Watch Split Second For Free

Powerful

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

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+

Two escaped convicts and an accomplice take hostages in a Nevada ghost town where an atomic bomb test is set for the next day. Nice little thriller. The 'criminals taking hostages' plot has been done before and since but the atomic testing site is a nice touch. Stephen McNally makes a vicious baddie but Alexis Smith's character turns out to be the most vile person in the film. Keith Andes is good. He sounds like Peter Graves. Pretty Jan Sterling is a tough blonde. She and Andes have nice chemistry. Paul Kelly plays one of the convicts. That wasn't an acting stretch for real-life ex-con Kelly. Arthur Hunnicutt is fun as a grizzled old prospector. Robert Paige, Richard Egan, and Frank DeKova round out the cast. Everybody does a good job. Dick Powell's directorial debut. Yes, that Dick Powell. Impressive climax is a nice payoff.

Most movies about villains holding hostages are like "Dial 1119", in which the police surround the subject building and try to negotiate with the kidnappers. Here, there are no police officers even close to the hostage scene--but everybody's in the blast zone of a planned nuclear test! Ultra-bad guy and prison escapee Sam Hurley (Stephen McNally, who played about the best bad guy in movie history), his accomplice Bart Moore (Paul Kelly) and mute henchman Dummy (Frank DeKova) kidnap several innocent people and hole up in a desert ghost town. Moore is wounded, so physician Neal Garven (Richard Egan) is summoned to tend to Bart. Grizzled prospector Asa Tremaine (Arthur Hunnicutt--who else?) blunders into the situation. All are held hostage while Garven operates on Moore...all the time, everyone knows that a nuclear test is scheduled in just a few short hours.Dummy is overcome and beaten up, just as Hurley, Kelly, and their moll take off in a car, trying to outrun the blast. Well, they don't make it...and end up satisfyingly incinerated by the blast. Tremaine leads the former hostages to an abandoned mine, where the group rides out the bomb detonation.I've always liked any movie that stars Richard Egan (although he plays a supporting character here), and Arthur Hunnicutt is worth the price of admission in his signature role as an old miner. Look fast for Nelson Leigh as a scientist in a control room. Dick Powell directs with a sure hand in his directing debut, and confines most of the story to one claustrophobic room in the abandoned town. Catch this film if you get a chance--the plot is familiar, but the cast and story twist concerning the nuclear test makes it all worthwhile.

Escaped convicts take a group of hostages into a ghost town in the Nevada desert that will be ground zero for a nuclear bomb test early the next morning. Stephen McNalley's ruthless criminal hits some unexpected high points during the long night, gunning one man down, and later tossing a Bible he was reading from on the floor, but perhaps the film's best part is that played by Alexis Smith as an unhappy wife who's abandoned her doctor husband. Even though the film is full of bad lines, director Dick Powell has still managed to make it interesting, and ultimately exciting, with an absolutely terrific ending as the anticipated nuclear experiment takes place with everyone running for their lives.