Seconds (1966)

Seconds movie storyline. Arthur Hamilton is a middle aged New York banker living in Scarsdale. He’s married with a grown daughter he rarely sees anymore. He is generally disengaged from everything in his life. Based on a series of telephone calls he receives from his supposedly deceased friend Charlie Evans, Arthur is drawn into a company that provides him with a second chance in life.

Initially resisting this opportunity, ‘they’ convince him that he has little to live for in his current life, which includes a past indiscretion, albeit one unintentional on his part. His ‘rebirth’ will include a cadaver to replace his current body after his death, enough money for his current family to live comfortably after his departure, enough money for his new start in life, a surgical make-over of his current self, and a new identity based on his subconscious desires.

This new identity is as a Malibu based painter christened Antiochus ‘Tony’ Wilson. To assist him in this transition to Tony Wilson, the company provides him with a counselor of sorts, acting as a live-in housekeeper named John, who attends to whatever Tony requires emotionally to make the transition successfully.

Even with John’s help, Tony is finding it difficult to make the transition, despite or perhaps in spite of meeting a woman named Nora Marcus, with whom he falls in love. He has to discover where he went wrong in his life as Arthur Hamilton and where he went wrong in his transition to Tony Wilson before he can find out where he wants to go and how to achieve getting there. But will the company help him achieve what he wants?

Seconds is a 1966 American science-fiction drama film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Rock Hudson. The screenplay by Lewis John Carlino was based on Seconds, a novel by David Ely. The film 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.”

Directed by: John Frankenheimer
Starring: Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, Jeff Corey, Richard Anderson, Murray Hamilton, Wesley Addy, Robert Brubaker, Elisabeth Fraser, Karl Swenson, Dorothy Morris
Screenplay by: Lewis John Carlino
Cinematography by: James Wong Howe
Film Editing by: David Newhouse, Ferris Webster
Set Decoration by: John P. Austin
Art Direction by: Ted Haworth
Music by: Jerry Goldsmith
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: October 5, 1966