User reviews

As the credits rolled across the opening scene, I lost interest in the words as I tried to figure out what I was looking at: a high angle shot of a shimmering expanse that looked like slick, crazy paving, and with muted, keyed lighting spilling down the screen centre, almost like a searchlight. I blinked more than once, trying to focus properly, and then saw the two, long, moving shadows that eventually resolved to the silhouettes of two men running towards me, on what now showed itself to be the cracked and parched desert earth. As they disappeared off camera, I knew those men were running for their lives...

From that superb opener, the rest of this story unfolds with relentless fury as the two – escapees from a penitentiary – join a third, with an escape car, and set off to retrieve a cache of cash from a secret location. The convicts are Sam Hurley (Stephen McNally, in one his best roles), Bart Moore (Paul Kelly) with a bullet in his stomach, acquired in the break-out, and Dummy (Frank De Kova) who only says what he wants with a gun.

The three stop for gas where Hurley quickly displays his psychopathology when he casually kills the attendant who resists; Hurley's action is almost like swatting a fly. They wait then for their next victim – because the cops are looking for three escaped cons, and they want to cover their tracks.

A large limo pulls in for gas, and the cons force their way into the car where Kay Garven (Alexis Smith) and Arthur Ashton (Robert Paige) are in the throes of a love affair that, from the intro between the two a few scenes earlier, appears to be going sour. So, the whole party continues under Hurley's surly orders and direction. That is, until they run out of gas – something Kay forgot to tell Hurley, much to his displeasure. So, they sit at the road side, and wait for another useful victim...

And that soon arrives in the form of Larry Fleming (Keith Andes), a well known news reporter and Dottie Vale (Jan Sterling), an attractive blonde down on her luck and just hitching a ride with Larry. So, when they stop to help Kay who was acting as bait, Hurley once again steps in to step on Larry's plans this time. Good job Larry had a much bigger car – a station wagon that can accommodate all seven of them.

Hurley then tells Larry to drive to a ghost town in the desert where he will link up with another con with another vehicle, due late that night. But first, he has to get Bart fixed up, get that bullet out with the help of Dr Garven (Richard Egan), Kay's estranged husband. Hurley calls the doctor on a phone and tells him he'll kill Kay if he fails to come and fix Bart...

The last piece of the setup falls into place when Larry tells Hurley that the ghost town is only a mile from ground zero: a nuclear test is due for detonation at 6 the next morning. Hurley doesn't care: he's got plenty of time, he thinks. Unknown to all of them, however, that time is changed to 5 a.m. to take advantage of the good weather.

With that all in place, the action is then contained on a single stage for the next hour, as the clock ticks down to zero hour and as Hurley waits to get Bart fixed. Later, old Asa Tremaine (Arthur Hunnicutt) turns up to provide pivotal support for the other hostages, and almost steals the show, for my money.

Director Powell – one of my favorite film-noir actors – does an excellent job as a first-timer behind the camera: well done interlaced editing as the separate stories are shown and eventually come together at the ghost town; appropriate black and white photography; and a well constructed claustrophobic mise-en-scene in the ramshackle bar in the ghost town – reminiscent of that rundown hotel in Key Largo (1948) as the hurricane approaches. Add to that the standard footage showing the preparations to detonate an atom bomb, and the viewer is set for a taut nail-biter.

McNally surpasses all in this film and delivers some of the best lines, along with Jan Sterling. Paul Kelly is very effective as Hurley's older friend – but one who begins to question Hurley's judgment. And Frank De Kova is chillingly dangerous, at all times. Alexis Smith is the quintessential, low-life femme fatale, who makes the fatal error of hitching a ride with Hurley. Keith Andes is credible but somewhat wooden, to be kind, but does show the spunk of heroes when danger beckons. Arthur Hunnicutt is, as usual, the consummate old-timer of the desert – and has the means to save the hostages from nuclear annihilation. Lucky for them.

