Weirdhouse Cinema: Seconds

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss John Frankenheimer's 1966 psychological horror film "Seconds," starring Rock Hudson, with cinematography by the legendary James Wong Howe.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is
Rob Lamb.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
And I am Joe McCormick. And today on the show,
we're going to be talking about a movie from nineteen
sixty six, a film called Seconds, directed by John Frankenheimer.
And I was trying to think. I was trying to
think what to call it. Would you call this a
science fiction thriller or a philosophical horror thriller? This really

(00:38):
does defy genres in a way.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
It really does. I mean, you can see there are
elements of conspiracy drama, the conspiracy thriller. There, there are
elements of sci fi and horror, but it's not really
any of those things. It is deeply psychological in many respects.
So you might say it's psychological ab or c. But
any attempt to pin this down is gonna miss something crucial,

(01:02):
I think.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
So I'm really excited to talk about this movie. I'm
honestly astounded how interesting I found it. But I do
want to issue a sort of dual warning here at
the top. First of all, about the podcast episode. This
film has some I would say extremely powerful twists and
surprises in it, and in order to talk about the
movie in detail, we have to sort of reveal those surprises,

(01:25):
including the ending, a little later in our conversation. So
if you want to watch it spoiler free and preserve
your surprise, you should do that before listening. But secondary
warning before you go off to do that. I also
have to say I was absolutely floored by the ending
of this movie. And I don't usually feel the need
to issue like warnings just about a movie having disturbing

(01:47):
content or being really unsettling, but you know, we cover
a lot of weird horror and stuff, but this one was, like,
it shook me so hard that I feel like I
should give people a bit of a heads up, especially
because I think you're not really expecting it given the context.
This movie is from nineteen sixty six. It's shot in
black and white. The cinematography is amazing. It looks like

(02:10):
a film from a little bit earlier, Like it looks
like it could be a really well shot, interesting looking
film from the fifties. It stars Rock Hudson's that really
also makes it feel like, I don't know, one of
these kind of romantic comedy movies from the fifties or something,
But I think, especially given all that context, I was
just not prepared for the raw horror and desperate bleakness

(02:33):
achieved by the end of this film. So if you
watch it, prepared to be shaken.

Speaker 4 (02:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
This movie is a sixties film that looks in many
respects like a nineteen fifties movie, but ultimately has the
feel of a seventies or even eighties film in terms
of its impact.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
I guess I could worry that on the other end,
I might be kind of diminishing the dramatic effect by
giving this warning, but so be it. I was shocked
by the ending, and I was kind of like walking
around the house feeling a pit in my stomach afterwards.
So so you know, if people were going to go
off and watch this, be prepared.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I was finishing watching this movie after my son came
back from from summer camp, and I was like watching
it in the living room but with headphones in, and
right as everything was going down, and I was I
was like prepared to jump up and like like pause
the movies from entering the room just because I was like,
this is too this is to to start.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Exactly right after I finished, I was going to go
play with my baby, and I mean, I guess that's
a good thing to do, actually, because I want to say.
But on the other hand, I don't want to scare
people off too much because I think Seconds is a
phenomenal film. I had never seen it before we watched
it this week for the show. I understand it received

(03:47):
I think a very polarized reaction from critics back when
it was first released. I think some thought it was
a kind of strange masterpiece. Others thought it was cold
and even reprehensible. And I didn't fully understand this division
in opinion while I was watching it until the ending,
and then it made sense. But I think I would
side more with the supporters. In my opinion. Seconds is

(04:10):
a piercing, fascinating look at the nature of desire. This
is a film about what it means to want things
and to want something different for your life, and it
explores the really complex, troubling, hidden architecture underneath the visible
edifice of all those desires.

Speaker 5 (04:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, I won't say anything more about the ending until
we get to it, but I will say it's not
a gut punch ending. It's not one of those undeserved
gut punch indings anyway, I think it's as you were.
As you're there on the floor holding your stomach, you
realize no, that gut punch was warranted, Yeah, and is
supported by the film. Now, one thing that I think

(04:53):
is interesting to point out. This is purely accidental, but
I think Seconds is in many ways an inter companion
piece to The Incredible Shrinking Man from nineteen fifty seven
that we've recently talked about on the show. They both
deal with themes of mid century midlife crisis and fantastic
treatments of desired or undesired change. In The Incredible Shrinking Man,

(05:18):
our protagonist is literally diminished and ultimately reaches a point
of acceptance and ultimately even transcendence. Seconds, however, deals with
the siren song of escape and liberation from one's own life,
and is ultimately a far darker tale.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Agree one hundred percent. These are both excellent movies and
offer really interesting philosophical counterpoints to one another.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
My elevator pitch is feature length twilight zone midlife crisis.
All right, let's go ahead and hear the audio from
the trailer.

Speaker 5 (06:12):
A bold, bizarre, terrifying.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
Rock Hudson in an astonishing change of pace stars in seconds.
Rock Hudson as a second freed from all responsibilities, now
ready to taste new pleasures. Rock Hudson as a man

(06:59):
who buys for himself a totally new life, a chance
to begin again every man's dream since time began.

Speaker 5 (07:08):
As soon as these people leave, I'm going to attack you.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
I want you to know that I'm counting on it.
Rock Hudson as a man who lives the nightmare of
being a second stirring Have.

Speaker 5 (07:24):
You liked that? Hey, John, John, John? Why are they
stirring me like that? They know? He O what they're like?
You reborn?

Speaker 2 (08:09):
All right? Now, if you're eager to go out and
see this film for yourself before we discuss it any further,
and this would be a good place to do that
because after this, you know, we're going to start getting
into the characters and into the plot, and even in
discussing the characters, we're going to spoil a few things
for you. So yeah, go out and see it if
you're interested. It's widely available on digital and it was
released on Blu Ray as part of the Criterion collection.

(08:32):
So yeah, it's a film that, despite it's seeming mixed
reviews when it came out, or mixed reception critically, and
so forth. It has developed a cult following over the decades,
and I think is largely very well received and admired today.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yes, I think it really aged into proper acclaim.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, all right, Well, let's talk about some of the
folks involved in making this picture. Starting at the top,
I mentioned that this is a John Frankenheimer film. He
directed it. Frankenheimer lived nineteen thirty through two thousand and two.
Started out in TV in the mid fifties and directed
twenty six episodes of Climax exclamation Point. He made his
film directorial debut with nineteen fifty seven's The Young Stranger,

(09:18):
a drama starring Kim Hunter. In the sixties, though, he
really came into his own first with The Young Savages,
a nineteen sixty one street gang flick starring Burt Lancaster
as a district attorney, not as a troubled youth, I
should say, because I don't know Burt Lancaster ever was
a youth. He also did a trio of films in
nineteen sixty two, All Fall Down with Warren Beatty, Birdman

(09:41):
of Alcatraz, with Lancaster and Carl Malden and The Manchurian
Candidate starring Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansberry. That is probably
one of his more famous films.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Well, it's a very different kind of genre and subject matter.
I would say one thing that is shared in common
between Manchurian Candidate and Seconds is the atmosphere of secretiveness
and paranoia that is conjured in both films.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah. Yeah, this after This came nineteen sixty four to
seven Days in May. This is about a military coup
taking place in the United States, which I think also
has similar strains you know, obviously of conspiracy and so
forth in paranoia. And then a film called The Train,
which I think is maybe a little less on the
intrigue and conspiracy spectrum. And then comes the movie Seconds.

