Although Rock Hudson is top billing, he appears on screen only after 40 minutes of running time because the character he plays has quite different face and look after being transformed by a physical reconstruction surgery. John Randolph was chosen to play the scenes of the beginning before the physical reconstruction surgery.
Although this film is nowadays viewed as a cult classic, European critics at the Cannes Film Festival were so hostile to the film that director John Frankenheimer refused to leave nearby Monte Carlo, where he was shooting Grand Prix, for the press conference. Rock Hudson was sent instead and was unable to answer the critical questions during the hostile session.
Arthur Hamilton's tennis trophy in reality belonged to John Frankenheimer.
Director John Frankenheimer wanted to cast Laurence Olivier, then considered the world's greatest actor, as the lead, but the producers did not want Olivier as he was not a box office draw. Rock Hudson was cast instead. Ironically, Olivier won his seventh Oscar nomination for Othello the year "Seconds" was released.
Director Jonathan Mostow was set to direct a 'Seconds' remake.
French censorship certificate: -13.
Initially director John Frankenheimer was reluctant to cast Hudson, whom he felt was a lightweight actor in comparison to Laurence Olivier and Kirk Douglas, other actors he wanted for the lead part. It was only after Hudson's agent convinced him at a party that Hudson could do the role that he went ahead with Hudson. He has later gone on to praise Hudson's work in the film and felt he was impeccably cast.
Nora's house is one in which John Frankenheimer formerly rented and lived.
Originally Kirk Douglas was supposed to play the lead role, but director John Frankenheimer didn't think that Kirk's well-known features could be adequately hidden. The director envisioned Laurence Olivier in the role before finally choosing Rock Hudson.
The house that is provided for Rock Hudson's character was owned by director John Frankenheimer. It was later sold.
The mounted fish over Arthur's mantle belonged to John Frankenheimer.
This was John Randolph's first film for fifteen years (since an uncredited one-day bit part in "Fourteen Hours"). He had been blacklisted for his radical sympathies in the early '50s, and his wife Sara Cunningham later said that he had been on the blacklist longer than any other actor. Two other actors in prominent roles, Jeff Corey and Nedrick Young, were also long blacklisted.