Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema rewind. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 1: We're on a bit of a summer break here, so
Speaker 1: we have some extra weird House Cinema rewinds for you.
Speaker 1: This one is going to be coverage of John Frankenheimer's
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six psychological horror film Seconds, starring Rock Hudson,
Speaker 1: with cinematography by the legendary James Wong Hoo. Originally published
Speaker 1: six nine, twenty twenty three. Oh, you're gonna enjoy this one.
Speaker 1: It's it's darker and deeper than you might expect.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind, A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And today on the show,
Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about a movie from nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty six, a film called Seconds, directed by John Frankenheimer.
Speaker 3: And I was trying to think. I was trying to
Speaker 3: think what to call it. Would you call this a
Speaker 3: science fiction thriller or a philosophical horror thriller? This really
Speaker 3: does defy genres in a way.
Speaker 1: It really does. I mean, you can see there are
Speaker 1: elements of conspiracy drama, the conspiracy thriller. There there are
Speaker 1: elements of sci fi and horror, but it's not really
Speaker 1: any of those things. It is deeply psychological in many respects,
Speaker 1: so you might say it's psychological ab or c. But
Speaker 1: any attempt to pin this film down is going to
Speaker 1: miss something crucial, I think.
Speaker 3: So I'm really excited to talk about this movie. I'm
Speaker 3: honestly astounded how interesting I found it. But I do
Speaker 3: want to issue a sort of dual warning here at
Speaker 3: the top. First of all, about the podcast episode, This
Speaker 3: film has some i would say extremely powerful twists and
Speaker 3: surprises in it, and in order to talk about the
Speaker 3: movie in detail, we have to sort of reveal those surprises,
Speaker 3: including the ending, a little later in our conversation. So
Speaker 3: if you want to watch it spoiler free and preserve
Speaker 3: your surprise, you should do that before listening. But secondary warning,
Speaker 3: before you go off to do that, I also have
Speaker 3: to say I was absolutely floored by the ending of
Speaker 3: this movie. And I don't usually feel the need to
Speaker 3: issue like warnings just about a movie having disturbing content
Speaker 3: or being really unsettling, But you know, we cover a
Speaker 3: lot of weird horror and stuff but this one was, like,
Speaker 3: it shook me so hard that I feel like I
Speaker 3: should give people a bit of a heads up, especially
Speaker 3: because I think you're not really expecting it given the context.
Speaker 3: This movie is from nineteen sixty six. It's shot in
Speaker 3: black and white. The cinematography is amazing. It looks like
Speaker 3: a film from a little bit earlier, Like it looks
Speaker 3: like it could be a really well shot, interesting looking
Speaker 3: film from the fifties. It stars Rock Hudson's that really
Speaker 3: also makes it feel like, I don't know, one of
Speaker 3: these kind of romantic comedy movies from the fifties or something.
Speaker 3: But I think, especially given all that context, I was
Speaker 3: just not prepared for the raw horror and desperate bleakness
Speaker 3: achieved by the end of this film. So if you
Speaker 3: watch it, prepared to be shaken.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This movie is a sixties film that looks in many
Speaker 1: respects like a nineteen fifties movie, but ultimately has the
Speaker 1: feel of a seventies or even eighties film in terms
Speaker 1: of its impact.
Speaker 3: I guess I could worry that on the other end,
Speaker 3: I might be kind of diminishing the dramatic effect by
Speaker 3: giving this warning, but so be it. I was shocked
Speaker 3: by the ending, and I was kind of like walking
Speaker 3: around the house feeling a pit in my stomach afterwards. So,
Speaker 3: you know, if people were going to go off and
Speaker 3: watch this, be prepared.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was finishing watching this movie after my son came
Speaker 1: back from summer camp, and I was like watching it
Speaker 1: in the living room but with headphones in, and right
Speaker 1: as everything was going down, and I was like prepared
Speaker 1: to jump up and like like pause the movies from
Speaker 1: entering the room just because I was like, this is to.
Speaker 3: To start exactly right after I finished, I was going
Speaker 3: to go play with my baby. And it's just I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess that's a good thing to do, actually, because
Speaker 3: I want to say but on the other hand, I
Speaker 3: don't want to scare people off too much because I
Speaker 3: think Seconds is a phenomenal film. I had never seen
Speaker 3: it before we watched it this week for the show.
Speaker 3: I understand it received I think a very polarized reaction
Speaker 3: from critics back when it was first released. I think
Speaker 3: some thought it was a kind of strange masterpiece. Others
Speaker 3: thought it was cold and even reprehensible. And I didn't
Speaker 3: fully understand this division in opinion while I was watching it.
Speaker 3: Until the ending and then it made sense. But I
Speaker 3: think I would side more with the supporters. In my opinion.
Speaker 3: Seconds is a piercing, fascinating look at the nature of desire.
Speaker 3: This is a film about what it means to want
Speaker 3: things and to want something different for your life, and
Speaker 3: it explores the really complex, troubling, hidden architecture underneath the
Speaker 3: visible edifice of all those desires. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I won't say anything more about the ending until
Speaker 1: we get to it, but I will say it's not
Speaker 1: a gut punch ending. It's not one of those undeserved
Speaker 1: gut punch endings anyway. I think it's as you were,
Speaker 1: as you're there on the floor holding your stomach, you
Speaker 1: realize no, that gut punch was warranted. Yeah, and is
Speaker 1: supported by the film. Now, one thing that I think
Speaker 1: is interesting to point out, and this is purely accidental,
Speaker 1: but I think Seconds is in many ways an interesting
Speaker 1: companion piece to The Incredible Shrinking Man from nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: seven that we recently talked about on the show. They
Speaker 1: both deal with themes of mid century midlife crisis and
Speaker 1: fantastic treatments of desired or undesired change. In The Incredible
Speaker 1: shrinking man. Our protagonist is literally diminished and ultimately reaches
Speaker 1: a point of acceptance and ultimately even transcendence. Seconds, however,
Speaker 1: deals with the siren song of escape and liberation from
Speaker 1: one's own life, and is ultimately a far darker tale.
Speaker 3: Agree one hundred percent. These are both excellent movies and
Speaker 3: offer really interesting philosophical counterpoints to one another.
Speaker 1: My elevator pitch is feature length Twilight Zone midlife Crisis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's go ahead and hear the audio from
Speaker 1: the trailer.
Speaker 4: Old Bizarre Terrify rock Hudson in an astonishing change of
Speaker 4: pace stars in Seconds. Rock Hudson as a second freed
Speaker 4: from all responsibilities, now ready to taste new pleasures. Rock
Speaker 4: Hudson as a man who buys for himself a totally
Speaker 4: new life, a chance to begin again every man's dream
Speaker 4: since time began. As soon as these people leave, I'm
Speaker 4: going to attack you. I want you to know that
Speaker 4: I'm counting on it. Rock Hudson as a man who
Speaker 4: lives the nightmare of being a second.
Speaker 1: If you like that, Hey John, Hey John, Hey John,
Speaker 1: Why are they're stirring at me like that?
Speaker 3: They know.
Speaker 1: They know what they're like?
Speaker 3: You Reborn.
Speaker 1: All right, Now, if you're eager to go out and
Speaker 1: see this one for the for yourself before we discuss
Speaker 1: it any further, and this would be a good place
Speaker 1: to do that, because after after this, you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to start getting into the characters and into the plot,
Speaker 1: and even in discussing the characters, we're gonna spoil a
Speaker 1: few things for you. So yeah, go out and see
Speaker 1: it if you're interested. It's widely available on digital and
Speaker 1: it was released on Blu Ray as part of the
Speaker 1: Criterion Collection. So yeah, it's a film that, despite it's
Speaker 1: seeming mixed reviews when it came out, or mixed reception
Speaker 1: critically and so forth, it has developed a cult following
Speaker 1: over the decades, and I think is largely very well
Speaker 1: received and admired today.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it really aged into proper acclaim.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well, let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: folks involved in making this picture. Starting at the top,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that this is a John Frankenheimer film. He
Speaker 1: directed it. Frankenheimer lived nineteen thirty three two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: started out in TV in the mid fifties and directed
Speaker 1: twenty six episodes of Climax exclamation point. He made his
Speaker 1: film directorial debut with nineteen fifty seven's The Young Stranger,
Speaker 1: a drama starring Kim Hunter. In the sixties, though, he
Speaker 1: really came into his own first with The Young Savage,
Speaker 1: a nineteen sixty one street gang flick starring Burt Lancaster
Speaker 1: as a district attorney, not as a troubled youth, I
Speaker 1: should say, because I don't know Burt Lancaster ever was
Speaker 1: a youth. He also did a trio of films in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, All Fall Down with Warren Beatty, Birdman
Speaker 1: of Alcatraz with Lancaster and Carl Malden, and The Manchurian
Speaker 1: Candidate starring Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansberry. That is probably
Speaker 1: one of his more famous films.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a very different kind of genre and subject matter.
