evanston_dad 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+

bkoganbing Dick Powell who was looking for a career behind the camera on the big screen and small got his first directorial assignment in this RKO B picture Split Second with a B picture cast. Altogether fitting and proper that it would be RKO since that studio gave him the part in Murder My Sweet that got him out of musicals once and for all.Reporter Keith Andes is set to cover an atomic test in Nevada when he's reassigned to cover the break of a notorious criminal Stephen McNally from prison. McNally who's hidden away the loot from an armored car job escapes prison with Paul Kelly with deaf mute Frank DeKova meeting them with a vehicle. Circumstances force McNally and his crowd into a ghost town with a bunch of hostages that include Andes, Alexis Smith who is running away with Robert Paige, Jan Sterling who's been around the block a few times and Arthur Hunnicutt an old prospector. Later on Smith's husband Richard Egan joins them. He's a doctor summoned by Smith to tend a bullet wound that Kelly took in the prison break.Richard Egan's character is the central weakness of this otherwise good and suspenseful film. Not Egan's fault but he's given a character way too noble to be real.Powell took easily to the director's job and got good performances out of his ensemble. Best in the cast is McNally as tough and brutal professional criminal with only one weak spot, his concern for Kelly whom he looks up to as some kind of mentor. Also given good meaty parts are the women, Alexis Smith who is the unfaithful wife who after McNally kills Paige is quite ready to take up with him and Sterling who McNally would really like to take up with. Had Egan's character been better drawn Split Second would rate as a top noir classic. As it is it ain't half bad.

jpdoherty A reasonably good noir thriller is probably the best description that can be afforded SPLIT SECOND. An above average noir it was produced by Edmund Grainger in 1953 for the home of the great noirs RKO. Excitingly written by William Bowers and Irving Wallace it was crisply photographed in black & white by the great Nicholas Museraca and surprisingly directed in a good workmanlike fashion by Dick Powell. With no "A" list stars to speak of the picture is more than effectively played by a well chosen cast headed by Stephen McNally, Paul Kelly and Alexis Smith.Two escaped convicts (McNally & Kelly) hijack a car with two occupants (Alexis Smith & Robert Paige), waylay another carrying two more people (Jan Sterling & Keith Andes) and along with an old prospector (Arthur Hunnicutt) hold them all hostage in a ghost town in the Nevada desert. The town has been earmarked and cleared by the military for the testing of an Atomic bomb in a few hours time. This the captors learn from the radio and are confident of leaving on time. In the meantime Kelly is badly wounded from a gunshot he received in his prison escape bid and must have a doctor. McNally finds out that Smith's estranged husband (Richard Egan) is a physician and inveigles him by phone to come to the hideout or his wife will be killed. Things for the hostages don't go too well with poor attempts at escape and the savagely violent and somewhat psychotic McNally beating Andes to a pulp and shooting dead Smith's lover (Paige). Suddenly the radio announces that the bomb test time has been moved up and will now go off an hour earlier. It becomes a race against time now to get off the site. Leaving the hostages to their fate in the town a scurrying McNally, his fellow fugitive and a fearful Smith, who pleads to go with them, take off in the car but drive onto the actual bomb site itself instead of going in the opposite direction. The picture ends with the massive A bomb explosion, McNally and company perishing in the car and the hostages all surviving after taking refuge in a cave.The cast do an admirable job with a nicely written screenplay. McNally is particularly good applying himself assiduously to playing what he always played best that of the sneering, unscrupulous and mean spirited villain. Paul Kelly - who never gave a bad performance - is also good as McNally's softer hearted partner in crime. But something of a revelation is Alexis Smith! Smith an actress who for years was buried in inane glamour roles at Warner Brothers brings much to the table here in SPLIT SECOND. Her panic driven character, continuously on the verge of cracking up, is an incisive and inspired piece of acting. Who would have thought she had it in her? It is the best thing she ever did!With brilliant cinematography, good performances, an exciting screenplay all wrapped in a fine dramatic and atmospheric score by RKO's resident composer Roy Webb SPLIT SECOND comes across as a fairly rewarding visual experience.

Alex da Silva 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.