Leofwine_draca 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.

Ilpo Hirvonen 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.

Polaris_DiB Boy oh boy, is this a rare gem! Here's the deal: a man escapes from jail with one of his friends and hides away in a ghost village right in the primary event area of an atomic bomb set to go off the next day. Through various coincidences and car troubles, he ends up putting a reporter, a prostitute, a wife about to get a divorce and her insurance salesman lover and her doctor husband, and a hillbilly for hostage as he tries to decide how to get out of there before the bomb goes off and what to do with people who have to stare down the barrel of his gun, trying to figure out if he'll let them live or not. It's like High Noon with claustrophobia and an atom bomb--the majority of the film is set in a single cabin and the characters have nothing to do but deal with each other as the threat of death looms closer and closer.Unsurprisingly, the characters' characters ultimately decide their final fate as they all try to socially compromise, some fatally and some ineffectually and some with surprise chain effects. It's everything that a well-made low budget survivalist movie can be, and then a friggin' atomic bomb goes off! What more could you need? I was extremely tired while watching this movie, but it woke me up like a cup of good coffee. It's amazingly compelling, multivaried, and unpredictable. I especially like how the production code constraints on one of the seduction scenes created a harrowing horror effect for the un-naive viewer: we "know" what happened, but we don't really know what happened. And the characters have some real surprises to give beyond their type, keeping the drama fresh and relentless and the clock ticks nearer to doomsday. This is an infinitely satisfying movie.--PolarisDiB

kidboots Dick Powell's directorial debut is a tense little thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat.Sam Hurley (Stephen McNally) is a prison escapee, who, along with a couple of his mates (including Paul Kelly as a wounded prisoner) manage to capture a few people and hold them hostage in an abandoned ghost town. Unfortunately the ghost town has been targeted as a nuclear testing site with an explosion due for 6 Am the following morning.Alexis Smith (she kept getting better with each movie) plays Kay Garven who is on her way to Reno with boyfriend in tow (Robert Paige from Deanna Durbin's film "Can't Help Singing"). She is going to divorce her husband (Richard Egan). They are accosted at a service station by McNally and his gang and are forced to drive to the ghost town. Unfortunately they run out of petrol. As Smith says "Did you think I was stopping at the gas station to buy perfume. I had been planning to buy petrol!!!".So they are forced to way-lay another car. Larry Fleming (Keith Andes) is a reporter going to Canon City to cover the prison breakout and Dotti (Jan Sterling) was stranded at the petrol station and was offered a lift.When they arrive at the ghost town the film turns into a tense psychological thriller as people's true characters are revealed. Alexis Smith is great as Kay Garven a completely self centred woman who will stop at nothing to save herself.Stephen McNally did play good guys but he was at his best playing pretty despicable characters ie., "Johnny Belinda". Jan Sterling plays Dotti, the obligatory tough girl with a heart of gold.They know that the explosion is due for 6 AM the following morning ...what they don't know is that it has been put forward an hour.Richard Egan plays Dr. Neal Garven, who makes a trip by plane and car to save the wounded escapee's life. That part is completely unbelievable - how would he have found his way out to that ghost town at 2 in the morning and how would he have got through the barricades??? The ending is exciting and laughable at the same time - completely in keeping with the times when nuclear fallout was not considered life threatening.