Often listed as science-fiction and occasionally mentioned as a horror film, this is actually an intriguing drama that evolves from an imaginative premise before twisting into a genuinely horrific conclusion. When a middle-aged man (John Randolph) grows tired of the middle-class life he has built for himself, a mysterious business offers him "seconds" -- literally, a chance to start a new life, complete with a new face. After undergoing plastic surgery, he emerges looking like a handsome young man (Rock Hudson), who is set up with a new identify (home, career, etc). A fiery automobile "accident" is arranged to account for the disappearance of his old self, who is presumed dead by all who knew him. Unfortunately, the transition to a new life proves difficult, and Tony Wilson (as he is now known) begins to yearn for his old life, even breaking the rules to drive through his old neighborhood and spy on his wife and home. He meets a young woman (Salome Jens) on the beach and begins to fall in love, until he learns that she was planted to help him through his adjustment to his new life. Eventually, he decides that his life as Tony Wilson is not working out, so he asks to go back and try yet again, hoping that next time his new life will work out for him. The surgical team takes him back to the operating room, but it turns out that "seconds" is all they offer; there are no "thirds." And finally we get an answer to that nagging question: Where do they get the bodies they need to place inside the wreckage of those arranged "accidents"?

Rock Hudson was more a movie star than an actor -- a handsome leading man who could hit his marks and deliver his lines while relying on his looks and charisma to carry him through. He considered SECONDS one of his few opportunities to do any genuine acting, and he handles the role well: behind the handsome face, you see the lost, lonely eyes of the man he had been, uneasy in his new skin, unable to adjust to his new life, and yearning to return to what he left behind.

Lewis John Carlino strives to create a realistic scenario from the fantastic premise; despite the film's reputation as science-fiction, SECONDS seems to be set in a contemporary, believable world. Director John Frankenheimer (who crafted a handful of great films in his long career) takes the same approach, using black-and-white photography that lends a dramatic, almost documentary air to the proceedings, instead of the high-tech gloss one usually associates with science-fiction. He really pulls the stops out only for the frightening finale, which has a sort of clinically fiendish feel to it that is genuinely chilling.

SECONDS may seem slightly dated in a sexist kind of way. It is essentially a sympathetic look at a conventional male mid-life crisis, blown up to melodramatic proportions. The women are mostly there to be wives or love interests, and the Salome Jens character, though not a femme fatale, is certainly deceitful, leaving viewers with the feeling that everything might have worked out for him if only a beautiful woman had genuinely fallen in love with him. Nevertheless, this is an excellent film that does a fine job of exploring a fascinating premise.