There're a number of themes, of course: greed, loyalty, and courage being the obvious ones. It's the interaction between Hurley and Bart Moore, however, that's fascinating: Hurley, a psychologically damaged WW2 veteran who can't stop killing but who recognizes something he needs in Bart's presence, almost like a brother. Or, was it just the money?

It's a B movie, for sure, but it's one of the best I've seen. Recommended for all film noir fans.

The success of this film is due largely to Dick Powell's analogy that international violence is caused by many of the same forces that trigger personal violence. Some might say the nation is the individual writ large. His pairing a detonation of an atomic bomb in preparation for a possible conflagration that would eliminate the human race with the escape from prison of a perverted hostile trio of killers hiding out in a deserted western town is indeed inspired. Add to this a clever, telling script written largely by Irving Wallace, who knew how to make today's headlines into entertaining stories, and the result is a near classic film for its genre.

Some of the best lines are given to Jan Sterling in the role of a good-hearted showgirl, Dottie Vale, who has been ridden around the block a few times. At one point in carefree desperation, she states, "looks like we're caught between the devil and the bright red bomb." The ambiance of nonchalance permeates the entire picture and helps to lessen the tension caused by the split second count down to Armageddon for the trapped hostages. Even more humor is introduced with the character of Asa Tremaine, a desert rat who attempts to tell tale tales not unlike those of Gabby Hayes. Played by Arkansas native Arthur Hunnicutt (He's buried at Greenwood, Arkansas), Asa plays a pivotal role near the conclusion of the film. The rest of the cast is effective, particularly Stephen McNally who portrays the coldblooded killer with no morals, Sam Hurley.

The story involves an assortment of personalities who unwittingly end up kidnapped by three escaped killers, one of them mute. The root of the plot centers on the interaction among the characters when their lives are stripped bare with doomsday at 6:00 am the next morning. They hold up in an abandoned town waiting for a doctor who happens to be the husband of a two-timer who is traveling with her boyfriend, now held captive by the killers. There is much edge-of-the-seat suspense as the clock clicks away the minutes.

Dick Powell directed "Split Second," a B movie starring Stephen McNally, Jan Sterling, Alexis Smith, Richard Egan, and Keith Andes, about prisoners and their hostages at an atomic test site. McNally, meaner than dirt, escapes from prison with two cronies, one of whom has been badly wounded. At a gas station, they carjack Alexis Smith and her boyfriend. Before long, they have four hostages: Keith Andes, who plays a reporter, and Jan Sterling, who hitched a ride with him. They all wind up on an atomic bomb test site, and there's a test set for the next day. Since Smith's husband is a doctor, McNally calls him and threatens him with Smith's life so he will come and save the wounded escapee.

Seen with modern eyes, the friendship between McNally and his injured pal is something to behold. McNally is a cruel tough guy who becomes gentle when speaking to his friend, and he's determined not to leave him behind. Hmm...Smith plays a desperate, selfish society woman who will do anything - underline anything - to get McNally to take her along when he leaves, and in fact, they have a protracted time together in another room. She's a real piece of work. Richard Egan is her husband, who arrives to help the wounded prisoner.

Keith Andes was a handsome man whose major career was in television, and his beautiful singing voice and masculine presence brought him Broadway success as well, particularly costarring with Lucille Ball in "Wildcat." He does a good job here, as does Jan Sterling - they are two people caught in bad circumstances who happen to fall in love along the way. McNally is as nasty as they come - another fine performance of a low-life.

Dick Powell's direction has a sure hand, and the tension mounts as the film continues. A very good B movie, but not really noir as has been suggested.