Speaker 3: I would say one thing that is shared in common
Speaker 3: between Manchurian Candidate and Seconds is the atmosphere of secretiveness
Speaker 3: and paranoia that is conjured in both films.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, This after this came nineteen sixty four, seven
Speaker 1: Days in May. This is about a military coup taking
Speaker 1: place in the United States, which I think also has
Speaker 1: similar strains. You know obviously of conspiracy and so forth
Speaker 1: in Paranoia, and then a film called The Train, which
Speaker 1: I think is maybe a little less on the intrigue
Speaker 1: and conspiracy spectrum. And then comes the movie Seconds. Frankenheimer
Speaker 1: continued work steadily throughout the rest of his life, and
Speaker 1: some of the standouts include seventy five's The French Connection two,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven's Black Sunday. This was the first film
Speaker 1: adaptation of a Thomas Harris novel. The nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 1: mutant Bear movie Prophecy, which we've mentioned a few times
Speaker 1: on the show before.
Speaker 3: Seems to come up frequently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's a mutant bear movie,
Speaker 1: directed by John Frankenheimer. I still haven't seen it all
Speaker 1: the way. I started watching it and then realized it
Speaker 1: it was maybe too serious for what I had in
Speaker 1: mind for myself. He directed the nineteen eighty two John
Speaker 1: Salis scripted action movie The Challenge, starring Scott glenn In
Speaker 1: Toshiro Mafuni nineteen ninety four is The Burning Season starring
Speaker 1: Raal Julia. He of course stepped in to replace Richard
Speaker 1: Stanley on nineteen ninety six as the Island of Doctor Moreau,
Speaker 1: and then he also directed nineteen ninety eight's Ronan, which
Speaker 1: is a pretty entertaining espionage thriller. As I recall, it's
Speaker 1: got a really solid cast and some excellent vehicular stunts.
Speaker 3: I think that's one of those movies I saw when
Speaker 3: you know, I was like too young to understand the
Speaker 3: plot at all, but I do remember, like Robert de
Speaker 3: Niro and Sean Bean and still in Scars Guard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even you don't have to understand the plot of Ronan. Really,
Speaker 1: it's just, you know, various spy types are encountering each
Speaker 1: other as saying cryptic things, and then stuff gets blown
Speaker 1: up and so forth, all right. The screenplay for this
Speaker 1: film was written by Lewis John Carlino, who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two through twenty twenty American screenwriter and director. He'd
Speaker 1: written for TV previously, but this was his first feature
Speaker 1: screenplay credit, but certainly not the last. His later screenplays
Speaker 1: include nineteen seventy twos of the Mechanic and nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine's The Great Santini starring Robert Devall. This was based
Speaker 1: on the Pat Conroy novel, and Carlino also directed film
Speaker 1: Now this film, Seconds is based on the novel by
Speaker 1: David Ealy born nineteen twenty seven. The only other adaptation
Speaker 1: of his work that I ran across as a nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one segment on Night Gallery titled The Academy starring
Speaker 1: Pat Boone. I think I've seen this one because I
Speaker 1: think it's season one, but I don't remember it at all.
Speaker 1: Seconds was a nineteen sixty three novel, and his other
Speaker 1: works include sixty eight Timeout and nineteen ninety two is
Speaker 1: a journal of the flood year. All right, getting into
Speaker 1: the cast here, and yes, there're gonna be some spoilers,
Speaker 1: as we discussed, like who each of these people is playing.
Speaker 1: We have this character named Arthur Hamilton. He's the initial
Speaker 1: incarnation of our protagonist, a successful man who's deeply uncomfortable
Speaker 1: in his own life and completely bottled up emotionally. It is,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, just a really great performance by the actor.
Speaker 1: John Randolph, who lived nineteen fifteen through two thousand and four.
Speaker 3: Agree that the cast is excellent across the I think
Speaker 3: really everybody who gets speaking roles in this is very good.
Speaker 3: But the two actors playing the protagonist are I think
Speaker 3: should be singled out for really high praise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, obviously a performance doesn't exist in isolation.
Speaker 1: Randolph's performance here is accentuated by great direction, great cinematography.
Speaker 1: But man, it really all comes together in this very
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and at times like really surprisingly raw, like emotionally raw,
Speaker 1: and also just paranoia inducing performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: Randolph was born Emmanuel Hirsch Cohen and was active on
Speaker 1: Broadway as far back as nineteen thirty eight according to
Speaker 1: the Internet Broadway Database, and his earliest TV and film
Speaker 1: credits go back to forty eight and forty nine. But
Speaker 1: he and his wife Sarah Cunningham were both blacklisted around
Speaker 1: that time, and in nineteen fifty five they were both
Speaker 1: called to testify before the House and American Activities Committee.
Speaker 1: As such, Randolph was forced to work outside of Hollywood
Speaker 1: and New York film televis in radio for a good
Speaker 1: fifteen years.
Speaker 3: Man, I feel like Huac has been coming up a
Speaker 3: lot in Weird House episodes recently. That's not by design.
Speaker 3: It just happens to.
Speaker 1: Me, It just it just happens. It seems like it's
Speaker 1: a case of watching, you know, meaningful films with talented
Speaker 1: folks in them from this time period. It just it
Speaker 1: ended up impacting so many people, either the Blacklist or
Speaker 1: the Gray List or the ramifications of those lists. So anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he continued working in New York theater. I don't think
Speaker 1: that was like directly impacted. It may have been indirectly.
Speaker 1: But his TV and film credits are pretty lackluster up
Speaker 1: until the mid sixties, and this film Seconds was his
Speaker 1: first real film role coming out of that Blacklist period. Now,
Speaker 1: after Seconds, he did a lot more TV work, including
Speaker 1: Night Gallery, and played the chairman in two Planet of
Speaker 1: the Apes movies, Escape in Conquest at seventy one and
Speaker 1: seventy two. He was in Serpico in seventy three, the
Speaker 1: al Pacino cop movie. He was in the seventy six
Speaker 1: King Car film Heaven Can Wait in seventy eight, Pritzy's
Speaker 1: Honor in eighty five. Oh, I didn't recognize him at
Speaker 1: all from this, but he was in National Lampoon's Christmas
Speaker 1: Vacation in eighty nine playing Clark Griswold.
Speaker 3: No memory of that, though, I've seen that movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was in You've Got Mail in ninety eight,
Speaker 1: and he played the original Frank Costanza on Seinfeld. I
Speaker 1: either didn't know or had forgotten that this was ever
Speaker 1: a case of someone else ever having played the plot
Speaker 1: before Jerry Stiller and I couldn't find a clear answer.
Speaker 1: It seems like it might have been just scheduling issues
Speaker 1: that the reason they ended up replacing him as playing
Speaker 1: Frank Costanza, but it also may have been a desire
Speaker 1: to go in a new direction with the character. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I can't really imagine him being Frank Costanza
Speaker 1: long term on the show. Likewise, I can't imagine Jerry
Speaker 1: Stiller playing this role in this movie.
Speaker 3: So you know, I really want to give credit to
Speaker 3: Randolph in this role because he's very good, and in
Speaker 3: many ways it's a thankless kind of performance because he
Speaker 3: it's very complex and he's pitch perfect in it. But
Speaker 3: it's a role where he doesn't really get to branch
Speaker 3: out and like offer much emotion, because like the whole
Speaker 3: point is that his character is kind of like unfulfilled
Speaker 3: and unfulfilling. He's just sitting there, like containing all of
Speaker 3: his disappointment within himself and not really getting to express it.
Speaker 3: And this character does have an arc where he goes
Speaker 3: other places, but as we're about to reveal in a minute,
Speaker 3: this actor doesn't get to be there for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the key thing is that as a
Speaker 1: vessel containing these complex emotions that are just straining to
Speaker 1: leak out, like you can see that, you can observe that,
Speaker 1: you can feel that in its performance, and it's not
Speaker 1: it's not a situation where you just have to imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, purely imagine what's going on inside, like you
Speaker 1: can see the gears turning. So excellent performance. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't think i'd really seen much
Speaker 1: of his work before outside of obviously Christmas Vacation, which
Speaker 1: you know, it is perfectly fine. I've seen it a
Speaker 1: million times, but not really a showcase for his work,
Speaker 1: all right. Playing author Hamilton's wife, Emily Hamilton is Francis Reid,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen fourteen through twenty ten. American actor, best
Speaker 1: known in film for her role here, but she also
Speaker 1: acted in nineteen seventy one's The Andromeda Strain soap opera. Fans, however,
Speaker 1: might recognize her from This Is Correct, three three hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety three episodes of Days of Our Lives, in
Speaker 1: which she played Alice Horton from nineteen sixty five through
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: How is that even possible? I don't know.
Speaker 1: It just it sounds astounding, But I guess they just
Speaker 1: really cranked these out. I mean this was like a
Speaker 1: daily show, right.
Speaker 3: That's a sound. I had no idea that show ran
Speaker 3: that long. But also I want to say Francis Reid
Speaker 3: extremely good in this movie in a similarly thankless kind
Speaker 3: of role to to John Randolph here, that she you know,
Speaker 3: she plays a character whose complexity is a lot in
Speaker 3: what she doesn't get to say and doesn't get too emote.
Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah. So I think it's also a solid performance.
Speaker 1: And there's there's kind of a part one in part
Speaker 1: two of it that I think equals thinks out really well.
Speaker 1: All right, the next character we're going to discuss here
Speaker 1: has a different name. It's Antiochus Wilson or Wilson as
Speaker 1: he's mostly referred to. This is the reborn Arthur Hamilton.
