Seconds (1966)

It was actually Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate that really got me watching movies in the first place, but for some reason I had not seen another one of his movies until last night. Seconds was the perfect second. A middle-aged banker Alexander Hamilton receives mysterious phone calls from a friend who is supposed to be long-dead offering to him the opportunity of a lifetime: complete freedom. Hamilton is lured into the offices of a cryptic corporation whose only service is to "re-birth" people. His death is faked, extensive surgery conducted, and a new identity constructed for Hamilton. After all is said and done he re-emerges as Tony Wilson (now played by an aging, but still suave Rock Hudson), and is shipped off to California to participate in a wild life of swingin' parties and orgies in the woods. But changing one's outward appearance does not mean one has necessarily changed, and soon Alex now Tony finds himself caught up in an existential crisis, as well as a possibly deadly dilemma. Seconds is a bizarre, twisting, and smart thriller, but is also very much of its era. But there is something endlessly fascinating about it. At times it recalls Teshigahara's The Face of Another, especially in Frankenheimer's use of widescreen black and white compositions. Definitely worth checking out.