(10:33):
Frankenheimer continued to work steadily throughout the rest of his life,
and some of the standouts include seventy five's The French
Connection two, nineteen seventy seven's Black Sunday. This was the
first film adaptation of a Thomas Harris novel. The nineteen
seventy nine Mutant Bear movie Prophecy, which we've we've mentioned
a few times on the show before.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Seems to come up frequently.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's a Mutant Bear movie,
directed by John Frankenheimer. I still haven't seen it all
the way. I started watching it and then realized it
it was maybe too serious for what I had in
mind for myself. He directed the nineteen eighty two John
Salis scripted action movie The Challenge, starring Scott glenn In
Toshiro Mafuni. Nineteen ninety four is The Burning Season starring

(11:18):
Raal Julia. He of course stepped in to replace Richard
Stanley on nineteen ninety six is The Island of Doctor Moreau.
And then he also directed nineteen ninety eight's Ronan, which
is a pretty entertaining espionage thriller. As I recall, it's
got a really solid cast and some excellent vehicular stunts.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
I think that's one of those movies I saw when
you know, I was like too young to understand the
plot at all, but I do remember, like Robert de
Niro and Sean Bean and still in Scars Guard.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, even you don't have to understand the plot of Ronan. Really,
it's just, you know, various spy types are encountering each
other saying cryptic things, and then stuff gets blown up
and so forth. All Right. This greenplay for this film
was written by Lewis John Carlino, who lived nineteen thirty
two through twenty twenty American screenwriter and director. He'd written
for TV previously, but this was his first feature screenplay credit,

(12:12):
but certainly not the last. His later screenplays include nineteen
seventy twos of the Mechanic and nineteen seventy nine's The
Great Santini starring Robert Devall. This was based on the
Pat conroy novel, and Carlino also directed that film. Now
this film, Seconds is based on the novel by David
Ealy born nineteen twenty seven. The only other adaptation of

(12:34):
his work that I ran across as a nineteen seventy
one segment on Night Gallery titled The Academy starring Pat Boone.
I think I've seen this one because I think it's
season one, but I don't remember it at all. Seconds
was a nineteen sixty three novel, and his other works
include sixty eight Time Out and nineteen ninety twos A
Journal of the Flood Year, all Right, Getting into the

(12:56):
cast here and Yes, There are gonna be some spoilers
as we discussed, like who who each of these people
is playing. We have this character named Arthur Hamilton. He's
the initial incarnation of our protagonist, a successful man who's
deeply uncomfortable in his own life and completely bottled up emotionally.
It is, in my opinion, just a really great performance

(13:16):
by the actor. John Randolph, who lived nineteen fifteen through
two thousand and four.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
Agree that the cast is excellent across the board. I
think really everybody who gets speaking roles in this is
very good, But the two actors playing the protagonist are
I think should be singled out for really high praise.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, obviously a performance doesn't exist in isolation.
Randolph's performance here is accentuated by great direction, great cinematography.
But man, it really all comes together in this very
uncomfortable and at times like really surprisingly raw, like emotionally raw,
and also just paranoia inducing performance.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:56):
So.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Randolph was born Emmanuel Hirsch Cohen and was active on
Broadway as far back as nineteen thirty eight according to
the Internet Broadway Database, and his earliest TV and film
credits go back to forty eight and forty nine, but
he and his wife Sarah Cunningham were both blacklisted around
that time, and in nineteen fifty five they were both
called to testify before the House and American Activities Committee.

(14:20):
As such, Randolph was forced to work outside of Hollywood
and New York film, television and radio for a good
fifteen years.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
Man, I feel like Huak has been coming up a
lot in Weird House episodes recently. That's not by design,
It just happens.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
To me, It just happens. It seems like it's a
case of watching meaningful films with talented folks in them
from this time period just ended up impacting so many people,
either the Blacklist or the Gray List or the ramifications
of those lists. So anyway, Yeah, he continued working in
New York theater. I don't think that was like directly impacted.

(14:56):
It may have been indirectly, but his TV and film
credits are pretty bluster up until the mid sixties, and
this film Seconds was his first real film role coming
out of that blacklist period. Now, after Seconds, he did
a lot more TV work, including Night Gallery, and played
the chairman in two Planet of the Apes movies, Escape

(15:16):
in Conquest. At seventy one and seventy two. He was
in Serpico in seventy three, the al Pacino cop movie.
He was in the seventy six King Kong film Heaven
Can Waite in seventy eight, Pritzy's Honor in eighty five. Oh,
I didn't recognize him at all from this, but he
was in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation in eighty nine playing

(15:36):
Clark griswold sor no memory of that, though I've seen
that movie. Yeah, he was in You've Got Mail in
ninety eight, and he played the original Frank Costanza on Seinfeld.
I either didn't know or had forgotten that this was
ever a case of someone else ever having played the
plot for Jerry Stiller, and I couldn't find a clear an.

(16:00):
It seems like it might have been just scheduling issues
that the reason they ended up replacing him as playing
Frank Castanza, but it also may have been a desire
to go in a new direction with the character. I'm
not sure. I can't can't really imagine him being Frank
is Stanza long term on the show. Likewise, I can't
imagine Jerry Stiller playing this role in this movie.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
So you know, I really want to give credit to
Randolph in this role because he's very good, and in
many ways it's a thankless kind of performance because he
it's very complex and he's pitch perfect in it, but
it's a role where he doesn't really get to branch
out and like offer much emotion because like the whole

(16:40):
point is that his character is kind of like unfulfilled
and unfulfilling. He's just sitting there like containing all of
his disappointment within himself and not really getting to express it.
And this character does have an arc where he goes
other places, but as we're about to reveal in a minute,
this actor doesn't get to be there for that.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, I think the key thing is that as a
vessel containing these complex emotions that are just straining to
leak out, Like you can see that, you can observe that,
you can feel that in its performance, and it's not
it's not a situation where you just have to imagine,
you know, purely imagine what's going on inside, like you
can see the gears turning. So excellent performance. Yeah, absolutely,

(17:27):
And you know, I don't think i'd really seen much
of his work before outside of obviously Christmas vacation, which
you know is perfectly fine. I've seen it a million times,
but not really a showcase for his work, all right.
Playing author Hamilton's wife Emily Hamilton is Francis Reid, who
lived nineteen fourteen through twenty ten. American actor, best known

(17:49):
in film for her role here, but she also acted
in nineteen seventy one's The Andromeda Strain soap opera. Fans, however,
might recognize her from this is correct three three hundred
and ninety three episodes of Days of Our Lives, on
which she played Alice Horton from nineteen sixty five through
two thousand and seven.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
How is that even possible? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
It just it sounds astounding, But I guess they just
really cranked these out. I mean, this was like a
daily show, right.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
That sound I had no idea that show ran that long.
But also I want to say Francis Reid extremely good
in this movie in a similarly thankless kind of role
to to John Randolph here, that she you know, she
plays a character whose complexity is a lot in what
she doesn't get to say and doesn't get too emote.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Absolutely yeah, So I think it's also a solid performance,
and there's there's kind of a part one in part
two of it that I think equals things out really well.
All Right, the next character we're going to discuss here
has a different name. It's Antiochus Wilson or Wilson as

(19:01):
he's mostly referred to. This is the reborn author Hamilton.
So this is we'll explain, this is the character he becomes.
He is reborn as this person through like surgical reconstruction
and through fraudulent documents and so forth. There's a whole
organization we'll get to that, but basically, one character becomes

(19:23):
this other take on the character, and a new actor
takes over the role. That actor is Rock Hudson, who
lived nineteen twenty five through nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
I'm not super well versed on Rock Hudson's career, but
from what I understand, this was a major departure for
him that he had mostly done much lighter movies. You know,
he's known as that, like, he's a handsome guy. He's
there to like be like the fun, good looking guy
in like a romance or romantic comedy or something to
be in a in a dark, brooding, philosophical science fiction

(19:58):
film like this. I don't think think he'd really done
anything like this, had he?

