MovieChat Forums > Seconds (1966) Discussion > Airport Guy

Airport Guy

posted 14 years ago by markb63
5 replies | jump to latest

There seems to be agreement on this board that the guy at the airport who recognized Tony Wilson was a company employee who was testing Wilson. I disagree. I think the real Wilson was the man they killed as Hamilton's "cadaver match," and Hamilton took Wilson's identity (probably moving him to a new place).

Remember when the Asian guy with the funny mustache gave the new Wilson the press clippings and diploma? When Wilson said, "you can't fake these," he told him the diplomas were indeed real. Perhaps they belonged to the real Wilson, as did the paintings.

As far as whether the company wanted the reborns to fail the first time around so they could come back and recruit new clients, that is definitely a possibility. Perhaps they set them up to fail. But I really don't think so. I think they try to help people succeed, knowing full well some will fail on their own and have to come back, where they will either recruit new clients, or be used as cadavers.

[–] Altho73 14 years ago

If the fellow at the airport believed that the Rock Hudson character was the 'real' Tony Wilson he wouldn't have just acknowledged him and then disappeared. Even if he had a plane to catch why didn't he make arrangements to meet him on another occassion, exchange phone numbers, find out Wilson's address etc, etc, etc????.

I don't think that there ever was a 'real Tony Wilson', he was a non existant person created by the secret society. Suppose that the 'real' Tony Wilson had been arrested for a traffic offense he would have been filed, fingerprinted and photographed. Now should the fake Tony Wilson be involved in another traffic incident and the two records were compared then their scheme would be well and truly blown open.

[–] EllisFowler 14 years ago

I have to agree. An entirely new identity was fabricated for a pre-existing body and the guy at the airport was definitely a plant. It would also seem pretty obvious to Will Geer's character that things weren't, for the most part, working out for most of their clients (the whole point of the story--you can't change who you are).

[–] SuCue 9 years ago

That scene made me wonder if Arthur wasn't the first reborn to " try out" Tony Wilson's life. After all it would have been expensive to come up with the house, the paintings, the paperwork etc. so why not reuse them to save money? There's no telling how many other "Tony Wilsons" there actually were.

[–] ncdwbmk6 9 years ago

In the book, it was made clear that Airport Guy was another "reborn," who had been told by the Company to help Tony Wilson feel "at home" in his new life. It backfired, though, and made him paranoid.

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You got your mind right, Luke?

[–] PearlJade (26) 3 years ago

Remember that Arthur Hamilton underwent extensive surgery to make him look younger, fitter, and more handsome. He did not receive a face and body transplant from a handsome dead man named Tony Wilson. A random person wouldn’t recognize him as his “old friend Tony Wilson” because Tony Wilson was created on the operating room table.

A cadaver is sought to match the pre-surgery, old identity appearance (height and build) of the person who wants to be reborn, in this case Arthur Hamilton. This is in order to convincingly fake Arthur’s death to his family and/or other authorities.

It doesn’t go the other way around. In other words, no cadaver is used or needed for the new identity. The new identity is created by plastic surgery on the reborn-to-be and by expertly faked I.D. documents.