#667: FRANKENHEIMER, John: Seconds (1966)

FRANKENHEIMER, John (United States)

Seconds [1966]

Spine #667
Blu-ray

Rock Hudson is a revelation in this sinister, science-fiction-inflected dispatch from the fractured 1960s. Seconds, directed by John Frankenheimer, concerns a middle-aged banker who, dissatisfied with his suburban existence, elects to undergo a strange and elaborate procedure that will grant him a new life. Starting over in America, however, is not as easy as it sounds. This paranoiac symphony of canted camera angles (courtesy of famed cinematographer James Wong Howe), fragmented editing, and layered sound design is a remarkably risk-taking Hollywood film that ranks high on the list of its legendary director's achievements.

107 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

1:75:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2013

Director/Writer

Based on the novel by David Ely

Screenplay by Lewis John Carlino.

John Frankenheimer was 36 when he directed Seconds.

**

He knew he wanted to become a film director, so he started reading books (Eisenstein, etc.) ...

He was one of the great directors of The Golden Age of Television (see Spine #495) in the ‘50s.

Frankenheimer revealed his genius early on. Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) is a case in point. Burt Lancaster — who was producing and acting in the film — asked him to take over from another director. He took one look at the prodigious script and knew they’d be looking at an overly long film. He was told to shoot the script.

Sure, enough they ended up with a nearly five-hour film which was impossible to cut at that point. Frankenheimer planned a reshoot (Lancaster had to go and shoot Judgment at Nuremberg [1961]) and rewrite, and eventually the film was a huge hit. He was just getting started.

The Paranoia Trilogy (Manchurian Candidate [1962], Seven Days In May [1964] and Seconds) followed, bringing both critical and commercial success.

Frankenheimer suffered a huge personal loss and trauma on June 6, 1968, when he drove his friend Robert F. Kennedy from the airport to the hotel where he gave his acceptance speech and was then murdered.

He then had a series of hits and misses — but when William Friedkin’s The French Connection (1971) became a huge hit, and the studio was mulling over the sequel — which would take place mostly in Marseilles — they decided to pass up Friedkin and go with a new director. Frankenheimer was fluent in French, so he was a natural choice. That job led to Black Sunday (1977), which failed at the box office.

Around this time, Frankenheimer’s alcohol problem became a problem. Again — more ups and downs, with an epic (what shall we call it, a failure to communicate?) blow-up on the shoot of The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) between Frankenheimer and actor Val Kilmer. A great quote from JF:

“Will Rogers never met Val Kilmer.”

Other films by Frankenheimer in the Collection:

#803: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The Film

Seconds — the brilliant third chapter of the Paranoia Trilogy (see above) — is a masterpiece of technical filmmaking. The story may seem weird all these years later, but in 1966 it rang a loud bell which reverberated throughout the world of anyone who took cinema seriously.

Rock Hudson is Antiochus Wilson who used to be Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph). Jeff Corey is an extremely creepy Mr. Ruby, and Salome Jens is Nora, just a pretty administrative assistant for the Reborns.

You can figure the rest out for yourselves.

Carlino’s script is magnificent. Combined with Frankenheimer’s fragmentation of the scene, it produces a striking effect. A drunk Wilson is talking to a lady at a party:

LADY: “There’s such a religious climate out here. Don’t you agree?”

WILSON: “Oh, I love the climate.”

“I belong to a special kind of group. “

“Nothing subversive, I hope.”

“Oh, good heavens, no! We change sects.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, no, no. Good heavens. You thought I meant — Sects. S-E-C-T-S.”

“Oh sects! Well, thank God!”

“We change every month. Right now, we’re in Aztec. Huiltzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, virgin sacrifice and all.”

Film Rating (0-60):

55

The Extras

The Booklet

Eighteen page booklet featuring an essay by critic David Sterritt

Commentary

Frankenheimer delivers a master class in filmmaking. For example, he constantly praises cinematographer James Wong Howe. Under his credit, Frankenheimer notes:

“This credit — James Wong Howe — is a very important credit for this movie, the cameraman. His contribution to the overall movie was enormous; perhaps more than any other cameraman I’ve ever worked with ... it was James Wong Howe’s idea to use the extremely wide-angle 9.7 mm lens — I had never used that lens before, and we did some tests with it to see what we could do — and the results, I think, if you’ll see in the movie are really quite extraordinary.”

A few tidbits from the wisdom of John Frankenheimer:

• How Saul Bass did the distorted titles.
• Grand Central Station scene — in order to keep spectators from ruining the scene, Frankenheimer set up a decoy film set — complete with Playboy bunny and hunky male actor — leaving him to surreptitiously film the scene. Note that both Randolph and Hudson harness the camera to their bodies in several cuts. This would be a heavy 1966 camera.
• The John Randolph blacklisting story.
• We see someone slip a piece of paper to Arthur Hamilton as he boards the train. As the camera hovers around his face, Randolph plays his obvious unhappiness, even agony — but Frankenheimer withholds the information about the first phone call (which we learn in a few moments when he takes the second call!) ... eliding this fact from the curious viewer adds to the suspense (and creates a richer second viewing).
• Frances Reid (Emily Hamilton) — but you Days of Our Lives fans will remember her as the matriarch Alice Horton.
• how Honest Arnie, The Used Cow Dealer turned Frankenheimer into a vegetarian.
• Jerry Goldsmith (I knew we’d get there) ... one of the best. This score is particularly rich and subtle — from the electronic sounds to the full orchestra.
• Thom Conroy, his “good-luck charm.”
• The Jeff Corey blacklisting story. Serious history.
• The importance of rehearsing.
• The importance of a screenwriter:

“I am not a writer — and I must have a screenwriter in whom I have great respect work with me — my best work has always been done that way, and Lew Carlino certainly fit in that mold — he was a wonderful playwright ...”

• The Will Geer (Old man) blacklisting story.
• Geer factoid: he founded the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga in 1951. Every plant mentioned by Shakespeare is grown there.
• Parallax viewfinders.
• Commenting on a long take: editing, coverage:

“I see more and more movies that are cut like MTV videos, and I resent that ... I think part of making movies is knowing when not to cut; and part of being a great editor is knowing when not to edit.”

• The scenes in the real operating rooms!
• Howe yelling at Frankenheimer to grab a second camera, because someone fainted!
• Making Rock look “ugly” ...
• Why a director should always keep the writer on set.
• The TWA story ...
• The “Filming in My Own House” story (he had to move to a hotel) ...
• Howe’s lighting (“Always show your light source”) ...
• The censorship of the wine-stomping scene ...
• The 5:30 a.m. shot ...
• Getting Rock drunk ...
• The Ned Young blacklisting story. Check out all those uncredited assignments ...
• Why every line in the film was dubbed ...
• Why not every line in the film was dubbed ...

Video interview

With actor Alec Baldwin

who discusses the film with obvious affection.

Television program

Excerpts from Hollywood on the Hudson, a 1965 program featuring on-set footage and an interview with Hudson

Documentary

On the making of the film, featuring interviews with Evans Frankenheimer, the director's widow, and actor Salome Jens

Good background stuff + making-of stuff ... a still of the deleted scene with Evans Frankenheimer and Leonard Nimoy!

Video interview

with Frankenheimer from 1971

Visual essay

by film scholars R. Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance

Extras Rating (0-40):

38

55 + 38 =

93

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