Speaker 2 (20:02):
No, No, I was looking around. I don't think he'd
ever done anything that you could classify as horror or
science fiction or certainly fantasy. And you know, part of
that is we've discussed highly successful actors or directors or
what have you of the day, they generally didn't have
to do that. It's such an inversion of what we
have today, where the biggest actors around are you know,

(20:22):
almost inevitably, with some notable exceptions. Obviously there's no any
of these generalities are not going to be one hundred percent.
But you know, it's not surprising to see someone who's
won multiple Oscars show up in a Marvel movie or
in you know, whatever the or Star Wars or what
have you. But back in the day, you know, as
we've discussed on these various genre pictures, they were lower

(20:43):
down on the pecking order, and so yeah, it's not
surprising to find a situation for Rockets and had never
been in a movie that had robots or aliens or
even you know, the sort of ultimately kind of light
sophisticated sci fi, you know, kind of more Twilight Zone
ish l elements that you find in this picture. Like
you said he was, I mean, he was a nineteen

(21:05):
fifties leading man, perhaps, I mean not just a he
was kind of the nineteen fifties leading man. He's the
top build actor in this film, and he was easily
one of the biggest, if not biggest movie stars off
his era. His main film roles were stuff like his
biggest pictures anyway from the fifties were stuff like All
That Heaven Allows, Giant Written on the Wind, and Pillar Talk.

(21:27):
These are all movies where you look at you can
pull them up now on the database of your choice.
And all the posters prominently feature his character romantically embracing
the lead actress. That is not the case with Seconds No.
So yeah, going into that, this was a departure, and
I'm to understand he was not Frankenheimer's first choice for
the role. Apparently Frankenheimer considered rock Hudson to, you know,

(21:51):
to be maybe a lighter weight actor. Ultimately, you know,
he's the rom com guy, he's the heart throb guy.
He's like, I need somebody like a Bert Land caster.
But ultimately he gets sold on rock Hudson, Like his
agent says, you know, no, Hudson can do this. He's
excited for this role and and in thees so Frankenheimers
proved wrong and has admitted to such, and and I know,

(22:14):
I absolutely agree. I think Hudson's performance in this is great.
I think he perfectly captures this sense of the reborn
in seconds.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Fully agree. I wouldn't want anybody else in this role.
I think he's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, he's like he's playing a character that's outwardly strong
and confident, you know, a complete transformation from his previous incarnation,
but inside, you know there's still this uncertainty, there's perhaps
this sense of inadequacy, and you can see all of
that happening.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
You know.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
It just was I was worried, honestly because the first
performance of this character, John Randolph's performance is so strong.
I was like, even not being that familiar with Rock
Hudson's work, I was like, I don't know, I Hudson's
going to really be able to pull this off. Feel
it's going to feel unequal, But I really think that
he pulls off a great performance here, And yeah, I

(23:06):
can't imagine it being any different now. Hudson would go
on to appear in two more films you could qualify
as science fiction nineteen seventy six is Embryo and nineteen
eighties The Martian Chronicles, and the various other films. I
think he's in an avalanche movie that was covered on
Mystery Science Theater at some point late in his career.
Much has been written about Hudson's personal life, as he

(23:29):
was a gay man working at a time and in
a position that did not permit him to live openly
as such. And this is also factored into a fair
amount of film analysis, you know, retrospectively concerning seconds. But
any way you shake it, anyway you look at it,
this is now largely considered to be one of his
best performances. I think I read that it's a performance

(23:51):
that Hudson himself was very proud of, and I think
with good reason.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
Here here hats off to Rock Hudson.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
This is one of those episodes where we don't get
to harp on any bio or critique anybody's performance. It's
like every one of them is like, Wow, they nailed it,
absolutely well.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah, that's how it is across the board. I feel
like everybody did great, great work here.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Now up Next, we have Salome Jens playing Nora Marcus
Or nineteen thirty five American modern dancer turned actor of stage,
screen and TV. Her first major role was playing the
Future Woman in nineteen fifty eight Terror from the Year
of five thousand, a movie some of you mistis out
there might remember from Mystery Senti's Theater three thousand. It's

(24:32):
not actually that memorable a film, but a lot of
people probably saw it through MST. She played the title
role in nineteen sixty one's Angel Baby, which starred George
Hamilton and was the film debut of Burt Reynolds pre Mustache.
Of course, she was in sixty five's The Fool Killer
opposite Anthony Perkins. And then comes Seconds in which she
plays this captivating character Nora, that our protagonist encounters in

(24:57):
his new life in bohemian California.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
She is a self actualized free spirit who has taken
her life into her own hands, and she represents, in
a way, I think, the potential to live life in
freedom and self determination.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, she's so alive, but to the degree that, at
least through the lens of our main character, you know
she is exciting and full of promise, but also maybe
a little bit intimidating and frightening, and I think it's
all played perfectly. It's a very lively and charismatic performance.

(25:35):
So hats off to solome A Gen's here. She worked
a lot after this, mostly in TV, but her TV
credentials are really solid, including The Outer Limits, the original
Outer Limits. She was also in a single episode of
Tales from the Cryptomaniac at Large. That one's notable because
that one was directed by John Frankenheimer. That was a
pretty solid episode. That was one that we actually discussed

(25:59):
on a past anthology of horror for stuff to blow
your mind. Oh okay, that one had adam Ant in it.
You might recall. She also pops up on Star Trek
the Next Generation, and also had a more substantial role
as the female shape shifter on fifteen episodes of Star
Trek Deep Space nine. She narrated nineteen eighty six's Clan

(26:20):
of the Cave Bear and did other voice work late
in her career. All right, So at the heart of
this movie, there's a sinister corporation that is called The Company,
and it has various individuals working in it. I'm going
to go lighter on the backgrounds on these actors just
because I don't want to spend the entire podcast just
talking about the stellar cast. But heading this up, or

(26:42):
seemingly heading this up is the Old Man played by
Will Gear, who lived nineteen oh two through nineteen seventy eight,
botanist turned actor and lifelong activists who also found himself
blacklisted in nineteen fifties Hollywood after refusing to name names
before Congress. Other films of note include nineteen sixty sevens
in Cold Blood. In nineteen seventy two's Jeremiah Johnson.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
Will Gear really stood out to me. He was perfect
in his role. I think we can talk more about
him when we get into the plot.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, we also have a man by the name of
mister Ruby played by Jeff Corey. Jeff Corey lived nineteen
fourteen through two thousand and two, another stage and screen
actor blacklisted during the nineteen fifties, also for refusing to
name names. He became a noted acting teacher during that
period and worked with a number of future stars. His
biggest films include sixty nine's True Grit, as well as

(27:32):
Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and nineteen seventies Beneath
the Planet of the Apes, also the film Little Big
Man from nineteen seventy. We also have a character named
Doctor Inness. This is the I guess, the plastic surgeon
that works for the company, and he is played by
Richard Anderson who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty seventeen.