Speaker 1: So this is we'll explain, this is the character he becomes.
Speaker 1: He is reborn as this person through like surgical reconstruction
Speaker 1: and through fraudulent documents and so forth. There's a whole
Speaker 1: organization we'll get to that, but basically, one character becomes
Speaker 1: this other take on the Carre and a new actor
Speaker 1: takes over the role. That actor is Rock Hudson, who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty five through nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3: I'm not super well versed on Rock Hudson's career, but
Speaker 3: from what I understand, this was a major departure for
Speaker 3: him that he had mostly done much lighter movies. You know,
Speaker 3: he's known as that, like, he's a handsome guy. He's
Speaker 3: there to like be like the fun, good looking guy
Speaker 3: in like a romance or romantic comedy or something to
Speaker 3: be in a in a dark, brooding, philosophical science fiction
Speaker 3: film like this. I don't think he'd really done anything
Speaker 3: like this, had he?
Speaker 1: No, No, I was looking around. I don't think he'd
Speaker 1: ever done anything that you could classify as horror or
Speaker 1: science fiction or certainly fantasy. And you know, part of that,
Speaker 1: as we've discussed highly successful actors or directors or what
Speaker 1: have you of the day, they generally didn't have to
Speaker 1: do that. It's such an inversion of what we have today,
Speaker 1: where the biggest actors around are you know, almost inevitably,
Speaker 1: with some notable exceptions of it, there no, any of
Speaker 1: these generalities are not going to be one hundred percent,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's not surprising to see someone who's
Speaker 1: won multiple Oscars show up in a Marvel movie or
Speaker 1: in you know, whatever the or Star Wars or what
Speaker 1: have you. But back in the day, you know, as
Speaker 1: we've discussed on these various genre pictures, they were lower
Speaker 1: down on the pecking order, and so yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: surprising to find a situation where rockets and had never
Speaker 1: been in a movie that had robots or aliens or
Speaker 1: even you know, the sort of ultimately kind of light,
Speaker 1: sophisticated sci fi, you know, kind of more Twilight Zone
Speaker 1: ish elements that you find in this picture. Like you said,
Speaker 1: he was, I mean he was a nineteen fifties leading
Speaker 1: man perhaps, I mean not just a he was kind
Speaker 1: of the nineteen fifties leading man. He's the top build
Speaker 1: actor in this film. And he was easily one of
Speaker 1: the biggest, if not biggest movie stars off his era.
Speaker 1: His main film roles were stuff like his biggest pictures anyway,
Speaker 1: from the fifties were stuff like All That Heaven Allows
Speaker 1: Written on the Wind and Pillar Talk. These are all
Speaker 1: movies where you look at you can pull him up
Speaker 1: now on the database of your choice, and all the
Speaker 1: posters prominently feature his character romantically embracing the lead actress.
Speaker 1: That is not the case with Seconds. No, so so yeah,
Speaker 1: going into that, this was a departure. And I'm to
Speaker 1: understand he was not Frankenheimer's first choice for the role.
Speaker 1: Apparently Frankenheimer considered Rock Hudson to you know, to be
Speaker 1: maybe a lighter weight actor. Ultimately, you know, he's the
Speaker 1: he's the rom com guy, he's the heart throb guy.
Speaker 1: He's like, I need somebody like a Bert Lancaster. But
Speaker 1: ultimately he gets sold on Rock Hudson, like his agent says,
Speaker 1: you know, no, Hudson can do this. He's excited for
Speaker 1: this role. And and in thees, so Frankenheimer was proved
Speaker 1: wrong and has admitted as such. And and I know,
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree. I think Hudson's performance in this is great.
Speaker 1: I think he perfectly captures this sense of the reborn
Speaker 1: in Seconds.
Speaker 3: Fully agree. I wouldn't want anybody else in this role.
Speaker 3: I think he's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, he's playing a character that's outwardly strong
Speaker 1: and confident, you know, a complete transformation from his previous incarnation.
Speaker 1: But inside, you know, there's still this uncertainty, there's perhaps
Speaker 1: this sense of inadequacy, and you can see all of
Speaker 1: that happening. You know, it just was I was worried,
Speaker 1: honestly because the first performance of this character, John Randolph's
Speaker 1: performance is so strong. I was like, even not being
Speaker 1: that familiar with Rock Hudson's work, I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if Hudson's going to really be able to
Speaker 1: pull this off, or we're going to feel it's going
Speaker 1: to feel unequal. But I really think that he pulls
Speaker 1: off a great performance here, and yeah, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: it being any different now. Hudson would go on to
Speaker 1: appear in two more films you could qualify as science
Speaker 1: fiction nineteen seventy six is Embryo in nineteen eighties, The
Speaker 1: Martian Chronicles, and the various other films. I think he's
Speaker 1: in an avalanche movie that was covered on Mystery Science
Speaker 1: Theater at some point late in his career. Much has
Speaker 1: been written about Hudson's personal life, as he was a
Speaker 1: gay man working at a time and in a position
Speaker 1: that did not permit him to live openly as such,
Speaker 1: and this is also factored into a fair amount of
Speaker 1: film analysis. You know, retrospectively concerning seconds. But any way
Speaker 1: you shake it, any way you look at it, this
Speaker 1: is now largely considered to be one of his best performances.
Speaker 1: I think I read that it's a performance that Hudson
Speaker 1: himself was very proud of, and I think with good reason.
Speaker 3: Here here hats off to Rock Hudson.
Speaker 1: This is one of those episodes where we don't really
Speaker 1: get to harp on anybody or critique anybody's performance. It's
Speaker 1: like every one of them is like, Wow, they nailed it,
Speaker 1: absolutely well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how it is across the board. I feel
Speaker 3: like everybody did great work here.
Speaker 1: Now up next, we have Salome Gents playing Nora Marcus
Speaker 1: Or nineteen thirty five American modern dancer turned actor of stage,
Speaker 1: screen and TV. Her first major role was playing the
Speaker 1: Future Woman in nineteen fifty eight Terror from the Year
Speaker 1: of five thousand, a movie some of you misties out
Speaker 1: there might remember from Mystery Smith's Theater three thousand. It's
Speaker 1: not actually that memorable a film, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people probably saw it through MST. She played the title
Speaker 1: role in nineteen sixty one's Angel Baby, which starred George
Speaker 1: Hamilton and was the film debut of Bert Reynolds pre Mustache.
Speaker 1: Of course, she was in sixty five's The Fool Killer
Speaker 1: opposite Anthony Perkins, and then comes Seconds in which she
Speaker 1: plays this captivating character Nora that our protagonist encounters in
Speaker 1: his new life in bohemian California.
Speaker 3: She is a self actualized free spirit who has taken
Speaker 3: her life into her own hands, and she represents, in
Speaker 3: a way, I think, the potential to live life in
Speaker 3: freedom and self determination.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's so alive, but to the degree that, at
Speaker 1: least through the lens of our main character, you know,
Speaker 1: she is exciting and full of promise, but also maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit intimidating and frightening. And I think it's
Speaker 1: all played perfectly. It's a very lively and charismatic performance.
Speaker 1: So hats off to Solome gens here. She worked a
Speaker 1: lot after this, mostly on TV, but her TV credentials
Speaker 1: are really solid, including The Outer Limits, the original Outer Limits.
Speaker 1: She was also in a single episode of Tales from
Speaker 1: the Cryptomaniac at Large. That one's notable because that one
Speaker 1: was directed by John Frankenheimer. That was a pretty solid episode.
Speaker 1: That was one that we actually discussed on a past
Speaker 1: anthology of Horror for stuff to blow your mind. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: that one had adam Ant in it. You might recall
Speaker 1: she also pops up on Star Trek the Next Generation,
Speaker 1: and also had a more substantial role as the female
Speaker 1: shape Shifter on fifteen episodes of Star Trek Deep Space nine.
Speaker 1: She narrated nineteen eighty six's Clan of the Cave Bear
Speaker 1: and did other voice work late in her career. All right,
Speaker 1: So at the heart of this movie, there's a sinister
Speaker 1: corporation that is called The Company, and it has various
Speaker 1: individuals working in it. I'm going to go lighter on
Speaker 1: the backgrounds on these actors, just because I don't want
Speaker 1: to spend the entire podcast just talking about the Stellar cast.
Speaker 1: But heading this up, or seemingly heading this up, is
Speaker 1: the Old Man, played by Will Gear, who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: oh two through nineteen seventy eight, botanist turned actor and
Speaker 1: lifelong activists who also found himself blacklisted in nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: Hollywood after refusing to name names before Congress. Other films
Speaker 1: of note include nineteen sixty sevens In Cold Blood and
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two's Jeremiah Johnson.
