend to be fruitless, or worse, in the end. I’m not sure that the film-makers intended this, but I get the feeling that with the way this movie turns out, it might help us to at least appreciate what we have in our lives.
I saw Seconds in 1966. I was a law student in New York City and had become enamored with film as there were many art theaters then and ticket prices were affordable to a student. I was stunned by the film. I had never been to California (where I now live) and it reflected the image that California had to almost all Americans. Rock Hudson was marvelous. I had never perceived him to be a dramatic actor and as he played the “second”, the “first” was always lurking in his actions, mannerisms and thoughts. There was a wonderful scene where he joins a much younger women in stomping grapes in a large round barrel in the midst of a Dionysian celebration that seemed to have little to do with wine and a lot to do with hedonism. The struggle between growing older, as I am at this point, and the grasping back for what was youth was so well depicted that my thoughts often return to that film. In a way, the film is a cousin to Fellini’s “8 1/2″ as the address similar themes. I have often looked for an opportunity to rent the film and I suppose it is available on Netflix, although I don’t know. I once saw it on the marquis at the Palais Chiotttes (spelling?) in Paris, but the bill changed the next day when I had the time to see it. I would not miss this film if you have an opportunity.
Disturber
spelling?
Try “Marquee”, and not the titular “marquis”; not confusing either for “marque” (mark).
Disturber, your comment reminds me of my college days in Pittsburgh, when I took advantage of the Pittsburgh Playhouse which played foreign, classic and “art” films every day, at an affordable price for students like me. What exciting times those were! I grew up in a small town which had a nice movie theater, but it only showed the big, regular Hollywood releases. The Pittsburgh Playhouse helped open up a great world for me. I’ll never forget seeing such recently-released foreign greats as “Danton” and “The Tree of Wooden Clogs,” and classics such as “Gone With the Wind,” “Vertigo,” and “8 1/2″ which you mentioned. In those days before widely-available VCR’s, these movie showings were big events for us wide-eyed students.
I also appreciated your comments about “growing older” and “grasping back for what was youth.” At 49 years of age, those are things which I think about often.
“Hamilton’s real problem may be that he doesn’t feel he deserves his success because he didn’t hav”e to work very hard for it, either time.”
Maybe his problem is that he is trying to be successful.
I’m old enough to remember when we were told we were put here to “know love and serve God…and our neighbor”, not make money and fulfill your own wishes for fun and glory.
Wonder when they’ll make a movie of that?
Seinfeld fans will remember the actor John Randolph, who “becomes” Rock Hudson in “Seconds”, as the first Mr. Costanza. The few episodes and scenes he was in were later reshot with Jerry Stiller in the role. He also did a whole lot of TV in the 60′s; I remember seeing him what seemed like all the time. They may have broadcast “Seconds” as one of the ABC Movie of the Week episodes; something like that. I remember seeing it on TV in the 70′s and then again in the 80′s. Creeped me out each time!
But I never knew it was such quality until this informative essay. Thank you! I also liked Frankenheimer’s “The Believers” in the 90′s with Jimmy Smit I believe.
That line, “when can you get here”, was literally true.
I managed a walk-in ‘nabe during this film’s 1st release, and it was the most disappointing week for a Hudson film ever.
How bad was it?
You could say that we even lost money on the popcorn sales.
“Disturbing” as a description of the film’s content is, in the context of the early-mid 60′s, putting it mildly.
The only other film that generated the negativity that we saw from “Seconds” was “Virginia Wolfe”.
With “Wolfe”, our customers just hated the shrillness of Taylor’s character and how close it cut to their darkest secrets; “Seconds” was just beyond understanding.
Gosh, my sister and I couldn’t believe there was anyone, even in Hollywood, so haunted as to make such a “haunting” movie. Quite the gab fest for us sisters referencing all such cultural indulgences, as Steyn would say. Would those who find the wine making scene so life altering be surprised to learn that Carey Grant loved LSD too? Were we not taking the movie seriously enough? Our bad.