Two Seconds
“Hidden gem” is a tired phrase but it deserves one more outing for Two Seconds, a 1932 “proto-noir” that explores many of the themes filmmakers would place center stage in the noirs of the 1940s and ’50s. Not that anyone involved had the slightest idea they were making “film noir.” The term—and the genre itself—would be invented a generation later and bestowed on films posthumously.
Two Seconds opens with John Allen, played by Edward G. Robinson, being led to the electric chair. Asked by a reporter whether the condemned man feels anything after the current is switched on, the prison doctor answers: “Two seconds.” That’s how long the brain continues to live after the body dies.
“Those must be the longest two seconds in the world,” the reporter says. The film then flashes before you in a taut 68 minutes as Allen’s relives his plight—and how he wound up in the chair.
When we first meet him, it’s hard to imagine this affable, sensitive working stiff committing a crime so heinous that it will deserve a death sentence. He and his best friend, Bud, are well paid construction workers, casually exchanging wisecracks while welding high above the city on the steel skeletons of Depression-era skyscrapers. Their workday peril is both jaw-dropping and accurately portrayed.
Two Seconds is a glimpse into an urban America different from the shadowy streets, nightclubs and back alleys of 1940s and ’50s noir. This is Depression America, where money is scarce, jobs are dangerous and a man's grip on respectability can be fragile.
But the reason to watch this film is Edward G. Robinson. He is the charisma that lights up the stage. The movie is, above all, a vehicle for Robinson, and he gives it everything he has playing the flawed everyman, a victim of bad choices that compound themselves, sexual obsession, humiliation, desperation and the sense that once a man starts falling, there may be nothing to stop him.
At times Robinson sails close to overacting—and then makes the excess work. “From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.” Robinson spends much of Two Seconds walking that narrow ledge, and it’s hard to take your eyes off him.
Edward G. Robinson had an illustrious Hollywood career, appearing in over 100 movies, including some of the greatest film noirs. He is a personal favorite of mine; even when he was bad, he was good. The actor never won an Oscar because he was never even nominated for one! In poor health, he was prepared to receive an Honorary Academy Award at the 1973 Awards Show, but died two months before the television presenation. His wife, Jane Robinson, accepted the Award for him.
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