Speaker 3: Will Gear really stood out to me, he was perfect
Speaker 3: in his role. I think we can talk more about
Speaker 3: him when we get into the plot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We also have a man by the name of
Speaker 1: mister Ruby, played by Jeff Corey. Jeff Corey lived nineteen
Speaker 1: fourteen through two thousand and two, another stage and screen
Speaker 1: actor blacklisted during the nineteen fifties, also for refusing to
Speaker 1: name names. He became a noted acting teacher during that
Speaker 1: period and worked with a number of future stars. His
Speaker 1: biggest films include sixty nine's True Grit as well as
Speaker 1: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and nineteen seventies Beneath
Speaker 1: the Planet of the Apes. Also the film Little Big
Speaker 1: Man from nineteen seventy. We also have a character named
Speaker 1: Doctor Inni. This is the I guess, the plastic surgeon
Speaker 1: that works for the company, and he is played by
Speaker 1: Richard Anderson, who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: American actor, best known on screen for supporting roles in
Speaker 1: fifty eight Paths of Glory, fifty nine's Compulsion, and fifty
Speaker 1: six's Forbidden Planet. On TV, he played Oscar Goldman, who
Speaker 1: is the boss of both the six Million Dollar Man
Speaker 1: and the six million Dollar Woman, or I guess like
Speaker 1: the twelve million dollar man in Woman. There's also another
Speaker 1: interesting character in the company, a character named Devallo, and
Speaker 1: he's played by the actor Kay d who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: ten through nineteen ninety one, an American actor of Anglo
Speaker 1: Egyptian Sudanese ancestry who tended to play characters of Asian
Speaker 1: descent in various pictures and TV projects from nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: through about nineteen ninety. His other big film was nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two's The Manchurian Candidate, where he played the brainwashing
Speaker 1: expert doctor Yen Lowe.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay. In this movie, he has an interesting role.
Speaker 3: It's a very small role, but an interesting moment in
Speaker 3: the plot where he is there to sort of illicit
Speaker 3: confessions and monologues from the clients of this company to
Speaker 3: sort of reveal their hidden true desires. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's a similar feel, I guess in some ways
Speaker 1: to this character from The Manchurian Candidate and also a
Speaker 1: wonderful mustache. Yes, we also have a character named John.
Speaker 1: We don't know his last name, he's just John. We'll
Speaker 1: discuss his role and everything in a bit, but he's
Speaker 1: played by Wesley Addie, who lived nineteen thirteen through nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six stage and screen actor, best known for nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty fives, Kissed Me Deadly, nineteen seventies, Tora Tora Torah
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six's Network. All Right, moving outside of
Speaker 1: the company here we have another character or not completely
Speaker 1: outside of the company, but another character encounter is a
Speaker 1: character named Charlie, and he's played by Murray Hamilton, who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty three through nineteen eighty six stage and
Speaker 1: screen actor who might not be as recognizable to many
Speaker 1: in this film. But Joe, where do you know this
Speaker 1: guy from?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: This is the Mayor from Jaws in a way, playing
Speaker 3: the same kind of squirrely scammer he is in Jaws.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. This is Mayor Vaughn from the first two
Speaker 1: Jaws movies. He was also mister Robinson in sixty seven's
Speaker 1: The Graduate and Father Ryan in The Amityville Horror from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 3: It is weird seeing him without one of his signature
Speaker 3: blazers from Jaws. By the way, if you've never noticed
Speaker 3: in Jaws before the Jackets that Mayor Vaughn wears, they
Speaker 3: are words can't even describe just chef kiss. I want
Speaker 3: them all in my closet. One of them is an
Speaker 3: anchor print. It's just got a little anchors all over it.
Speaker 3: And another one is rob look at the one with
Speaker 3: the parallel lines. I don't even know how to describe this.
Speaker 1: Wow, I went. I would be very surprised if someone's
Speaker 1: not putting these out again now, because I'm served ads
Speaker 1: of lake for reproductions of like shirt prints from like
Speaker 1: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other films like
Speaker 1: this is like people have realized that people just want
Speaker 1: to wear that shirt. So how long until this blazer
Speaker 1: with all the anchors on it is out? When people realize, hey,
Speaker 1: as I, you know, settle into the late middle age,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to start wearing jackets, like
Speaker 1: like the mayor from Jaws does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Amity, as you know, means friendship.
Speaker 1: All right. The music in this film is by Jerry Goldsmith,
Speaker 1: who lived twenty nine through two thousand and four. His
Speaker 1: work has come up on Weird House previously, I believe
Speaker 1: in the Congo episode and in the Grimlins two episode.
Speaker 1: So I won't go really deep here or anything, but
Speaker 1: suffice to say, a very successful and prolific film composer,
Speaker 1: and I think this score hits all the right notes.
Speaker 1: It really leans into the melodrama where that's appropriate, and
Speaker 1: certainly into the paranoia.
Speaker 3: I agree. I think this very strong score really does
Speaker 3: help but drive home the paranoia. But another thing, probably
Speaker 3: the thing that more than anything else, really sets the
Speaker 3: tone of paranoia is the excellent cinematography.
Speaker 1: That's right, and this is the work of James Wong Howe.
Speaker 1: Howe lived eighteen ninety nine through nineteen seventy six, and
Speaker 1: he's actually the reason this film initially popped up on
Speaker 1: my radar. That was because I was reading about notable
Speaker 1: Asian American film industry folks and James Wong Howe is
Speaker 1: considered one of the best cinematographers of all time, a
Speaker 1: real master of shadow. Was highly sought after for multiple decades,
Speaker 1: ultimately earned ten Oscar nominations, including for this film, and
Speaker 1: one two of them they're only like when I I
Speaker 1: was looking into him, I was like, well, hopefully this
Speaker 1: guy did some weird films, something that we could discuss
Speaker 1: for weird House. And out of all the movies he did,
Speaker 1: I think only two or three classify it, but this
Speaker 1: was one of them, and I'm glad we went with
Speaker 1: this one.
Speaker 3: Another one I think was Mark of the Vampire, right,
Speaker 3: which is a vampire movie famous for having kind of
Speaker 3: a Scooby Doo ending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's a Todd Browning. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: look gorgeous. Nineteen thirty five has a great cast, but
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the Todd Browning film we need
Speaker 1: to watch. So this one was I think the right
Speaker 1: choice for James Wonghow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I haven't seen that other movie, but you can't
Speaker 3: be disappointed with his work on this one. It's just amazing.
Speaker 1: So how was born in China, but his father went
Speaker 1: to work in America for the Northern Pacific Railway and
Speaker 1: eventually was able to bring his family over as well.
Speaker 1: I think how would have been four or five at
Speaker 1: the time. His father eventually ran a general store in
Speaker 1: Washington State, and Howe got his young hands on an
Speaker 1: Eastman Kodak Brownie camera, which I'm to understand was kind
Speaker 1: of like his This was where things would begin his
Speaker 1: interest in photography and a old time mintly cinematography. Now,
Speaker 1: as he grew older, he tried his hand at a
Speaker 1: few different career paths, but eventually worked his way into
Speaker 1: first commercial photography and then cinematography in la during the
Speaker 1: Silent film era. He did assistant camera and clapper work
Speaker 1: as early as nineteen nineteen, but served as cinematographer for
Speaker 1: the first time on nineteen twenty three's Drums of Fate,
Speaker 1: due apparently in part to star Mary Miles Minter, who
Speaker 1: took note of Howell's technical ability capturing I believe the
Speaker 1: darkness in her eyes. He had some trick for photographing
Speaker 1: her just the right way, and she's like, well, this
Speaker 1: is the guy, this is who I want to work with,
Speaker 1: and work he did. He worked steadily throughout the twenties, thirties,
Speaker 1: and forties, and became highly sought after, working with such
Speaker 1: directors as Howard Hawks again Todd Browning. He worked on
Speaker 1: such films as nineteen thirty four as The Thin Man.
Speaker 1: He was also the uncredited cinematographer on those orchestra segments
Speaker 1: in Disney's Fantasia in nineteen forty woh Okay. He made
Speaker 1: numerous technological innovations as well, and ultimately cemented his place
Speaker 1: as an innovator and master, particularly of shadow as well
Speaker 1: as deep focused cinematography now in many respects, Yeah, his
Speaker 1: is a great Chinese American success story, but it's also
Speaker 1: essential to realize a lot of what he was up against.
Speaker 1: He couldn't obtain US citizenship till the nineteen forties due
Speaker 1: to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which ran from eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: two through nineteen forty three. And he also could neither
Speaker 1: legally marry or publicly acknowledge his wife, Sonora Babb until
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties due to California laws against interracial marriage
Speaker 1: and the moral clause of his studio contract, which I
Speaker 1: think that the basic idea is there, like he couldn't
Speaker 1: legally marry her, and then due to the moral clause
Speaker 1: of his contract, he could not like publicly be in
Speaker 1: a relationship with her, that sort of thing. Then, during
Speaker 1: the years of the Hollywood Blacklist, his wife was blacklisted
Speaker 1: for alleged Communist sympathies, and Howl himself was gray listed.
Speaker 1: This forced them to move to Mexico for a period,
Speaker 1: though year by year his output seemed to remain pretty
Speaker 1: steady by the look of things, so you know, one
Speaker 1: way or another, he was still finding projects to work on.
Speaker 1: Other films of note that he worked on include nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six's The Rose Tattoo, This was his first oscar win,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight's The Old Man in the Sea, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three's Hud that's also one that won him an Oscar,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eights, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies The Molly Maguires, and nineteen seventy five's Funny Lady.