(27:53):
American actor, best known on screen for supporting roles in
fifty eight Paths of Glory, fifty nine's Compulsion, and fifty
six is Forbidden Planet. On TV, he played Oscar Goldman,
who is the boss of both the six million Dollar
Man and the six million Dollar Woman or I guess
like the twelve million dollar Man in Woman. There's also

(28:13):
another interesting character in the company, a character named Devallo,
and he's played by the actor Kai d He's a
who lived nineteen ten through nineteen ninety one an American
actor of Anglo Egyptian Sudanese ancestry who tended to play
characters of Asian descent in various pictures and TV projects
from nineteen fifty through about nineteen ninety. His other big

(28:37):
film was nineteen sixty two's The Manchurian Candidate, where he
played the brainwashing expert doctor Yen Lowe.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Oh yeah, okay. In this movie, he has an interesting role.
It's a very small role, but an interesting moment in
the plot where he is there to sort of illicit
confessions and monologues from the client of this company to
sort of reveal their hidden true desires.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah. So it's a similar feel, I guess in some
ways to this character from the Manchurian Candidate and also
a wonderful mustache. Yes, we also have a character named John.
We don't know his last name, he's just John. We'll
discuss his role and everything in a bit, but he's
played by Wesley Addie, who lived nineteen thirteen through nineteen

(29:25):
ninety six stage and screen actor, best known for nineteen
fifty five, Kissed Me Deadly, nineteen seventies Tora Tora, Tora
in nineteen seventy six is network all right? Moving outside
of the company here we have another character or not
completely outside of the company, but another character encounter is
a character named Charlie, and he's played by Murray Hamilton
who lived nineteen twenty three through nineteen eighty six. Stage

(29:45):
and screen actor who might not be as recognizable to
many in this film. But Joe, where do you know
this guy from.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Oh, this is the Mayor from Jaws in a way,
playing the same kind of squirrely scammer he is in Jaws.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yep, yep, this is Ma from the first two Jaws movies.
He was also mister Robinson in sixty sevens The Graduate,
and Father Ryan in the Amityville Horror from nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
It is weird seeing him without one of his signature
blazers from Jaws. By the way, if you've never noticed
in Jaws before the jackets that Mayor Vaughan wears, they
are words can't even describe, just chef kiss. I want
them all in my closet. One of them is an
anchor print. It's just got a little anchors all over it.
And another one is rob Look at the one with

(30:31):
the parallel lines. I don't even know how to describe this.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Wow, I went. I would be very surprised if someone's
not putting these out again now, because I'm served ads
of late for reproductions of like shirt prints from like
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other films like
this is like people have realized that people just want
to wear that shirt. So how long until this Blazer
with all the anchors on. It is out when people realize, Hey,

(30:58):
as I you know, settle in to the late middle age,
I want to start wearing jackets like like the mayor
from Jaws does.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah, Amity, as you know, means friendship.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
All right. The music in this film is by Jerry Goldsmith,
who lived twenty nine through two thousand and four. His
work has come up on Weird House previously, I believe,
in the Congo episode and in the Grimlins two episode.
So I won't go really deep here or anything, but
suffice to say a very successful and prolific film composer,
and I think the score hits all the right notes.

(31:31):
It leans into the melodrama where that's appropriate, and certainly
into the paranoia.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
I agree. I think this very strong score really does
help but drive home the paranoia. But another thing, probably
the thing that more than anything else, really sets the
tone of paranoia is the excellent cinematography.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
That's right, and this is the work of James Wong Howe.
Howe lived eighteen ninety nine through nineteen seventy six, and
he's actually the reason this film initially popped up on
my race are. That was because I was reading about
notable Asian American film industry folks and James long Howe
is considered one of the best cinematographers of all time,
A real master of shadow. Was highly sought after for

(32:12):
multiple decades, ultimately earned ten Oscar nominations, including for this
film and one two of them they're only like. When
I was looking into him, I was like, well, hopefully
this guy did some weird films, something that we could
discuss for weird house cinema. And out of all the
movies he did, I think only two or three classify it,
but this was one of them, and I'm glad we
went with this one.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
Another one I think it was Mark of the Vampire, right,
which is a vampire movie famous for having kind of
a Scooby Doo ending.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, I mean it's a Todd Browning. It's supposed to
look gorgeous. Nineteen thirty five has a great cast, but
I don't think it's the Todd Browning film we need
to watch. So this one was I think the right
choice for James Wonghowe.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah. I haven't seen that other movie, but you can't
be disappointed with his work on this one. It's just amazing.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
So how was born in but his father went to
work in America for the Northern Pacific Railway and eventually
was able to bring his family over as well. I
think how would have been four or five at the time.
His father eventually ran a general store in Washington State,
and Howe got his young hands on an Eastman Kodak
Brownie camera, which I'm to understand was kind of like

(33:21):
this was where things would begin his interest in photography,
ultimately cinematography now as he grew older, he tried his
hand at a few different career paths, but eventually worked
his way into first commercial photography and then cinematography in
la during the Silent film era. He did assistant camera
and clapper work as early as nineteen nineteen, but served

(33:42):
as a cinematographer for the first time on nineteen twenty
three's Drums of Fate, due apparently in part to star
Mary Miles Minter, who took note of Howe's technical ability
capturing I believe the darkness in her eyes or he
had some trick for photographing her just the way, and
she's like, well, this is the guy, this is who

(34:02):
I want to work with, and work he did. He
worked steadily throughout the twenties, thirties and forties, and became
highly sought after working with such directors as Howard Hawks
again Todd Browning. He worked on such films as nineteen
thirty four as The Thin Man. He was also the
uncredited cinematographer on those orchestra segments in Disney's Fantasia in

(34:23):
nineteen forty.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
Oh okay.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
He made numerous technological innovations as well, and ultimately cemented
his place as an innovator and master, particularly of shadow
as well as deep focused cinematography. Now in many respects, Yeah,
his is a great Chinese American success story, but it's
also essential to realize a lot of what he was
up against. He couldn't obtain US citizenship till the nineteen

(34:47):
forties due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which ran from
eighteen eighty two through nineteen forty three, and he also
could neither legally marry or publicly acknowledge his wife, Sonora
Babb until the nineteen fifty due to California laws against
interracial marriage and the moral clause of his studio contract,
which I think that the basic idea is there, Like,

(35:09):
he couldn't legally marry her, and then due to the
moral clause of his contract, he could not like publicly
be in a relationship with her that sort of thing. Then,
during the years of the Hollywood Blacklist, his wife was
blacklisted for alleged Communist sympathies, and Howl himself was gray listed.
This forced them to move to Mexico for a period,

