Cult Film Club: Seconds

Screening Dates:
Wed 25 March 8:30pm

Director: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Rock Hudson, John Randolph, Salome Jens, Richard Anderson

One of the most original – and underrated – films of the 1960s, Seconds features an outstanding performance from Rock Hudson as Arthur Hamilton, a jaded executive (played by John Randolph) provided with a new face and lifestyle by a shady, multi-national corporation.

However, as he struggles with his new life as a Californian beach artist he begins to question his own sense of identity.

Sumptuously shot by James Wong Howe and featuring a startling title sequence by Saul Bass, Seconds - a major influence on Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s Suture – is an intelligent, original and wonderfully disorientating look at the pursuit of youth.

The film completed Frankenheimer’s loose paranoia trilogy comprised of The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days In May and may just be the best of the bunch.