Speaker 1: This was his last film for which he was also
Speaker 1: nominated for an Oscar. He also has eight directorial credits
Speaker 1: to his name, including nineteen fifty four's Go Man, Go
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight's Invisible Danger. But again, his work
Speaker 1: in this film is just tremendous. I think you've never
Speaker 1: seen a film that he worked on like this is
Speaker 1: a perfect starting place.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, yeah, all right, we ready to talk about the plot.
Speaker 1: Let's do it, all right.
Speaker 3: So I found myself thinking we probably shouldn't do a
Speaker 3: detailed scene by scene recap of this one like we
Speaker 3: do in some episodes. Actually, this movie got me thinking
Speaker 3: about which movies feel right for that and which ones don't. Somehow,
Speaker 3: I think it's the campier or sillier outings that really
Speaker 3: invite the more minute scene by scene treatment, and for
Speaker 3: some reason, the more weighty and serious dramas don't. I
Speaker 3: don't exactly know why that is, but that does seem
Speaker 3: to be the general trend.
Speaker 1: A lot of times we kind of breathe life into
Speaker 1: the spaces where there's not life, and yeah, a film
Speaker 1: like this, it's like all the spaces are occupied, all
Speaker 1: the spaces are meaningful, and they don't necessarily need us
Speaker 1: to interpret them exactly.
Speaker 3: So something would feel kind of cheap I think about
Speaker 3: looking at it too closely. So instead we're going to
Speaker 3: zoom in and zoom out a little bit. But one
Speaker 3: place I do want to start zoomed in is the
Speaker 3: very beginning with the opening credits, where we have dissonant
Speaker 3: mechanical music, almost like the sound of a kind of
Speaker 3: scanning device emitting a signal that there is something being
Speaker 3: detected right here. It made me think of the motion
Speaker 3: trackers and aliens, but I don't know, some kind of
Speaker 3: music like that. And then you also have dark, moody
Speaker 3: strings and minor chords on the organ. Again, this is
Speaker 3: a score by Jerry Goldsmith kind of reminds me in
Speaker 3: a way of some of Howard Shore's music for like
Speaker 3: David Cronenberg movies. Yeah, that would come later, of course.
Speaker 3: And throughout the credit sequence we have extreme close ups
Speaker 3: on human facial features with a kind of fun house
Speaker 3: mirror effect. Everything is warped and inverting upon itself, lips, teeth, ears, eyes,
Speaker 3: and then there's one part that's kind of funny with
Speaker 3: the name Rock Hudson appearing across the sclare of a
Speaker 3: tortured eyeball, and then finally a face covered in cloth wrapping,
Speaker 3: almost like a ski mask, but I think it is
Speaker 3: supposed to be bandages.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: It's a note that the one and only Saw Bass
Speaker 1: is credited with the titles here. He of course directed
Speaker 1: Phase four, the ant movie that we discussed on the
Speaker 1: show previously, though to just call it an and movie
Speaker 1: is almost a disservice. That was his one and only
Speaker 1: feature directing credit. But the man's main bread and butter
Speaker 1: was this sort of work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like main titles and credit sequences and stuff posters
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these are great, but again but kind of
Speaker 1: to your point, if you don't want to look up
Speaker 1: anybody's nose or into someone's ear, if that's like a
Speaker 1: real turn off for you you might want to skip
Speaker 1: this section of the movie.
Speaker 3: Well, if you got that kind of constitution, you might
Speaker 3: just not want to watch seconds. Yeah, so the movie begins.
Speaker 3: You were speaking earlier about the paranoid cinematography, and there's
Speaker 3: a great example of that right at the beginning. The
Speaker 3: movie begins with a man moving through a train station.
Speaker 3: I think it's actually Grand Central station. It is, And
Speaker 3: there is a type of shot that I believe occurs
Speaker 3: several times in the film where the camera is kind
Speaker 3: of floating over the man's shoulder from behind and following
Speaker 3: him very tightly as he moves. It's almost like it's
Speaker 3: glued to him. And this has, for some reason a
Speaker 3: very unsettling paranoid effect. It's like the feeling of an
Speaker 3: unseen spirit chasing and observing your every move.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, this movie doesn't play around with these the
Speaker 1: feeling of something unsettling about the nature of reality.
Speaker 3: And so it's following this man through a train station.
Speaker 3: We see this man moving, and then another man who's
Speaker 3: always sort of photographed from the middle of the face
Speaker 3: up I believe, with like the brim of his hat
Speaker 3: down in in a kind of sinister way, following behind him.
Speaker 3: So the man who's walking ahead turns out to be
Speaker 3: our protagonist, Arthur Hamilton, and the stranger who's following him
Speaker 3: follows him through the crowd, down the stairs, all the
Speaker 3: way onto a train and then suddenly calls out his
Speaker 3: name and hands him an address written on a piece
Speaker 3: of paper and then departs, leaving Arthur just standing there
Speaker 3: on the train baffled. What is this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the whole setup, it's like, what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: Is so I'm going to be stabbed or shot? You know,
Speaker 1: there's a handoff of a note, and somehow that makes
Speaker 1: it all the more sinister because you know, especially from
Speaker 1: the individual's reaction, like there's something really wrong about about
Speaker 1: what just happened. Nothing good will come of this.
Speaker 3: I guess we should take a moment to describe Arthur
Speaker 3: the man here. What is his vibe?
Speaker 1: Well, it's like we kind of discussed earlier. He has
Speaker 1: a vessel, an unleaking vessel, straining with all sorts of
Speaker 1: uncomfortable emotions. He is not comfortable in his own flesh,
Speaker 1: in his own body. He's a man in his I
Speaker 1: mean to be accurate, I mean the actor himself was
Speaker 1: in his early fifties at this point though it's nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: early fifties, which is kind of a different animal than
Speaker 1: we tend to have nowadays. You know, a lot is
Speaker 1: said and commented upon regarding like differences in aging, or
Speaker 1: aimingly difference that there are differences in aging, et cetera.
Speaker 3: I think the way he plays it and the way
Speaker 3: he's made up in photographed just makes him feel older
Speaker 3: than he actually is. Yeah, So we learn a bit
Speaker 3: about Arthur's life. We see him interacting with his wife,
Speaker 3: We see him at work. He is a moderately successful
Speaker 3: man in middle age. He's a banker. He obviously has
Speaker 3: a steady income and some accumulated wealth. He has a
Speaker 3: very nice home. He has a wife and an adult
Speaker 3: daughter who is out of the home now she lives
Speaker 3: with her husband in another state. And yet he seems
Speaker 3: rather unhappy with his life. And this doesn't come from
Speaker 3: overt expressions of emotion, but rather from kind of what
Speaker 3: is unsaid and his something kind of straining underneath the surface.
Speaker 3: We see him at his job, where he obviously makes
Speaker 3: a very good living. It seems he could hardly complain
Speaker 3: about that, and yet he is just clearly bored with
Speaker 3: his work and preoccupied. We see means of Arthur and
Speaker 3: his wife Emily interacting, and there's an interesting approach here.
Speaker 3: I feel like a lesser film might have made their
Speaker 3: relationship more strife ridden or more strained. But they don't fight,
Speaker 3: they're not overtly unhappy. They are basically loving and supportive
Speaker 3: of one another. But there's something kind of intangible missing.
Speaker 3: You get the sense that their marriage is basically celibate,
Speaker 3: and that they're like in that he reads this in
Speaker 3: a way that's just kind of gray and disappointing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like he's not like a lesser film would have
Speaker 1: also made him just completely cold, and it's not quite
Speaker 1: what's going on. There's this just this this sense of
Speaker 1: like I feel like I should want to and yet
Speaker 1: I cannot. Yeah, sort of thing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's complex.
Speaker 3: And in the middle of all this, Arthur has begun
Speaker 3: receiving strange phone calls in the middle of the night,
Speaker 3: calls that claim to be from someone he knows from
Speaker 3: his old old friend, Charlie, who played They played tennis
Speaker 3: together when they were in college. And at first this
Speaker 3: seems impossible because Charlie died several years before. But one night,
Speaker 3: the man claiming to be Charlie gets Arthur talking and
Speaker 3: he provides all kinds of private details that no one
Speaker 3: would have any way of knowing. It has to be Charlie.
Speaker 3: But how could he be back from the dead. Well,
Speaker 3: Charlie tells Arthur to go to the address the man
Speaker 3: on the train gave him. He sort of like gives
Speaker 3: him this this exhortation. I think he I don't recall exactly.
Speaker 3: I think he also sort of implies like, you've got
Speaker 3: to do it for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, I'm not going to go into great detail about this,
Speaker 3: but this does lead to a kind of hunt sequence
Speaker 3: where where Arthur decides that he does have to go
Speaker 3: find this place, this address, and he goes to this
Speaker 3: laundromat where he's asking around about it. I liked this
Speaker 3: whole sequence because it's not exactly easy to find the
Speaker 3: thing that Arthur is looking for, and he doesn't even
Speaker 3: know what it is he's looking for. He's looking for
Speaker 3: an unknown and yet he's he's going to all these
Speaker 3: lengths to find it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and really going through you know, the underbelly
Speaker 1: of the world here, like the laundry mat where you know,
Speaker 1: where where the garments are washed and pressed and they're
Speaker 1: steam and sweat going through. Then this there's this whole
Speaker 1: scene where they're going through this like meat processing place
Speaker 1: where you know, obviously big swabs of meat is taking place,
Speaker 1: animals are being processed, and people are walking around and
Speaker 1: in smocks, uh, you know, and the whole time we're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what's gonna what's gonna happen? Author you
Speaker 1: should really really be walking in I don't want to
Speaker 1: say confidently, because he doesn't really do anything with confidence,
Speaker 1: but it's there's it's a very sinister ara to everything.
