Great shocker with Rock Hudson. The movie topic explorers the possibility to extend life while introducing a secrecy and exclusivity around this method. I like the dramtic use of camera, effects and imagery to underline the emotional states of the protagonist.
Seconds (1966 film)
Seconds is a 1966 American science fiction psychological horror film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, and Will Geer. The film tells the story of a middle-aged New York banker who, disillusioned with his life, contacts an agency known as "The Company" which specializes in providing "rebirths" under new identities and appearances altered by plastic surgery. The screenplay by Lewis John Carlino was based on the 1963 novel of the same title by David Ely.
Filmed in New York and Malibu, California in 1965, Seconds was entered into the 1966 Cannes Film Festival and released by Paramount Pictures. The cinematography by James Wong Howe was nominated for an Academy Award.
In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Definition from Wikipedia – Seconds (1966 film)
John Frankenheimer
John Michael Frankenheimer (February 19, 1930 – July 6, 2002) was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films. Among his credits were Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), The Train (1964), Seconds (1966), Grand Prix (1966), French Connection II (1975), Black Sunday (1977), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), and Ronin (1998).
He won four Emmy Awards – three consecutive – in the 1990s for directing the television movies Against the Wall, The Burning Season, Andersonville, and George Wallace, the last of which also received a Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film.
Frankenheimer's nearly 40 feature films and over 50 plays for television were notable for their influence on contemporary thought. He became a pioneer of the "modern-day political thriller", having begun his career at the height of the Cold War.
He was technically highly accomplished from his days in live television; many of his films were noted for creating "psychological dilemmas" for his male protagonists along with having a strong "sense of environment", similar in style to films by director Sidney Lumet, for...
Definition from Wikipedia – John Frankenheimer
James Wong Howe
Wong Tung Jim, A.S.C. (Chinese: 黃宗霑; August 28, 1899 – July 12, 1976), known professionally as James Wong Howe (Houghto), was a Chinese-born American cinematographer who worked on over 130 films. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was one of the most sought after cinematographers in Hollywood due to his innovative filming techniques. Howe was known as a master of the use of shadow and one of the first to use deep-focus cinematography, in which both foreground and distant planes remain in focus.
Born in Canton (Taishan), China, Howe immigrated to the United States at age five and grew up in Washington. He was a professional boxer during his teenage years, and later began his career in the film industry as an assistant to Cecil B. DeMille. Howe pioneered the use of wide-angle lenses and low-key lighting, as well as the use of the crab dolly.
Despite the success of his professional life, Howe faced significant racial discrimination in his private life. He became an American citizen only after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, and due to anti-miscegenation laws, his marriage to Sanora Babb, a white woman, was not legally recognized in the state of California until 1948.
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Definition from Wikipedia – James Wong Howe