A cultish favourite that is often listed for festivals of noir cinema, this work is less noirish than it is a clear example from the Theatre of Paranoia, as Dick Powell's directorial debut melds nuclear explosion fears with a harrowing hostage taking by two escaped convicts fleeing from a Nevada prison. The escapees, Sam (Stephen McNally) and Bart (Paul Kelly) helped by mute accomplice Dummy (Frank DeKova), take refuge in an abandoned mining town, Yucca Flats, along with six prisoners they acquire during their flight, despite their awareness that the desert ghost town is within a nuclear test site where, in 12 hours, a combined military force is going to explode a tower bomb armed with high grade scissile plutonium. Sam believes that he and his two cohorts will be able to evade a protective army encirclement and escape prior to the blast, but the uncertain fate of their hapless hostages becomes the oarlock for the film's atmosphere of foreboding, with one of the captives, played by Keith Andes, being a Las Vegas newspaper reporter who has full knowledge of the detonation schedule, having attended planning meetings during which the event's timetable has been established. For Powell's initial effort as a director of features, he selects a restricted environment, essentially one large room, as setting for his limited cast of featured players, with the bomb becoming an additional sinister character. Following initial lead-in scenes, including interlaced footage of actual soldiers and military technicians, a stage mise-en-scène is established to advance an atmosphere of suspense. Unfortunately, Powell's inexperience with ensemble work is in evidence here, as the players generally simply take turns with their readings, although a good deal of the dialogue is trenchant. The villainous trio is the most interesting of the cast, with Kelly taking the acting palm for his strong yet low-keyed turn as one who was severely wounded during the prison break, and Richard Egan is convincing as a physician gulled into performing surgery upon Bart, while on the distaff side talented Jan Sterling handily outperforms the histrionic Alexis Smith. Shot in California's Mojave Desert, this work benefits from R.K.O.s master cinematographer with black and white stock, Nick Musuraca, and there is an appropriately dramatic score from Roy Webb. A nearly fatal flaw is the artless attitude toward the dangerous effects of atomic radiation, although it must be conceded that applicable information available to the general public was scanty at the time of the film's production.

This film does not receive the notice it deserves; it is discovered by those who are intrigued by its gimmick--the action takes place in a ghost town scheduled to be destroyed by am atom bomb very soon, and then appreciated for its many good B/W dramatic scenes and other qualities. Dick Powell directed this taut thriller with his usual combination of good work with actors and very competent camera work. There are two plots going on here, very well interwoven by my standards; the normals in the film, led by a reporter beautifully played by Keith Andes, are those trapped in the doomed desert town; the other are those who are holding them there, a gang of criminals led by nice-guy and talented actor Stephen McNally as Sam Hurelyy-- an escaped criminal whose brutality becomes a metaphor for the violence of an Age that needs to resort to atom bomb tests. Others in the stellar cast include Jan Sterling, Robert Paige,,Alexis Smith, Richard Egan, Arthur Hunnicutt, Paul Sewart and Frank de Kova. What sets this film apart I suggest is the brutality theme which is deftly made to affect to every member of the cast. McNally as Sam Hurley equates life with getting to do whatever he wants to do to anyone by force. Andes is his chief antagonist, not a great pugilist but a brave fighter for another way of thinking about life--get on with your own priorities and leave others alone; this is by the way the real definition of heroism-- being a man who can do something well. Alexis Smith plays a woman who to save her life ignores what Hurley is, and the fact that is is planning to leave the others behind when he uses their car to drive away--with the atom bomb taking care of the evidence. The characters here are all unusually well-developed, from hoofer Sterling who distrusts everyone until Andes takes a beating from McNally protecting her, to Paige who underestimates Hurley to Hunnicutt who has run away from people to Egan who comes to save the wife who has been cheating on him, a woman who can't take responsibility, to Stewart who has to act against Hurley, his partner. It's difficult to recommend too highly such an extraordinary blend of noir brinksmanship, excellent dialogue and memorable confrontations. This drama only needed one change, to be made from the point of view of the reporter not the gang leader, to be a great film. It would lose a lot in color since it's superb black-and-white noir drama, from an age of much-better acting, writing and directing.

Split Second is directed by Dick Powell and written by William Bowers, Irving Wallace and Chester Erskine. It stars Stephen McNally, Alexis Smith, Jan Sterling, Keith Andes, Arthur Hunnicutt, Richard Egan, Paul Kelly, Robert Paige and Frank DeKova. Music is by Roy Webb and cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca.