Speaker 3: I think the significance of the meat packing plant has
Speaker 3: the gateway to his final destination will make a lot
Speaker 3: more sense once you see the end of the film. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So eventually Arthur meets someone who knows what he's looking for,
Speaker 3: and they sort of like they load him into the
Speaker 3: back of a truck because he can't see where he's going,
Speaker 3: and he is transported into the bowels of some large
Speaker 3: building with no windows, to the heart of a secretive organization,
Speaker 3: and they have a proposition for him. They say, Arthur,
Speaker 3: what if you could have another chance at life? In fact,
Speaker 3: we know that you are unhappy with your life, you
Speaker 3: are not satisfied. What if you could start over somewhere
Speaker 3: else and have the life that you really wanted, that
Speaker 3: you know you should have had to begin with. This
Speaker 3: company claims they can give that to you. Now, they
Speaker 3: charge a very hefty fee they're going to take. I
Speaker 3: think they say it's thirty thousand dollars, which is a
Speaker 3: lot in the money of the time. But they can
Speaker 3: do this impossible thing. They will stage your death, freeing
Speaker 3: you from your family and work obligations, and they will
Speaker 3: give you advanced plastic surgery basically full body plastic surgery
Speaker 3: to completely transform your identity and appearance. So they can
Speaker 3: take this bored middle aged man and his boring gray
Speaker 3: life and transform him into the man he wishes he
Speaker 3: could be. Now there's an interesting ripple here because at
Speaker 3: first Arthur seems very hesitant. But they say, well, we
Speaker 3: know everybody actually wants this, but they're going to feel
Speaker 3: unable to say yes. So to help you along with
Speaker 3: your decision, we have removed that choice for you with
Speaker 3: the help of blackmail. So they say, when you first arrived,
Speaker 3: we drugged you and we took photos staging a fake
Speaker 3: sexual assault with you as the perpetrator, and if you
Speaker 3: try to leave, we'll release the photos. So you have
Speaker 3: no choice. You have to say yes. But this is
Speaker 3: presented as we're doing you a favor because we know
Speaker 3: you want to agree to this. You just don't feel
Speaker 3: like you can. Now you don't have a choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like we both know you want to leave
Speaker 1: this lot in a new car. To help you out,
Speaker 1: we went ahead and set your old car on fire. Yes,
Speaker 1: and all this is played very well, like you can
Speaker 1: see just how uncomfortable and afraid he becomes at this,
Speaker 1: and the whole setup for it is also like hypnotic
Speaker 1: and disturbing. So already we're well into the twilight zone here.
Speaker 3: Right, But despite all of his hesitation and fear, Arthur
Speaker 3: does agree. So he undergoes plastic surgery and then a
Speaker 3: serious rehabilitation course and is transformed from his boring, doe
Speaker 3: middle aged self into Rock Hudson, a lithe, dashingly handsome
Speaker 3: and glamorous man, and he's given a full new identity.
Speaker 3: He's a man called Antiochus Wilson. Now, of course, since
Speaker 3: the company faked his death and committed all this fraud,
Speaker 3: he has to keep his past life absolutely secret, so
Speaker 3: he can't go around saying, you know, I used to
Speaker 3: be this other guy. He has to just pretend all
Speaker 3: he is is antioch As Wilson, that other life never existed.
Speaker 3: During this process, he undergoes therap sessions to sort of
Speaker 3: I think it's to uncover his true desires. And there's
Speaker 3: a theme that emerges during these therapy sessions that'll come
Speaker 3: up a couple of times in the film, where I
Speaker 3: think they put him under hypnosis and record the things
Speaker 3: he's talking about, and before he gets into talking about
Speaker 3: the things that they try to actualize, there are moments
Speaker 3: where he kind of regresses into childhood desires and he
Speaker 3: keeps talking about a big red ball. So there's this
Speaker 3: establishment of a theme that becoming free to actually seek
Speaker 3: one's true desires is in a way a kind of
Speaker 3: regression into more and more immature objects of desire. But
Speaker 3: they find through all this process that Arthur actually always
Speaker 3: had an interest in painting. We find out later that
Speaker 3: he sort of had a watercolor hobby. You know, he
Speaker 3: would do little paintings, but he never got to really
Speaker 3: pursue this because, of course, you know, he's trying to
Speaker 3: have a serious career as a banker. So they set
Speaker 3: him up as a professional painter with a house on
Speaker 3: the West coast, and they send him off to settle
Speaker 3: into his new life where he has like a butler
Speaker 3: or a valet. I think the guy's name is John,
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 1: This is John the Silver Fox.
Speaker 3: Yes, the butler who is provided by the company, who
Speaker 3: attends to all of his needs. He's got this nice,
Speaker 3: swanky house, he lives on the beach. He has this exciting,
Speaker 3: glamorous life where he can do whatever he wants, and
Speaker 3: he has all these friends, and he has this exciting
Speaker 3: career with actual artistic fulfillment. Now he gets to be
Speaker 3: the painter that he thinks he really should have been.
Speaker 3: He also meets an exciting woman, a woman named Nora
Speaker 3: Marcus played by salome A Gens, and she's like a
Speaker 3: free spirit who also left her previous life behind. Of course,
Speaker 3: he can't admit that he did this. And they meet
Speaker 3: and get to know one another, and they bond, and
Speaker 3: eventually there's a scene where they attend like a literal
Speaker 3: bacchan al together a bunch of hippies get naked and
Speaker 3: they're like chugging and playing musical instruments and stomping on
Speaker 3: grapes and.
Speaker 1: A big vat Yeah, some obvious jazz cigarettes being smoked
Speaker 1: at this event. I can come back to one second
Speaker 1: to one second for the whole idea of them setting
Speaker 1: him up as an artist. There was one of the
Speaker 1: many scenes where the company men are talking him through
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. There was one scene in particular.
Speaker 1: I thought it was really good because he's he's they're
Speaker 1: showing him the paintings that they have provided that he
Speaker 1: they're setting him up with his portfolio of his previous
Speaker 1: work and talking about, you know, and then you'll you'll
Speaker 1: change up your style a bit and you'll do something different,
Speaker 1: and and they he has some hesitation about this, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's like I really I don't have that level
Speaker 1: of ability. And they're like, it doesn't matter, because you
Speaker 1: will be established. And I thought that was that was
Speaker 1: very chilling and kind of kind of cutting, and one
Speaker 1: of the many moments in the film that you know
Speaker 1: isn't about like, you know, high levels of anxiety or fear,
Speaker 1: but it's just very solid.
Speaker 3: I totally agree, and in fact, I think we see
Speaker 3: it with like the Wild the bakan a, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: the party lifestyle, and with his supposedly fulfilling artistic career.
Speaker 3: In both of these cases we since that despite him
Speaker 3: quote getting what he wants, something is very wrong and
Speaker 3: very empty with this life. There's a scene where he paints,
Speaker 3: and that the scene is just painful because, as you
Speaker 3: said earlier, like there so they establish his reputation as
Speaker 3: an artist by buying paintings done by someone else, faking
Speaker 3: them as his, passing them off as his, and now
Speaker 3: he gets to paint. When he goes to paint, it's
Speaker 3: it's obvious he's not happy doing it, Like he may
Speaker 3: have been happy in his previous life doing his little
Speaker 3: amateur watercolors, but now that he is supposed to be
Speaker 3: a serious painter and he realizes he's not like satisfied
Speaker 3: with the paintings that he can produce with his own hand,
Speaker 3: something is very like gnawing at him about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it's it's been taken out of like
Speaker 1: the organic pattern of his life, and now it's presented
Speaker 1: in this unnatural state, and therefore it's not fulfilling because
Speaker 1: the things that made it fulfilling and and made it desirable.
Speaker 1: All of those conditions have been removed.
Speaker 3: He may have not been able to be a painter professionally,
Speaker 3: but in his other life when he was painting, at
Speaker 3: least that was an honest pursuit. And now it's all
Speaker 3: a fraud. Yeah, So that that emptiness comes through in
Speaker 3: the painting scene. But there are also the scenes where
Speaker 3: he like, he has these parties where he uh, you know,
Speaker 3: is drinking and doing drugs and you know, having this
Speaker 3: exciting lifestyle. But then he gets drunk and he blabs
Speaker 3: about his previous life.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, does he get drunk. He this is such
Speaker 1: a like, these are such cringey scenes, Like I'm tempted
Speaker 1: to compare them to like something you would see on
Speaker 1: I think you should leave, yes, yeah, because but without
Speaker 1: the comedy, you know, just like that level of windful,
Speaker 1: it is painful to watch. I mean, he's it's beyond like,
Speaker 1: oh he's a funny drunk or and he's just like
Speaker 1: a he gets sloppy drunk where you characters are trying
Speaker 1: to say you shouldn't drink anymore or you should leave,
Speaker 1: and he keeps going.
