| Matt Lambert |
Seconds plays at the Trylon Cinema from Friday, September 13th, through Sunday, September 15th. Visit trylon.org for tickets and more information.
In 2013, I was taking my first-ever film studies course. It was a course on Melodramas and our introductory film was the Douglas Sirk, 1956 classic (and a mainstay on my Letterbox Top Four) Written on the Wind. Rock Hudson plays a working-class, intellectual who works for an alcoholic heir to an oil baron. Hudson uses his handsome looks and gentle demeanor to be the moral center of the movie: he does the right thing, doesn’t compromise, and saves the girl.
Watch nearly any Rock Hudson starring film from the 50s and 60s, you will see these traits pop up in each one. A towering figure with a low voice that would anchor a small-town church choir, Hudson’s naive, boyish charm made him an instant star of romance and Western films. He rose to stardom playing Bob Merrick in Magnificent Obsession. In another Sirk collaboration, Hudson plays a medical school dropout who accidentally kills a prominent doctor in the community. As with most real-life events (sarcasm), Hudson rededicates his life to the medical field, becomes the greatest brain surgeon in the world, and cures his lover’s lost eyesight as a result.
Just like Tom Cruise’s characters can’t die in a movie or The Rock can’t lose a wrestling match, Hudson’s characters could do no wrong in the end. Whatever obstacle there was to overcome, being his doing or not, he would always succeed and get the girl.
Seconds though, a 1966 psychological thriller directed by John Frankenheimer, is a noticeable departure.
The film follows a man who will fake his own death and be given a brand new life. To kick start his new life, he is given a new face and identity, one of Antiochus Wilson, played by Hudson. In the aftermath of the operation, Hudson struggles to adapt to this new life and begins to regret his decision.
It’s hard to explain Hudson’s impact on Hollywood in modern terms. Although he’s recently come on the scene in the last couple years, Glen Powell has a chance to be fairly close to Hudson’s physical prowess, charming good looks, and gentle demeanor. Unlike Hudson though, Powell was headed towards action movie stardom, while Hudson spent most of his filmography saving women with love and strong morals.
In a long Hollywood tradition, Hudson was typecast for nearly all of his career, until he wanted to try something different and then Hollywood stopped calling. If you ever get a chance, I highly recommend watching the superb documentary, Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed. It traces Hudson’s rise from a pretty face, to the most popular actor in all of Hollywood, to being relegated to television roles, to becoming the face of the HIV/AIDS crisis. After the release of Seconds, Hudson was no longer viewed as a viable leading man. The film was maligned by critics at Cannes and it became a box office failure.
Hudson believed Seconds was his best work and was disappointed by the reception it received. Seconds really is one of his best works: it’s daring, compulsive, and a departure from the safe “weepies” he had starred in twice a year for the past decade. The frantic, unsure nature Hudson’s character navigates is something he never returns to. After this, he’s subjected to patrolling the streets of San Francisco as Stewart McMillan.
Seconds isn’t the standard Rock Hudson film, but it does show he deserved better than what was given to him. If only he could’ve gotten the chance to play more challenging roles. I can only imagine what kind of career he would’ve had if someone like Todd Haynes directed him.
Watch Pillow Talk. Watch All That Heaven Allows. Watch Giant. And watch Seconds. There’s no one quite like Rock Hudson and never will be again.
Edited by Olga Tchepikova-Treon