Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Time Capsule of Terror, 26 Sep 2005
The core concept of this film has special relevance more than 40 years after its initial release, given recent developments in genetic engineering: Recycling of human beings, whole or in parts. As I again watched it, I thought about several themes which have intrigued man throughout history, such as eternal youth (e.g. the fountain of youth) and unholy pacts (e.g. in the Garden of Eden and, later, Dr. Faust). Dissatisfied with his life, Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) presents himself to The Company and agrees (for a substantial fee) to become a different person and have a lifestyle about which he has obviously fantasized for many years. After extensive surgery, he becomes Antiochus ("Tony") Wilson (Rock Hudson), twenty years younger, strikingly handsome, physically fit, and living what is for many males an idealized bachelor's life. He seems to have everything Hamilton once desired and yet....This is among the subtlest but also one of the most frightening of films. To say more about its plot would be a disservice to those who have not as yet seen it. Suffice to say that, under the brilliant direction of John Frankenheimer, the cast plays out what becomes a horror story of almost unbearable impact. My opinion is that Hudson's performance is his strongest throughout a lengthy film career. Will Geer appears briefly but memorably, as do others in a diverse cast which includes Murray Hamilton, Jeff Corey, Richard Anderson, and Salome Jens. Also noteworthy is James Wong Howe's cinematography which nourishes, indeed intensifies the gradually-increasing sense of terror as Wilson attempts without success to re-negotiate the terms and conditions of his surgically-enhanced life. Whenever I recall the final scene, I shudder despite the fact that I have seen this film several times and know that it is "only a movie."
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shocking, 6 May 2007
I saw this with my friend's boyfriend. We both walked into her room afterwards looking shell shocked, unable to explain the movie we had just seen.
It's a concept most people have probably thought of in an idle daydream, leaving your old boring life and taking on a completely new one. New face, new job, new life, new everything. But no matter what external changes are made, we still take ourselves with us. And what happens if it all goes wrong?
Disturbing, thought provoking, unforgetable.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What do you want from life?, 18 Oct 2007
And what if someone gave it to you? Would you be happy?
A stunning movie, and genuinely disturbing. What cinema is all about. Imagine "It's a Wonderful Life" but through a glass darkly. Very darkly. At the end we get a glimpse of what deep down the hero really wanted, and for me it is one of the most moving moments in cinema.
They were talking about re-making this (like they re-made Frankenheimer's companion film "The Manchurian Candidate"). Thank god it never happened.
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