Escaped convict Sam Hurley (McNally) is on the run with his wounded pal Bart Moore (Kelly) and henchman accomplice Dummy (DeKova). Carjacking two lots of hostages, Hurley takes them to a ghost town on an Atom Bomb test sight figuring it's the perfect place to hole up. But with Moore in need of medical help, the test bomb set to go off in the morning and tempers frayed within the group, something is going to have to give...

A taut and sweaty noir, Split Second taps into the 50s fear of the bomb and explodes the character dynamics Petrified Forest style. The premise is simple, once the character introductions are out the way, we wind our way to a bleak ghost town and stay in the company of a disparate group of people for the remainder of the film. As the clock ticks down, with the bomb set to be detonated on the town at 06.00, the various characters introduce their respective traits into the story. The tension mounts and the over-spills are often nervy, sleazy and poignant.

The makers don't soft soap the situations, but they do dangle shards of sympathy. As is the case with Hurley, who is a cold blooded killer, we know and witness this, but his back story is that of a war hero, he also has a deep affection for his injured older pal, somewhere along the line a good man lost his balance. Dottie Vale (Sterling) is a dancer, street wise and aware of how to play the situation, but sadness resides behind her waspish tongue. Kay Garven (Smith) is a lost cause, she will do anything and trample on anyone to save herself. One of the best sequences in the film finds Garven throwing herself at Hurley, the rest goes on behind closed doors, but we know what happens and it adds spice to what follows in the final third.

Not all of the characters work for dramatic impact, such as Hunnicutt's talkative miner who wanders in to the plot at the mid-point (it's amazing how easy everyone finds it to get into this supposedly secure military site!), but the dynamics work wonderfully well. Weaklings, heroes in waiting, the forlorn, the foolish or the borderline psychotic, they all make for a potent and spicy psychological stew. The suspense angle of the impending bomb detonation is water tight, as is the ebbing away of Bart Moore, directer Powell never resorts to cheap tactics or clichés to keep the noose tight, and we are constantly wondering just who, if anyone? Will survive the ordeal.

Once daylight disappears and we leave the scorching Mojave vistas behind, night time envelopes the ghost town and ace cinematographer Musuraca brings his atmospheric magic. Webb scores it with dramatic verve and the RKO effects team (headed by Harold Wellman) do sterling work to pull it all together without cheap and tacky baggage. Powell gets great performances out of McNally, Kelly, Sterling, Egan and Smith, while his ability to not let the logic holes dominate the narrative belies the fact that this was his first directing assignment.

From the ominous opening shot of two men fleeing over sun-baked mud flats, to the thrilling and darkly tinged denouement, Split Second is a coiled spring waiting to explode. 8/10

My understanding of this motion picture is much different. My family owned the gas station and inn that appears in the picture. I have many memories of director Powell flying around in a rather unusual aircraft for the time, a helicopter. Being very young, I didn't have much interaction with the adults as they wanted to imbibe after the shootings for the day but I do recall having to be silent and not play in the front of the business. This is truly a unique story line for the early '50s. The cold war was in full swing so any movie about this subject captured audience attention. I have since purchased video tapes for members of my family. Excelent example of the A-Bomb era genre. Others: The Day The Earth Stood Still, Godzilla.

The genre of film-noir can be divided into three eras - generally speaking: the classic era (1940-1945), the postwar era (1945-1953) and the Cold War era (1953-1958-60?). Film-noir was always a genre about fear, moral complexity and desperation. When the WWII film-noir exuded postwar disillusions; the concrete war was over but it was still going on on social level: in our minds and in the society. What genre would fit more perfectly to the ages of paranoia and fear than the genre of them, film-noir. To my mind Split Second is the first Cold War film-noir - a statement which one could argue about because in the same year 1953 Samuel Fuller made a film-noir about paranoia and the fear of communism Pickup on South Street (1953).

Dick Powell was the star of the Hollywood musicals in 1930's. In 1940's he tried to change his image from a singing dancer to the new bad boy of Hollywood. In 1944 Edward Dmytryk directed Murder, My Sweet based on a novel by Raymond Chandler and casted Dick Powell to play Philip Marlowe - the greatest private eye of film-noir, but the performance by Powell is often left in the shadows of Humphrey Bogart's Philip Marlowe interpretation in The Big Sleep (1946). After the war Dick Powell had some experience from film-noir and he chose to try directing as well. Split Second was his debut of the six films he directed and I think he succeed quite well in it.

