oscaralbert Review of Two Seconds

Two Seconds (1932)

The doctor in this flick tells a field-tripping sociology student . . .

[6/10 · 24 February 2018]

. . . that it will take the then new and "humane" electric chair only two seconds to eliminate Ed Robinson's "John" character. However, 28 years before this fictional Jack bites the dust, "E.A. Edison's" Real Life eponymous "Manufacturing Company"--then the world's largest movie distributor--arranged, filmed, and released a highly lucrative title still available from America's Library of Congress website today: ELECTROCUTING AN ELEPHANT. This landmark documentary begins with the Beloved Real Life Coney Island Performer Topsy--who had perhaps exhausted the life-time peanut ration that her "owners" had set aside for her--chained down to the ground in a vacant lot surrounded by a wall on two sides. Topsy is engulfed by an apparently all-male paying crowd of spectators, who have been promised their money's worth as they "enjoy" the "unprecedented" spectacle. As the crowd cheers and Topsy shrieks, flames are seen shooting from Topsy's shackled leg for a minute or two. (Wikipedia states that the "Miracle of Electricity" NEVER succeeded in finishing off Topsy, and that she "had to be" poisoned, strangled, and finally shot (all off-camera, of course, since ELECTROCUTING AN ELEPHANT was intended as a great promotion for the "Wonder of Electricity"). TWO SECONDS begs several questions: Jack relives his life during the alleged couple of clock ticks it takes him to expire. IF this scene was made consistent with Real Life (wherein it frequently takes two jolts, or even THREE--in Ethel R.'s infamous instance--to do someone in), would Jack relive his entire life each and every time? If so, what would his chances be of meeting with a happier ending at least once? And if Androids dream of Electric Sheep, did Topsy have time to say, "Thanks for all the nuts"?