(35:30):
though year by year his output seemed to remain pretty
steady by the look of things, so you know, one
way or another, he was still finding projects to work on.
Other films of note that he worked on include nineteen
fifty six's The Rose Tattoo. This was his first Oscar win,
nineteen fifty eight's The Old Man in the Sea, nineteen
sixty three's Hud That's also one that won him an Oscar,

(35:52):
nineteen sixty eight's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, nineteen
seventies The Molly Maguires, and nineteen seventy five's Funny Lady.
This was his last film for which he was also
nominated for an Oscar. He also has eight directorial credits
to his name, including nineteen fifty fours Go Man Go
in nineteen fifty eight's Invisible Danger. But again his work
in this film is just tremendous. I think you've never

(36:14):
seen a film that he worked on like this is
a perfect starting place.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Absolutely, yeah, all right, were ready to talk about the plot,
let's do it, all right. So I found myself thinking
we probably shouldn't do a detailed scene by scene recap
of this one like we do in some episodes. Actually,
this movie got me thinking about which movies feel right

(36:44):
for them and which ones don't. Somehow, I think it's
the campier or sillier outings that really invite the more
minute scene by scene treatment, and for some reason, the
more weighty and serious dramas don't. I don't exactly know
why that is, but that does to be the general trend.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
A lot of times, we kind of breathe life into
the spaces where there's not life, and yeah, a film
like this, it's like all the spaces are occupied, all
the spaces are meaningful, and they don't necessarily need us
to interpret them exactly.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
So something would feel kind of cheap, I think about
looking at it too closely. So instead we're going to
zoom in and zoom out a little bit. But one
place I do want to start zoomed in is the
very beginning with the opening credits, where we have dissonant
mechanical music, almost like the sound of a kind of
scanning device emitting a signal that there is something being
detected right here. It made me think of the motion

(37:36):
trackers and aliens, but I don't know, some kind of
music like that. And then you also have dark, moody
strings and minor chords on the organ. Again, this is
a score by Jerry Goldsmith. Kind of reminds me in
a way of some of Howard Shor's music for like
David Cronenberg movies. Yeah, that would come later, of course.
And throughout the credit sequence we have extreme close ups

(37:59):
on human and facial features with a kind of fun
house mirror effect. Everything is warped and inverting upon itself lips, teeth, ears, eyes,
and then there's one part that's kind of funny with
the name Rock Hudson appearing across the sclare of a
tortured eyeball, and then finally a face covered in cloth wrapping,

(38:19):
almost like a ski mask, but I think it is
supposed to be bandages.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Now it's a note that the One and Only saw
Bass is credited with the titles here He of course
directed Phase four, the Ant movie that we discussed on
the show previously, though to just call it an ant
movie is almost a disservice. That was his one and
only feature directing credit. But the man's main bread and
butter was this sort of work.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Yeah, like main titles and credit sequences and stuff posters
as well.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, and these are great, But again, but kind of
to your point, if you don't want to look up
anybody's nose or into someone's ear, if that's like a
real turn off for you, you might want to skip
this section of the movie.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Well if you, if you got that kind of constitution,
you might just not want to watch seconds. Yeah, so
the movie begins. You were speaking earlier about the paranoid cinematography,
and there's a great example of that right at the beginning.
The movie begins with a man moving through a train station.
I think it's actually Grand Central station. It is, And

(39:20):
there is a type of shot that I believe occurs
several times in the film where the camera is kind
of floating over the man's shoulder from behind and following
him very tightly as he moves. It's almost like it's
glued to him. And this has for some reason, a
very unsettling paranoid effect. It's like the feeling of an

(39:41):
unseen spirit chasing and observing your every move.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah. Absolutely, this movie doesn't play around with these the
feeling of something unsettling about the nature of reality.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
And so it's following this man through a train station.
We see this man moving, and then another man who's
always sort of photographed from the middle of the face
up I believe, with like the brim of his hat
down in in a kind of sinister way, following behind him.
So the man who's walking ahead turns out to be
our protagonist, Arthur Hamilton, and the stranger who's following him

(40:16):
follows him through the crowd, down the stairs, all the
way onto a train and then suddenly calls out his
name and hands him an address written on a piece
of paper and then departs, leaving Arthur just standing there
on the train baffled. What is this?

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, like the whole setup, it's like, what's gonna happen?
Is so I'm gonna be stabbed or shot? You No,
there's a handoff of a note, and somehow that makes
it all the more sinister because you know, especially from
the individual's reaction like there's something really wrong about about
what just happened. Nothing good will come of this.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
I guess we should take a moment to describe Arthur
the man here. What is his vibe?

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Well, it's like we kind of discussed earlier. He has
a vessel, an unleaking vessel, straining with all sorts of
uncomfortable emotions. He is not comfortable in his own flesh,
in his own body. He's a man in his I mean,
to be one accurate. I mean, the actor himself was
in his early fifties at this point, though it's nineteen fifties,

(41:15):
early fifties, which is kind of a different animal than
we tend to have nowadays. You know, a lot is
said and commented upon regarding like differences in aging or
seemingly different there are differences in aging, etc.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
I think the way he plays it and the way
he's made up in photographed just makes him feel older
than he actually is. Yeah, so we learn a bit
about Arthur's life. We see him interacting with his wife,
we see him at work. He is a moderately successful
man in middle age. He's a banker. He obviously has

(41:49):
a steady income and some accumulated wealth. He has a
very nice home. He has a wife and an adult
daughter who is out of the home now. She lives
with her husband in another state. And yet he seems
rather unhappy with his life. And this doesn't come from
overt expressions of emotion, but rather from kind of what
is unsaid and his something kind of straining underneath the surface.

(42:13):
We see him at his job, where he obviously makes
a very good living. It seems he could hardly complain
about that, and yet he is just clearly bored with
his work and preoccupied. We see scenes of Arthur and
his wife emily interacting, and there's an interesting approach here.
I feel like a lesser film might have made their
relationship more strife ridden or more strained. But they don't fight,

(42:39):
they're not overtly unhappy. They are basically loving and supportive
of one another. But there's something kind of intangible missing.
You get the sense that their marriage is basically celibate,
and that they're like in that he reads this in
a way that's just kind of gray and disappointing.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, Like he's like a lesser film would have also
made him just completely cold, and it's not quite what's
going on. There's this just this this sense of like
I feel like I should want to and yet I cannot. Yeah,
sort of thing, you know. It's it's it's complex.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
And in the middle of all this, Arthur has begun
receiving strange phone calls in the middle of the night,
calls that claim to be from someone he knows from
his old friend, Charlie, who played They played tennis together
when they were in college. And at first this seems
impossible because Charlie died several years before. But one night,

(43:36):
the man claiming to be Charlie gets Arthur talking and
he provides all kinds of private details that no one
would have any way of knowing. It has to be Charlie.
But how could he be back from the dead. Well,
Charlie tells Arthur to go to the address the man
on the train gave him. He sort of like gives
him this this exhortation. I think he I don't recall exactly.

(43:59):
I think I think he also sort of implies like,
you've got to do it for me.