1950's was the age when the government of the United States made a lot of nuclear weapon experiments: in the deserts of US and in the famous Bikini island. This offered a chance to make a thriller around these kind of events and Split Second represents the attempt of transforming film-noir from its usual big city milieus to a deserted town in Nevada under the fear of the war. Three men have just escaped from prison, unaware of the nuclear experiments of the government. Soon the group of three takes a few hostages in result of getting a doctor because one of the escapees is injured. As time goes on in the deserted town the hostages start to lose their morality and the time before the explosion is running out.

The aesthetics of film-noir were often related to big cities like New York or Los Angeles and exotic milieus were always part of the genre but usually they meant bars in Chinatown, motels of Arabia or the cold streets of Shanghai. In 1950's many tried to transform film-noir to new milieus: to snowy conditions (On Dangerous Ground), to the narrow halls of a train (The Narrow Margin) and to the back seats of a car (The Hitch-Hiker). To me Split Second represents the attempt of transforming film-noir to deserted towns, which The Hitch-Hiker (1953) did as well, but Split Second also tried to bring film-noir to the Atomic Age.

There's no question whether this is a high quality noir or a B-class film. The latter can be seen in its conventional direction, low budget and it has got a great number of unknown actors. But the way I see it Split Second is alongside with all the b-class Mitchum films one of the bests. It's a great example of Cold War films and how the Atomic Age affected cinema. It's an entertaining thriller but also a fine survey of the disappearance of morality.

Small gem of a movie filled with faces you know. Glad I stumbled upon it today.

Three desperate escaped convicts flee into the Nevada wastelands. Along the way they kidnap 5 travelers and force them to hole up in a ghost town for one night. To complicate matters, the government is planning to detonate an atomic bomb early the next morning which will turn the old town into toast. Very tense drama with a nerve tingling finale.

SPLIT SECOND is a tough crime thriller from the early 1950s with an absolutely fantastic premise: a group of characters are taken hostage by some desperate convicts who've broken out of prison and will do anything to get away. The problem? They're holed up in a ghost town in the desert which will shortly be obliterated when a nuclear bomb test takes effect.

I can't think of a better premise for tension building, so it's a shame that the suspense in this story is only so-so; former actor Dick Powell certainly knows how to shoot a good scene or two (there are some excellent brutal fights here) but the film lacks something overall. I think the music could have been a lot better in building suspense because it's all surprisingly subtle.

Still, there's plenty to like here, not least the performances. Stephen McNally was a popular movie heavy and his murderous character burns up the screen. The rest of the performers are well judged, from the sinister mute villain to the crusading reporter hero and the cheating spouse. The nuclear ending doesn't disappoint; it's a neat precursor to the '80s wave of nuclear blast dramas.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of three Humphrey Bogart films that are highly reminiscent of "Split Second"--"The Petrified Forest", "The Desperate Hours" and "Key Largo". Yet, despite this being a very familiar sort of film, there is enough going for it to make it well worth your while.

The film begins with a jailbreak. The nation's most wanted man has escaped and he and two other crooks are hiding in the desert--near the nuclear testing grounds in Nevada. Along the way, they take several prisoners and plan on hiding out in the test area until just before the explosion. However, naturally, things don't go quite as planned.

As I said above, the idea of a bunch of crooks terrorizing a group of hostages is certainly not new. However, three main things make this worth while. First, the nuclear angle is new--and REALLY pays off great at the end of the film. In fact, the ending is great. Second, Steven McNally is a familiar face as a noir heavy--and here he is at his snarling best. Third, despite McNally's great performance, I really loved the character played by Alexis Smith--there is nothing like it and you just have to see what I mean. So what you have is a very taut film packed with nice performances and a knock-out ending. I might rate it higher, but as I said it's a bit familiar and the middle portion is a bit talky. Still....see this film.