Speaker 3: And there is a scene where at one point he
Speaker 3: gets drunk and he starts blabbing about his previous life,
Speaker 3: and some people from the party have to grab him
Speaker 3: and take him into his bedroom and explain to him,
Speaker 3: you need to keep your mouth shut, because it turns
Speaker 3: out all of his new friends, they're not necessarily like
Speaker 3: organic friends. Most of these people at the party, maybe
Speaker 3: not all of them, are also people living second lives.
Speaker 3: They're also born yes, they're also reborns. And they're like,
Speaker 3: you're gonna spoil this for all of us if, like
Speaker 3: the company gets exposed, if we get found out too,
Speaker 3: you got to shut up. And you got to think
Speaker 3: that that also sort of cheapens it for him, right,
Speaker 3: that like all of his so called friends are also frauds.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So this leads to a break where he ends up
Speaker 3: going back to visit his wife. As rock Hudson. He
Speaker 3: doesn't say like, hey, you know, I'm your husband, remember me.
Speaker 3: She is still going on under the impression that her
Speaker 3: husband died in a fire in a hotel room, which
Speaker 3: is what the company staged for him and Rock Hudson.
Speaker 3: He pretends to be a friend of her late husband's,
Speaker 3: and so he goes to visit the house and speaks
Speaker 3: to her, I think he's like, hey, you know, I
Speaker 3: maybe wanted I'm a painter and I wanted to paint
Speaker 3: a portrait of your husband because he was a friend
Speaker 3: of mine. He also asks about the watercolors. He's like,
Speaker 3: you know your husband's watercolors? Do you still have them?
Speaker 3: And it's interesting there's an unresolved thing from this conversation.
Speaker 3: I wonder what you made of this where she's like, oh,
Speaker 3: the watercolors. Yeah, and he's like, did you get rid
Speaker 3: of them? And she says not exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was expecting there to be some follow up,
Speaker 1: like maybe she donated them somewhere or they were painted over.
Speaker 1: I don't know, because in a sense, I mean, his
Speaker 1: life has been painted over, right, But yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't get the second beat on that really.
Speaker 3: But she actually in the scene has insights about her
Speaker 3: late husband, very cutting ones, the kind of thing that
Speaker 3: you know, she never would have said to him when
Speaker 3: she thought he was alive, And she says that she
Speaker 3: thinks he spent his life trying to acquire what he
Speaker 3: had been taught to want, you know, a good job,
Speaker 3: a steady income, a nice home, a family, and yet
Speaker 3: he was deeply unsatisfied, she says, that it was like
Speaker 3: there was something he always wanted to say, but he
Speaker 3: couldn't say it. He was just holding it in. And
Speaker 3: in the background in this scene, we know that now
Speaker 3: he's gotten all of the things that he yearned for
Speaker 3: when he was unsatisfied with his previous life, the life
Speaker 3: he had when he pursued what he had been taught
Speaker 3: to want. So there's the second order thing, the things
Speaker 3: he thinks he really wanted, his genuine one, good looks, glamour,
Speaker 3: artistic expression, excitement, sex, drugs, bacchanalia. And yet we can
Speaker 3: tell that he is not at all happy by acquiring
Speaker 3: these things either. There is a deep hollowness and fraudulence
Speaker 3: and anxiety at the core of his new existence. So
Speaker 3: his wife sends him away with a memento of her
Speaker 3: late husband. It's his tennis trophy, which is is a
Speaker 3: callback to a scene earlier where when his friend Charlie
Speaker 3: called him on the phone and said, hey, you know
Speaker 3: this is really me. You can know because look on
Speaker 3: the underside of our tennis trophy from the doubles tournament.
Speaker 3: We carved this into the bottom. I think it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, fidelis Eternia or something, and So when Antiochus
Speaker 3: Wilson leaves the house, he is picked up by John,
Speaker 3: the valet from the company, in a car and he says,
Speaker 3: I want to go back, and John says, of course, sir.
Speaker 3: He says, no, no, no, I don't mean to California.
Speaker 3: I want to go back to the company. I want
Speaker 3: to start again again. Is it possible, Anti kis Wilson
Speaker 3: can die, can't he? And John says, I think that
Speaker 3: can be arranged, sir. So they go back to the
Speaker 3: company and here Rock Hudson meets with his caseworker and
Speaker 3: they explained to him, yeah, we can set you up
Speaker 3: with a new life once again. You know, sometimes this happens.
Speaker 3: People are not satisfied with their second life. They need another.
Speaker 3: But before we do that, we do need you to
Speaker 3: do something for us. We would ask you to sponsor
Speaker 3: someone else for our programs. Someone you know obviously, you
Speaker 3: know you must know tons of people who would be
Speaker 3: good candidates. We just need you to give us a name,
Speaker 3: somebody we can get in touch with, and we might
Speaker 3: need you to stay on hand to help them, maybe
Speaker 3: make some phone calls to them to make sure that
Speaker 3: you know that they end up in our care. And
Speaker 3: this makes sense because they can't add what they do
Speaker 3: is illegal. They can't advertise on the news in the newspaper.
Speaker 3: They have to operate on a personal referral basis. And
Speaker 3: here it becomes clear there was a payoff of a
Speaker 3: waiting room that Arthur Hamilton went into earlier in the movie.
Speaker 3: That's full of men just sitting around, playing cards, reading books,
Speaker 3: hanging out, just seemingly waiting, you know, wiling away the hours.
Speaker 3: Here we meet Murray Hamilton and it turns out this
Speaker 3: is this is Arthur Hamilton's old friend, Charlie, the guy
Speaker 3: from school, except of course he looks nothing like him.
Speaker 3: He has had a second, second life a he is
Speaker 3: a reborn by this company. But it turned out he
Speaker 3: also needed another chance. He also needed to start over again,
Speaker 3: but he couldn't do that until he fulfilled his duty
Speaker 3: for referring Arthur Hamilton here, and they'd had him on
Speaker 3: hand so he could continue making phone calls to him
Speaker 3: and helping him get settled in.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a great vibe with the day roun because
Speaker 1: we saw the dayroom earlier and we saw everyone it
Speaker 1: looked like more like they were working or studying. And
Speaker 1: now we realize they're just passing the time, and we
Speaker 1: also see that they're being given little cups of medication
Speaker 1: to help them pass the time, and that it's this
Speaker 1: kind of limbo between lives with all of them clear
Speaker 1: they are waiting for their next chance to get their
Speaker 1: third life, or perhaps their fourth or fifth, who knows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't know how many times. So but now
Speaker 3: finally the mayor from Jaws is going to get another shot.
Speaker 3: Whatever he blew the last one for some reason, it
Speaker 3: is not what he wanted, so he's going to get
Speaker 3: another one. But now this is where this is where
Speaker 3: Rock Hudson is stuck. And so they say, okay, that's fine,
Speaker 3: we can give you another one, but we do need
Speaker 3: you to refer somebody first, And the problem is he refuses.
Speaker 3: He's like, I can't think of anybody to refer. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: and he's really hung up on he's got to have
Speaker 3: another chance at a new life because he screwed up
Speaker 3: the first one, and you know, he just wanted what
Speaker 3: people taught him to want. The second time, he wanted
Speaker 3: something else, but he didn't do it right. Something wasn't
Speaker 3: right about it. But the third time, then he'll get it,
Speaker 3: then he'll really fulfill his desires.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he expresses that he on his second life, he
Speaker 1: also didn't have input in it like the first life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't have input into what he should want. And
Speaker 1: the second time around, like what did they do? They
Speaker 1: kind of drug some things out of him during hypnosis,
Speaker 1: constructed something for him, and then put him into that slot,
Speaker 1: and so he kind of he felt ultimately trapped in
Speaker 1: an artificial place once more, and he thinks, well, this
Speaker 1: next time, I want lots of input into it. I
Speaker 1: have ideas. Let's work together so that this can work.
Speaker 3: But they keep asking him, you know, we got to
Speaker 3: get a referral. You got to give us somebody, and
Speaker 3: he doesn't. He's just like, I can't think of anybody.
Speaker 3: So then we are finally let after he refuses multiple times,
Speaker 3: he's led to another meeting with the old Man by
Speaker 3: Will Gear, who he spoke to earlier the first time
Speaker 3: he was in the building belonging to the company. Will
Speaker 3: Gear is very good in this role because he's very folksy,
Speaker 3: and he's very soft spoken, and he's just like a sweet,
Speaker 3: sweet old man who talks about his dream of giving
Speaker 3: people what they really want. He knows that so many
Speaker 3: people live lives of kind of quiet misery that they
Speaker 3: just can't can't really commit to living the lives they
Speaker 3: know they should be living, and he wanted to create
Speaker 3: the opportunity for people to have that chance. But then
Speaker 3: he also gets a little real He's like, you know,
Speaker 3: so that is the ideal under which I started the company.
Speaker 3: But the fact is, you know, now we have a
Speaker 3: lot of employees, and we got to make payroll, and
Speaker 3: we have shareholders, and we've got to meet our obligations
Speaker 3: to shareholders. So if we don't have an ongoing you know,
Speaker 3: basis of new referrals coming in, we really can't keep
Speaker 3: doing what we're doing. In order to make the dream work.
