Rock Hudson stars in 1960s cult classic film to screen in Whanganui

Rock Hudson in a scene from John Frankenheimer's 1966 cult classic film Seconds screening at the Davis theatre next week.

Rock Hudson stars in Seconds - the 1966 cult classic by American director John Frankenheimer.

James Wong Howe's highly distorted cinematography received an Academy Award nomination, and the film was also nominated for the Cannes Palme d'Or before disappearing off the radar for decades until its rerelease in 2013.

Seconds will screen at the Davis Lecture Theatre next Monday and Whanganui Film Society president Helen Marie O'Connell said it is the concluding film in Frankenheimer's loose "paranoid" trilogy, following The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May.

"Rock Hudson is a revelation in this sinister, science-fiction-inflected dispatch from the fractured 1960s," said the Criterion review.

"Seconds, directed by John Frankenheimer, concerns a middle-aged banker who, dissatisfied with his suburban existence, elects to undergo a strange and elaborate procedure that will grant him a new life.

"Starting over in America, however, is not as easy as it sounds.

"This paranoiac symphony of canted camera angles (courtesy of famed cinematographer James Wong Howe), fragmented editing, and layered sound design is a remarkably risk-taking Hollywood film that ranks high on the list of its legendary director's achievements."

Whanganui Film Society will take a two-week break after this screening and the next film, Fidelio: Alice's Odyssey, will screen on July 23.

Seconds screens at the Davis Theatre, Whanganui Regional Museum, Watt St, at 7pm on Monday, July 2.