[4] The film tells the story of a middle-aged New York banker who, disillusioned with his life, is contacted by an agency known as "The Company" which specializes in providing "rebirths" under new identities and appearances altered by plastic surgery.
[7] Arthur Hamilton is a middle-aged banking executive in Scarsdale, New York, who, despite his professional success, remains profoundly unfulfilled.
His love for his wife, Emily, has dwindled, and he seldom sees his only daughter, who has relocated to the West Coast and started a family.
He wanders around and disappears into a large area filled with dark, empty hallways and finds himself in a vulnerable woman's bedroom and while trying to become intimate with her, in his intoxication, he seemingly sexually assaults her.
After waking, Arthur is informed that the Company's service comes at a cost of $30,000 and is shown a film of the prior staged assault, ostensibly to make his decision easier.
There, the revelers dance, sing, and stomp grapes in a large trough and, after some initial discomfort, Arthur lowers his inhibitions and begins to enjoy himself.
Upon returning home, Arthur receives a phone call from Charlie, who warns him that he has put himself in danger by violating the Company's rules.
Frustrated at the unknown amount of time the men have been waiting to be chosen, and being unable to think of anyone that he can refer to the Company, Arthur angrily demands that his procedure is performed without further delay.
Dr. Innes proceeds to drill into Arthur's skull to inflict a brain hemorrhage consistent with head injuries sustained in a car crash.
[9] Frankenheimer had completed several successful films before his involvement with the project, namely Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and Seven Days in May (1964).
[10] For the central role of Antiochus "Tony" Wilson, Frankenheimer had sought Kirk Douglas, whose company, Joel Productions, was producing the film.
[12] The Dionysian-themed party sequence was shot on location with a handheld camera in Santa Barbara, California, during an annual wine festival held there.
[12] The director of photography for Seconds was James Wong Howe, who pioneered novel techniques in black-and-white cinematography and whose career spanned nearly five decades.
[12] In Frankenheimer's commentary on the DVD, he notes: The opening titles of the film were designed by Saul Bass,[13][14] using Helvetica set in white over optically warped black-and-white motion picture photography.
During the editing process, Frankenheimer chose to excise a scene in which Arthur meets with his daughter in California after his transformation into Tony.
[16] The film premiered in the United States in New York City on October 5, 1966, and opened in Los Angeles the following month, on November 9, 1966.
[11] The footage that was ultimately excised for the American theatrical release consisted of the grape-stomping sequence that occurs at the party Arthur attends with Nora.
[2] A reviewer in Time wrote: "Director John Frankenheimer and veteran photographer James Wong Howe manage to give the most improbable doings a look of credible horror.
Rotten Tomatoes' consensus reads: "Featuring dazzling, disorienting cinematography from the great James Wong Howe and a strong lead performance by Rock Hudson, Seconds is a compellingly paranoid take on the legend of Faust.
"[20] Writing in Time Out New York, Andrew Johnston wrote: "Seconds is easily one of the most subversive films ever to have come out of Hollywood: Even as it exposes the folly of selfishly abandoning one's commitments, it also makes a passionate case for following one's heart and rejecting conformity...This chilling portrayal of a well-meaning guy stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare is unlike anything else he [Hudson] did.
"[31] He later cancelled the Beach Boys' forthcoming album Smile, and the film reportedly frightened him so much that he did not visit another movie theater until 1982's E.T.