Speaker 3: We gotta have money coming in, So you got to
Speaker 3: refer somebody.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, is basically as he puts it is is
Speaker 1: to end human suffering, like he has this, and I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the great things about the Old
Speaker 1: Man particularly, but the company as a whole, well, there's
Speaker 1: almost everything about it is sinister and at times very cold,
Speaker 1: and very also very you know, corporate and so forth.
Speaker 1: It is presented as if like at in its roots anyway,
Speaker 1: it is trying to help people.
Speaker 3: Will geartt. Yeah, he at least thinks he is trying
Speaker 3: to help people. But then, of course, you know, once
Speaker 3: you start, once you start a business, it kind of
Speaker 3: has a it has hungers of its own, like you
Speaker 3: got to you got to keep the lights on. So
Speaker 3: they need the referrals, and he doesn't give them the referrals,
Speaker 3: so they're like, okay, well that's all right. And then
Speaker 3: this leads up to the ending, the the shocking, horrifying
Speaker 3: ending where they strap rock huts into a gurney. He
Speaker 3: thinks he is being taken off to his next plastic
Speaker 3: surgery to get a whole new face, a whole new body,
Speaker 3: a whole new identity again, and it turns out no,
Speaker 3: they are taking him off to become one of the
Speaker 3: cadavers that will be used to fake the death of
Speaker 3: a new applicant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh god, it's there's there. It really builds up
Speaker 1: to because at first he's like, where we go? We're
Speaker 1: going to my surgery. It's too soon because you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't talk through all the details. You know, I
Speaker 1: really I have ideas, you guys have ideas, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to make sure we're doing it right this time,
Speaker 1: and they're reassuring him, but then is there going It's
Speaker 1: fabulously shot, this strange hallway that they're going down. I
Speaker 1: can only imagine that some of the gurney scenes in
Speaker 1: Jacob's Ladder that would come many many many years later,
Speaker 1: or perhaps referring back to this sequence, because you know,
Speaker 1: at first, he's you know, he's just expressing his you know,
Speaker 1: concerns over it, and then it becomes clear that this
Speaker 1: priest perhaps that is speaking to him, is basically administering
Speaker 1: last rites.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is hard for me to commune Kate, how chilling.
Speaker 3: The last few minutes of this movie are one of
Speaker 3: the most shocking, unsettling things I've ever seen in film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because when he begins to realize what's really happening,
Speaker 1: he begins to struggle. They jump, they like strap his
Speaker 1: mouth closed, and he continues to fight and scream horribly
Speaker 1: for what feels like fifteen minutes or so. It's a
Speaker 1: lot as they drag him off to the death room.
Speaker 1: And I kept thinking, well, they're going to stop out
Speaker 1: the way, We're going to fade away or cut away
Speaker 1: as they roll them into that room, and they don't.
Speaker 1: We go into the death room with him, and there
Speaker 1: is the doctor from earlier, his plastic surgeon, and he explains,
Speaker 1: you know, like, yeah, you were my best work. I
Speaker 1: really nailed it.
Speaker 3: I made a rock Hudson out of you.
Speaker 1: I made rock Hudson out of you. And I hate
Speaker 1: to see this work, you know, go down the drain
Speaker 1: and then we go. We follow the scene right through,
Speaker 1: like the cranial drilling of our main character as they
Speaker 1: drill the life out of him, and we get like
Speaker 1: the final sort of like death, desire, hallucination, and it
Speaker 1: is a scene what of presumably either him and his
Speaker 1: daughter on the beach with a red ball, or perhaps
Speaker 1: it is some other scene. Maybe you could interpret it
Speaker 1: as him and a parental unit on the beach with
Speaker 1: a red ball, like you know, it's I guess it's
Speaker 1: abstract like that, but like this, I guess was the
Speaker 1: true desire. You know, this was you know, deep down
Speaker 1: in him, like this is the most honest part, the
Speaker 1: purest part of his life, and it's the last thing
Speaker 1: we see. You know.
Speaker 3: It made me think about how so once I saw
Speaker 3: the ending, I was like, oh, okay, now I think
Speaker 3: I understand because the ending of the movie feels so bad.
Speaker 3: I understand why some people hated this movie and thought
Speaker 3: it was like cold and awful. I think it's actually
Speaker 3: quite brilliant. But I think the film and I'm not
Speaker 3: at all saying it should have done this. I'm just
Speaker 3: saying imagining a different movie that could have been. I
Speaker 3: think the ending would have felt very different if there
Speaker 3: was some character in it somewhere who got it, who
Speaker 3: figured out the I don't know what the correct desire is,
Speaker 3: the desire that that one can have in order to
Speaker 3: find true happiness, And the movie does not give an
Speaker 3: answer on that. It doesn't. It just shows It shows
Speaker 3: you lots of failures of wisdom and failures to understand ourselves,
Speaker 3: and the pitfalls of desire and the hollowness of desire.
Speaker 3: But it never shows you the right way. It never
Speaker 3: provides the solution. So so you you know, you're not
Speaker 3: given like that sort of ladder out of the pit
Speaker 3: of despair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no there's no Buddha in this film. And
Speaker 1: I thought for a little bit they were setting our
Speaker 1: main character up to be a kind of Buddha that
Speaker 1: he would realize that. Essentially, in the day room, you
Speaker 1: have these characters that are going in and out of incarnations.
Speaker 1: It's very much like the Buddhist Wheel of Semsara in
Speaker 1: the real is that like everything is just a cycle
Speaker 1: of life and death and rebirth, and that the only
Speaker 1: way to find true liberation is to remove yourself from
Speaker 1: that cycle. But there is no such revelation in this
Speaker 1: film because ultimately he's like, give me another shot. I
Speaker 1: think the next shot is it. I think the next
Speaker 1: shot will be better, and he just commits to the
Speaker 1: wheel and that is undoing.
Speaker 3: Well in a way, I think this film is extremely
Speaker 3: compatible with Buddhist ideals, Like I think that is sort
Speaker 3: of the wisdom of the movie. But there's no character
Speaker 3: who embodies that realization. You only see the characters who
Speaker 3: are who fail and just like you know, are are
Speaker 3: slavering after their their next desire.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they're all all hungry ghosts.
Speaker 3: So the ending is bleak, dark, shocking. It does not
Speaker 3: feel good at all, but I think is quite powerful,
Speaker 3: and I want to make clear again, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't think I would change it. I don't think I
Speaker 3: would prefer the film with the character who does get
Speaker 3: it or does embody sort of the wisdom of the
Speaker 3: movie's message.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, I think it's it's perfect as is.
Speaker 1: I like the direction they ended up going in. I'm
Speaker 1: I didn't even look into it. I'm assuming this is
Speaker 1: the basic direction of the novel as well, but perhaps
Speaker 1: it goes in a different direction. I'm also I'm also
Speaker 1: a little shocked that no one has remade this film,
Speaker 1: or certainly maybe not as a as a motion picture.
Speaker 1: But it seems like the kind of thing that someone
Speaker 1: could pick up for some sort of a television series,
Speaker 1: you know, especially nowadays thinking of the success of things
Speaker 1: like Severance and so forth. There's a lot you could
Speaker 1: do with seconds. But on the other hand, as we
Speaker 1: often say with films that really nail something, I don't
Speaker 1: really want to see someone else come in and perhaps
Speaker 1: screw it up. This this film doesn't need to be reborn.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned the other day, off off my my
Speaker 1: one caveat would be this would have made a great
Speaker 1: tree House of Horror episode if the Simpsons had done
Speaker 1: a send up of this with Homer Simpson or I
Speaker 1: don't know, there are various other Simpsons characters that might
Speaker 1: have been ideal for this treatment, but I can imagine
Speaker 1: at least the old Days of the Simpson Treehouse of Horror.
Speaker 1: They could have they could have done this up really nicely.
Speaker 3: First life, you're Ned Flanders, Second life, you're Troy McClure.
Speaker 3: Third well, third life, you know you refer Homer and
Speaker 3: you get to go be somebody else, you get to
Speaker 3: be Auto.
Speaker 1: Finally, yeah, yeah, all right, Well that is seconds from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six. Yeah, terrific picture. Not for the Week
Speaker 1: of Heart, not for someone expecting just kind of a
Speaker 1: I don't know, an easy going psychological horror film. This
Speaker 1: one has a lot going on in it, so obviously
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear anyone's thoughts out there about the film.
Speaker 1: You know, what's your interpretation of its message? What do
Speaker 1: you think about some of the choices here and the
Speaker 1: performance and the sinemography and so forth. Right in we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. We discuss listener mail from
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Speaker 1: podcast feed on our Monday listener mail episodes. Our Core
Speaker 1: science episodes air on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays, we
Speaker 1: do a short form monster fact or Artifact episode, and
Speaker 1: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns even though
Speaker 1: it's a pretty serious movie and many respects for Weird
Speaker 1: House cinema. And if you want to see a full
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Speaker 1: And that website allows you to do a lot of
Speaker 1: really cool things too, like organized by decades and years
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Speaker 1: neat little tool.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
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