Speaker 5 (44:03):
M Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Now, I'm not going to go into great detail about this,
but this does lead to a kind of hunt sequence
where where Arthur decides that he does have to go
find this place, this address, and he goes to like
this laundromat where he's asking around about it. I liked
this whole sequence because it's not exactly easy to find
the thing that Arthur is looking for, and he doesn't

(44:26):
even know what it is he's looking for. He's looking
for an unknown and yet he's he's going to all
these lengths to find it.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yeah, and and really going through, you know, the underbelly
of the world here, like the laundry mat where you know,
where the garments are washed and pressed and their steam
and sweat going through. Then this there's this whole scene
where they're going through this like meat processing place where
you know, obviously big swabs of meat is taking place,

(44:54):
animals are being processed, and people are walking around and
in smocks, you know, and the whole time we're like,
oh my god, what's gonna what's gonna happen? Author or
you should really really be walking in I don't want
to say confidently, because he doesn't really do anything with confidence,
but it's there's it's a very sinister ara to everything.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
I think the significance of the meat packing plants the
gateway to his final destination will make a lot more
sense once you see the end of the film. Yeah, So,
eventually Arthur meets someone who knows what he's looking for,
and they sort of like they They load him into
the back of a truck because he can't see where
he's going, and he's transported into the bowels of some
large building with no windows, to the heart of a

(45:36):
secretive organization. And they have a proposition for him. They say, Arthur,
what if you could have another chance at life? In fact,
we know that you are unhappy with your life, You
are not satisfied. What if you could start over somewhere
else and have the life that you really wanted, that
you know you should have had to begin with. This

(45:57):
company claims they can give that to you. They charge
a very hefty fee they're going to take. I think
they say it's thirty thousand dollars, which is a lot
in the money of the time. But they can do
this impossible thing. They will stage your death, freeing you
from your family and work obligations, and they will give
you advanced plastic surgery basically full body plastic surgery to

(46:20):
completely transform your identity and appearance so they can take
this bored, middle aged man and his boring gray life
and transform him into the man he wishes he could be.
Now there's an interesting ripple here because at first Arthur
seems very hesitant, but they say, well, we know everybody

(46:40):
actually wants this, but they're going to feel unable to
say yes. So to help you along with your decision,
we have removed that choice for you with the help
of blackmail. So they say, when you first arrived, we
drugged you and we took photos staging a fake sexual
assault with you as the perpetrator, and if you try
to leave, we'll release the photos. So you have no choice.

(47:03):
You have to say yes. But this is presented as
we're doing you a favor because we know you want
to agree to this. You just don't feel like you can.
Now you don't have a choice.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yeah, it's like we both know you want to leave
this lot in a new car. To help you out,
we went ahead and set your old car on fire.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Yes, and all this is.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Played very well, like you can see just how uncomfortable
and afraid he becomes at this, and the whole setup
for it is also like hypnotic and disturbing, so already
we're well into the twilight zone here.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
Right, But despite all of his hesitation and fear, Arthur
does agree. So he undergoes plastic surgery and then a
serious rehabilitation course and is transformed from his boring doughe
middle aged self into Rock Hudson, a lithe, dashingly handsome
and glam man, and he's given a full new identity.

(48:03):
He's a man called Antiochus Wilson. Now, of course, since
the company faked his death and committed all this fraud,
he has to keep his past life absolutely secret, so
he can't go around saying, you know, I used to
be this other guy. He has to just pretend all
he is is Antiochus Wilson, that other life never existed.
During this process, he undergoes therapy sessions to sort of

(48:26):
I think it's to uncover his true desires. And there's
a theme that emerges during these therapy sessions that'll come
up a couple of times in the film, where I
think they put him under hypnosis and record the things
he's talking about, and before he gets into talking about
the things that they try to actualize, there are moments
where he kind of regresses into childhood desires, and he

(48:48):
keeps talking about a big red ball. So there's this
establishment of a theme that becoming free to actually seek
one's true desires is in a way a kind of
regression into more and more immature objects of desire. But
they find through all this process that Arthur actually always

(49:09):
had an interest in painting. We find out later that
he sort of had a watercolor hobby, you know, he
would do little paintings, but he never got to really
pursue this because, of course, you know, he's trying to
have a serious career as a banker. So they set
him up as a professional painter with a house on
the West coast, and they send him off to settle
into his new life where he has like a butler

(49:31):
or a valet. I think the guy's name is John,
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (49:34):
This is John the Silver Fox.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Yes, the butler who is provided by the company, who
attends to all of his needs. He's got this nice,
swanky house, he lives on the beach. He has this exciting,
glamorous life where he can do whatever he wants, and
he has all these friends, and he has this exciting
career with actual artistic fulfillment. Now he gets to be
the painter that he thinks he really should have been.

(50:00):
Also meets an exciting woman, a woman named Nora Marcus
played by salome A Gens, and she's like a free
spirit who also left her previous life behind. Of course,
he can't admit that he did this. And they meet
and get to know one another, and they bond, and
eventually there's a scene where they attend like a literal

(50:20):
bacchan al together a bunch of hippies get naked and
they're they're like chugging wine and playing musical instruments and
stomping on grapes and a big.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Vat Yeah, some obvious jazz cigarettes being smoked at this event.
I can come back to one second to one second
for the whole idea of them setting him up as
an artist. There was one of the mini scenes where
the company men are talking him through what's going to happen.
There was one scene in particular I thought it was
really good because he's he's they're showing him the paintings
that they have provided that he They're setting him up

(50:50):
with his portfolio of his previous work and talking about
you know, and then you'll you'll change up your style
a bit and you'll do something different, and they he
has some hesitation about this, you know, because it's like,
I really I don't have that level of ability, and
they're like, it doesn't matter because you will be established.
And I thought that was that was very chilling and
kind of kind of cutting, and one of the many

(51:12):
moments in the film that you know isn't about like,
you know, high levels of anxiety or fear, but it's
just very solid.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
I totally agree, and in fact, I think we see
it with like the Wild, the bacchanalia, the party lifestyle,
and with his supposedly fulfilling artistic career. In both of
these cases we sense that despite him quote getting what
he wants, something is very wrong and very empty with
this life. There's a scene where he paints, and that

(51:42):
the scene is just painful because, as you said earlier,
like there so they establish his reputation as an artist
by buying paintings done by someone else, faking them as his,
passing them off as his, and now he gets to paint.
But when he goes to paint, it's it's obvious he's
not happy doing it, like he may have been happy

(52:03):
in his previous life doing his little amateur watercolors. But
now that he is supposed to be a serious painter
and he realizes he's not like satisfied with the paintings
that he can produce with his own hand. Something is
very like gnawing at him about this.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Yeah, it's like it's it's been taken out of like
the organic pattern of his life and now have presented
in this unnatural state. And therefore it's not fulfilling because
the things that made it fulfilling and and made it desirable,
all of those conditions have been removed.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
He may have not been able to be a painter professionally,
but in his other life when he was painting, at
least that was an honest pursuit and now it's all
a fraud. Yeah, So that that emptiness comes through in
the painting scene. But there are also the scenes where
he like he has these parties where he you know,
is drinking and doing drugs and you know, having this
excise lifestyle. But then he gets drunk and he blabs

(53:04):
about his previous life.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Oh boy, does he get drunk. This is such a
like these are such cringey scenes, like I'm tempted to
compare them to like something you would see on I
think you should leave, Yes, yeah, but without the comedy,
you know, just like that level of windful. It is
painful to watch. I mean, he's it's beyond like oh

