Split Second

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.

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.

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

Stephen McNally, what a mean man. Boy, could he play the bad guy >and almost make you love him. Not to condone his actions in the >flick, but to say that he acted with bravado. He had the knack >for being mean. In this film, he needs to be the "man" to stay >alive, but fate has a way of making humans small. This story is >so tight and well done, that this is a keeper. Next time it's >run turn on the VCR and hit record. It's the kind of flick that >stands up well today by fitting in with the violent control >people will always display when they are criminals on the run. >Beautiful Alexis Smith and sultry Jan Sterling bring out the >animal instincts in the men of the cast. Their looks are just as >persuasive as their acting abilities. This is a "B" movie that >rates an "A+" for showing that it could be done with the right >chemistry of the cast, director and producer. I love this type >of flick!

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.