Very much ahead of its time, and with ideas well above its station, John Frankenheimer’s black and white thriller was a notable box-office failure, but showcases Rock Hudson’s best performance. He’s off-screen for the opening, in which a businessman agrees to pay a mysterious corporation for a rejuvenating treatment that promises to give him new life in a younger body. Becoming Rock Hudson, he’s initially pleased with his new look, but the Faustian pack comes back to haunt him. Knowing what we know now about Hudson’s private life, split between his heterosexual stud public persona and a very different off-screen life, Seconds is a low-budget sci-fi thriller that plays on the idea of guilt and identity in surprisingly powerful ways.
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