(53:26):
he's a funny drunk, or and he's just like a
he gets sloppy drunk where you characters are trying to
say you shouldn't drink anymore or you should leave, and
he keeps going.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
And there is a scene where at one point he
gets drunk and he starts blabbing about his previous life
and some people from the party have to grab him
and take him into his bedroom and explain to him,
you need to keep your mouth shut, because it turns
out all of his new friends they're not necessarily like
organic friends. Most of these people at the party, maybe

(53:57):
not all of them, are also people being second lives.
They're also born yes, they're also reborns. And they're like,
you're gonna spoil this for all of us if, like
the company gets exposed, if we get found out too,
you got to shut up. And you got to think
that that also sort of cheapens it for him, right
that like all of his so called friends are also frauds.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
So this leads to a break where he ends up
going back to visit his wife. As Rock Hudson. He
doesn't say like, hey, you know, I'm your husband, remember me.
She is still going on under the impression that her
husband died in a fire in a hotel room, which
is what the company staged for him and Rock Hudson.
He pretends to be a friend of her late husband's

(54:44):
and so he goes to visit the house and speaks
to her. I think he's like, hey, you know, I
maybe wanted I'm a painter and I wanted to paint
a portrait of your husband because he was a friend
of mine. He also asks about the watercolors. He's like,
you know your your husband's water colors? Do you still
have them? And it's interesting there's an unresolved thing from

(55:04):
this conversation. I wonder what you made of this where
she's like, oh, the watercolors. Yeah, and he's like, did
you get rid of them? And she says not exactly.

Speaker 4 (55:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
I was expecting there to be some follow up like
maybe she donated them somewhere or they were painted over.
I don't know, because in a sense, I mean his
life has been painted over right, But yeah, yeah, we
don't get the second beat on that really.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
But she actually in the scene has insights about her
late husband, very cutting ones, the kind of thing that
you know, she never would have said to him when
she thought he was alive. And she says that she
thinks he spent his life trying to acquire what he
had been taught to want, you know, a good job,

(55:53):
a steady income, a nice home, a family, and yet
he was deeply unsatisfied. She says that it was like
there was something he always wanted to say, but he
couldn't say it. He was just holding it in. And
in the background in this scene, we know that now
he's gotten all of the things that he yearned for

(56:14):
when he was unsatisfied with his previous life, the life
he had when he pursued what he had been taught
to want. So there's the second order thing, the things
he thinks he really wanted, his genuine wants good looks, glamour,
artistic expression, excitement, sex, drugs, bachanalia. And yet we can
tell that he is not at all happy by acquiring

(56:35):
these things either. There is a deep hollowness and fraudulence
and anxiety at the core of his new existence. So
his wife sends him away with a memento of her
late husband. It's his tennis trophy, which is is a
callback to a scene earlier where when his friend Charlie
called him on the phone and said, hey, you know

(56:56):
this is really me. You can know because look on
the underside of our tennis trophy from the doubles tournament.
We carved this into the bottom. I think it's like,
you know, Fidelis Eternia or something. And so when Antiochus
Wilson leaves the house, he is picked up by John,
the valet from the company, in a car and he says,

(57:16):
I want to go back, and John says, of course, sir.
He says, no, no, no, I don't mean to California.
I want to go back to the company. I want
to start again again. Is it possible, Antikus Wilson can die,
can't he? And John says, I think that can be arranged, sir.

(57:43):
So they go back to the company and here Rock
Hudson meets with his caseworker and they explained to him, yeah,
we can set you up with a new life once again.
You Sometimes this happens. People are not satisfied with their
second life. They need another. But before we do that,
we do need you to do something for us. We
would ask you to sponsor someone else for our programs.

(58:06):
Someone you know obviously, you know you must know tons
of people who would be good candidates. We just need
you to give us a name, somebody we can get
in touch with, and we might need you to stay
on hand to help them, maybe make some phone calls
to them to make sure that the you know, that
they end up in our care. And this makes sense
because they can't add what they do is illegal. They
can't advertise on the news in the newspaper. They have

(58:28):
to operate on a personal referral basis. And here it
becomes clear there's a payoff of a waiting room that
Arthur Hamilton went into earlier in the movie. That's full
of men just sitting around, playing cards, reading books, hanging out,
just seemingly waiting, you know, wiling away the hours. Here
we meet Murray Hamilton and it turns out this is uh,

(58:52):
this is Arthur Hamilton's old friend Charlie, the guy from school,
except of course he looks nothing like him. He has
had a second, second life. He is a reborn by
this company, but it turned out he also needed another chance.
He also needed to start over again, but he couldn't
do that until he fulfilled his duty for referring Arthur

(59:15):
Hamilton here, and they'd had him on hand so he
could continue making phone calls to him and helping him
get settled in. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Yeah, there's a great vibe with the day room because
we saw the day room earlier and we saw everyone
it looked like more like they were working or studying,
And now we realize they're just passing the time. And
we also see that they're being given little cups of
medication to help them pass the time, and that it's
this kind of limbo between lives with all of them

(59:45):
clear they are waiting for their next chance to get
their third life, or perhaps their fourth or fifth, who knows.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Yeah, you don't know how many times. So but now
finally the mayor from Jaws is going to get another shot.
Whatever he blew the last for some reason, it is
not what he wanted, so he's going to get another one.
But now this is where, this is where Rock Hudson
is stuck. And so they say, okay, that's fine, we
can give you another one, but we do need you
to refer somebody first, and the problem is he refuses.

(01:00:16):
He's like, I can't think of anybody to refer. I'm sorry,
and he's really hung up on he's got to have
another chance at a new life because he he screwed
up the first one. You know, he just wanted what
people taught him to want. The second time, he wanted
something else, but he didn't do it right. Something wasn't
right about it. But the third time, then he'll get it.
Then he'll really fulfill his desires.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Yeah, he expresses that he this on his second life.
He also didn't have input in it like the first life. Yeah,
he didn't have input into what he should want. And
the second time around, like what did they do? They
kind of drug some things out of him during hypnosis,
constructed something for him, and then put him into that slot.
And so he kind of he felt ultimately trapped and

(01:01:00):
in an artificial place once more, and he thinks, well,
this next time, I want lots of input into it.
I have ideas. Let's work together so that this can work.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
But they keep asking him, you know, we got to
get a referral. You got to give us somebody, and
he doesn't. He's just like, I can't think of anybody.
So then we are finally let after he refuses multiple times,
he's led to another meeting with the old man played
by Will Gear, who he spoke to earlier the first
time he was in the building belonging to the company.