McNally is a real psycho and Smith is despicable. I really enjoyed this movie. Not perfect by a long shot but one that slipped under my radar until now. Richard Egan is always worth watching.

A journalist (Keith Andes) is moved assignment from covering an A-bomb testing to report on a story about 2 escaped prisoners (Stephen McNally & Paul Kelly). On his way out of the testing range, he picks up a female drifter (Jan Sterling) and is then hi-jacked by the escaped convicts and their getaway driver (Frank DeKova), along with a married lady (Alexis Smith) and her lover (Robert Paige) who the convicts have previously hi-jacked at a petrol station. The group, under the lead of McNally, head into an abandoned town which is due to be destroyed by the bomb (6.00am is detonation time). Kelly is injured and needs a doctor, so Smith's husband (Richard Egan) is summoned under threat. He joins the group that night along with a lone drifter (Arthur Hunnicutt) who is wandering around.

The film then follows the alliances, rivalries and love interests that are formed within the group as we wait for the doctor to fix Kelly and we count down the hours before the explosion. Will the convicts, under the ruthless leadership of McNally, kill everyone? Does McNally intend to save anyone by driving them out with him?......and then.......the authorities bring forward the detonation time to 5.00am and the 5 minute warning siren suddenly sets off...........

There are a couple of moments when credulity is stretched, eg, the ease with which everyone remains unnoticed within the forbidden zone despite coming across a road block, and Egan's arrival at night. We have been shown the thoroughness with which the military has evacuated the area and set up blocks preventing people from entering the area at the beginning of the film.....maybe the American military are a bit dumb..........but who cares.

Its a film about the tense situation that a group of strangers find themselves in and its well acted.

With Donald Trump threatening to initiate nuclear Armageddon, movies from that previous era of nuclear obsession and fear of annihilation, otherwise known as the 1950s, have taken on a renewed urgency.

In "Split Second," a film dripping with figurative and literal anxiety about a doomsday clock ticking down to "0," a group of hostages holed up in a deserted mining town figure out how to make their escape before a nuclear test in the desert blows them all to smithereens. They're being held captive by an escaped con, played in a sweaty performance by Stephen McNally. The hostages are played by the likes of studly men Keith Andes and Richard Egan, hotsy totsy Jan Sterling and Alexis Smith, and comic relief Arthur Hunnicutt. Sterling gets all of the film's best lines, which is as it should be given her droll way with a one-liner. The TCM set up for the film stated that since none of the actors were big-time stars, there was built in suspense because any of them could be killed off. That's not entirely true, as the film pretty neatly divides the cast into good guys and bad guys, and the good guys survive while the bad guys get burnt to a crisp. But it is a pretty suspenseful movie anyway.

The ending is meant to be a happy one for the survivors, but of course knowing what we know now, all of them would be poisoned to death by nuclear fall out. It's hard to believe there was a time when our government regularly detonated nuclear bombs in the middle of the desert, and hotels in Las Vegas would advertise roof-top bars that would allow customers to watch the explosions. "Split Second" manages to be both cautionary and hopelessly naive at the same time, but I promise you'll get some bang for your buck.

Grade: B+

In films like ' Children of Hiroshima ' and ' On the Beach ' the horror of atomic warfare were made in the hope that such warfare would never be unleashed on the world again, and even in ' Dr. Strangelove ' it was used as a warning against the death-wish of governments. Here in this repulsively ugly film it is used as a horrific gimmick using real footage of an atomic test in the USA and giving an audience the ' thrill ' of seeing people dying. No spoilers to describe how all this happened, except to say it involves criminals on the run, and for a great deal of its playing time concentrates on them. There is a lot of violence, but the greater violence is upon the psyche of those who would be affected by seeing it and dreading the ( real ) possibility that it could happen to them. The Netherlands was cautious and did not allow children to see it, raising the age to 18. Sweden banned it. In the UK it was simply given an ' A ' certificate where children would have gone with an adult and may have been traumatised for life.