moonspinner55 Review of Seconds

Seconds (1966)

"The Twilight Zone" did this type of thing cheaper, faster and about as mean...

[6/10 · 8 October 2006]

"Seconds" plays like an elongated episode of TV's "The Twilight Zone". While that isn't particularly a bad thing, it does point out the fact the series may have done this story some justice simply by paring down its excesses. Rock Hudson is convincingly benumbed playing a handsome artist in Malibu whose life is a lie, whose friends are a fake, and whose real history haunts him. At first I thought the extended preamble with John Randolph as an elderly banker seemed a little sluggish, but it builds momentum carefully, deliberately. Still, there's no reason for the rest of the picture to be so slow except to prolong the inevitability of the very slim plot. Hudson's performance is good though not great--this due in part to the writing; by the time he arrives on-screen, "Seconds" has already used up most of its resources and has to fall back on filler (such as the grape-stomping bacchanal, which begins as cinematic eye-candy and then goes on forever). It's a handsome piece of work, startlingly photographed and with a haunting ambiance, but eventually the movie drops its own big red ball. **1/2 from ****