(01:01:32):
Will Gear is very good in this role because he's
very folksy, and he's very soft spoken, and he's just
like a sweet, sweet old man who talks about his
dream of giving people what they really want. He knows
that so many people live lives of kind of quiet
misery that they just can't really commit to living the

(01:01:52):
lives they know they should be living, and he wanted
to create the opportunity for people to have that chance.
But then he also gets a real He's like, you know,
so that is the ideal under which I started the company.
But the fact is, you know, now we have a
lot of employees and we got to make payroll, and
we have shareholders, and we've got to meet our obligations
to shareholders. So if we don't have an ongoing you know,

(01:02:15):
basis of new referrals coming in, we really can't keep
doing what we're doing. In order to make the dream work,
we got we gotta have money coming in, so you've
got to refer somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
Yeah, and the dream again is basically as he puts
it is, is to end human suffering, like he has this,
and I think that's one of the great things about
the Old Man particularly, But the company as a whole,
while there's almost everything about it is sinister and at
times very cold, and very also very you know, corporate
and so forth, it is presented as if, like at

(01:02:47):
in its roots anyway, it is trying to help people.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Will Gearrett. Yeah, he at least thinks he is trying
to help people. But then, of course, you know, once
you start, once you start a business, it kind of
has a has hungers of its own, like you got
to you got to keep the lights on. So they
need the referrals, and he doesn't give them the referrals.
So they're like, okay, well that's all right. And then
this leads up to the ending, the the shocking, horrifying

(01:03:14):
ending where they strap rock HUDs into a gurney. He
thinks he's being taken off to his next plastic surgery
to get a whole new face, a whole new body,
a whole new identity again, and it turns out no,
they are taking him off to become one of the
cadavers that will be used to fake the death of

(01:03:35):
a new applicant.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Yeah, oh god, it's there's there. It really builds up
to because at first he's like, where we go, We're
going to my my surgery. It's too soon because you know,
we didn't talk through all the details. You know, I
really I have ideas, you guys have ideas, you know,
I want to make sure we're doing it right this time.
And they're reassuring him. But then is there going It's
fabulously shot, this strange hallway that they're going down. I

(01:04:00):
can only imagine that some of the gurney scenes in
Jacob's Ladder that would come many many many years later,
or perhaps referring back to this sequence, because you know,
at first he's you know, he's just expressing his concerns
over it, and then it becomes clear that this priest
perhaps that is speaking to him, is basically administering last rites.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Yes, it is hard for me to communicate how chilling.
The last few minutes of this movie are one of
the most shocking, unsettling things i've ever seen in film.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Yeah, because when he begins to realize what's really happening,
he begins to struggle. They jump, they like strap his
mouth closed, and he continues to fight and scream horribly
for what feels like fifteen minutes or so. It's it's
a lot as they drag him off to the death room.
And I kept thinking, well, they're gonna stop out the way,

(01:04:55):
We're going to fade away or cut away as they
roll them into that room, and they don't. We go
into the death room with him, and there is the
doctor from earlier, his plastic surgeon, and he explains, you know, like, yeah,
you were my best work. I really nailed it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
I made a rock Hudson out of you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
I made Rock Hudson out of you. And I hate
to see this work, you know, go down the drain
and then we go. We follow the scene right through
like the cranial drilling of our main character as they
drill the life out of him, and we get like
the final sort of like death desire hallucination, and it

(01:05:32):
is a scene what of presumably either him and his
daughter on the beach with a red ball, or perhaps
it is some other scene maybe you could interpret it
as him and the parental unit on the beach with
a red ball, like you know, it's it's I guess
it's abstract like that, but like this, I guess was

(01:05:52):
the true desire. You know, this was you know, deep
down in him, like this is the most honest part,
the purest part of his life, and it's the last
thing we see. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
It made me think about how so once I saw
the ending, I was like, oh, Okay, now I think
I understand because the ending of the movie feels so bad.
I understand why some people hated this movie and thought
it was like cold and awful. I think it's actually
quite brilliant. But I think the film and I'm not
at all saying it should have done this. I'm just
saying imagining a different movie that could have been. I

(01:06:25):
think the ending would have felt very different if there
was some character in it somewhere who got it, who
figured out the I don't know what the correct desire is,
the desire that that one can have in order to
find true happiness, And the movie does not give an
answer on that. It doesn't. It just show. It shows

(01:06:46):
you lots of failures of wisdom and failures to understand
ourselves and the pitfalls of desire and the hollowness of desire.
But it never shows you the right way. It never
provides the solution. So so you you know, you're not
given like that sort of ladder out of the pit
of despair.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Yeah, there's no there's no Buddha in this film. And
I thought for a little bit they were setting our
main character up to be a kind of Buddha, that
he would realize that essentially, in the day Room, you
have these characters that are going in and out of incarnations,
and it's very much like the Buddhist Wheel of Semsara
in the realization that like everything is just a cycle

(01:07:27):
of life and death and rebirth, and that the only
way to find true liberation is to remove yourself from
that cycle. But there is no such revelation in this
film because ultimately he's like, give me another shot. I
think the next shot is it. I think the next
shot will be better, and he just commits to the
wheel and that is undoing.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
Well in a way, I think this film is extremely
compatible with Buddhist ideals, Like I think that is sort
of the wisdom of the movie. But there's no character
who embodies that realization. You only see the characters who
are who fail and just like you know, are are
slavering after their their next desire.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
Yeah. Yeah, they're all all hungry ghosts.

Speaker 3 (01:08:15):
So the ending is bleak, dark, shocking. It does not
feel good at all, but I think it is quite powerful,
and I want to make clear again, I don't I
don't think I would change it. I don't think I
would prefer the film with the character who does get
it or does embody sort of the wisdom of the
movie's message.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Yeah, I agree. I think it's it's perfect as is.
I like the direction they ended up going in. I'm
I didn't even look into it. I'm assuming this is
the basic direction of the novel as well, but perhaps
it goes in a different direction. I'm also I'm also
a little shocked that no one has remade this film
or or certainly maybe not as a as a motion picture.

(01:08:54):
But it seems like the kind of thing that someone
could pick up for some sort of television series, you know,
especially nowadays thinking of the success of things like Severance
and so forth. There's a lot you could do with seconds.
But on the other hand, as we often say with
films that really nail something, I don't really want to

(01:09:16):
see someone else coming and perhaps screw it up. This
this film doesn't need to be reborn. As I mentioned
the other day, off off, my one caveat would be
this would have made a great Treehouse of Horror episode
if the Simpsons had done a send up of this
with Homer Simpson or I don't know, there are various
other Simpsons characters that might have been ideal for this treatment,

(01:09:38):
but I can imagine at least the old days of
the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, they could they could have
done this up really nicely.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
First life, you're Ned Flanders, Second life, you're Troy McClure.
Third well, third life, you know, you refer Homer and
you get to go be somebody else, you get to
be Auto.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Finally, yeah, yeah, all right, Well that is seconds from
nineteen sixty six. Uh yeah, terrific picture. Not for the
Week of Heart, not for someone expecting just kind of
a I don't know, an easygoing psychological horror film.

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
This one.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
This one has a lot going on in it, so
obviously we'd love to hear anyone's thoughts out there about
the film. You know what, what's your interpretation of its message?
What do you think about some of the choices here
and the performance and the cinematography and so forth. Right
in We'd love to hear from you, we discuss listener
mail from everything we do here in the Stuff to

(01:10:32):
Blowing Mind podcast feed on our Monday listener mail episodes.
Our core science episodes air on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On
Wednesdays we do a short form monster fact or artifact episode,
and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns even
though it's a pretty serious movie, and many respects for
Weird House cinema. And if you want to see a

(01:10:53):
full list of the movies we've covered over the over
the years here, you can go to letterbox dot com.
That's l E T T E r b o A
dot com. We have an account there. Our username is
weird House and you'll find a list of everything we've covered.
And that website allows you to do a lot of
really cool things too, like organized by decades and years
and genres, So check it out. It's a neat little tool.

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer, Jjposway. If you
would like to get in touch with us with feedback
on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
for the future, or just to say hello. You can
email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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