Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Wizard-8 "Split Second" happened to be actor Dick Powell's debut behind the camera as a director. As a first time director, Powell managed to make an okay movie overall. The movie is strongest in its first third. The first thirty or so minutes are pretty good, being fast-paced, interesting, and somewhat exciting. However, once the characters get to the ghost town that's just a few steps from where an atomic bomb is to be detonated, the tension and energy diminish significantly. While the characters know that in hours an atomic bomb will be set off, there is little concern seen or felt from the characters about this. And Stephen McNally, as the chief bad guy, doesn't seem as dangerous and unpredictable as a thriller like this needs. The movie also slightly suffers from what was obviously not a big budget, though Powell seems to have saved some dollars for the special effects in the climatic sequence, which are pretty good. The movie remains watchable despite these flaws, so if the premise interests you, more likely than not you'll find it at least a passable 85 minutes.

MartinHafer 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.

Robert J. Maxwell Two men, Steven McNally and Paul Kelly, the latter with a bullet in him, escape from prison and are picked up by their associate known as "Dummy". The plan is to hide out overnight in a desert ghost town, then pick up a quarter of a million dollars stashed away somewhere and run off to a tropical beach. Kelly won't be able to make it without medical attention. He's been pretty badly shot up.The three miscreants pull their stolen car into a remote gas station, murder the proprietor, and hijack the next car that pulls in, along with its two occupants, the adulteress Alexis Smith and her insurance-salesman boy friend on their way to Reno.Now a party of five, they run out of gas, flag down the next car that comes along, and hijack the car and ITS two passengers, reporter Keith Andes and his newly found friend, nihilarian Jan Sterling.They turn off the main road and hunker down in a bleak and dilapidated village where they take the sole resident, prospector Arthur Hunnicutt captive as well. Smith's husband, Richard Egan, is a doctor back in Los Angeles. Before leaving the highway, McNally rang him up, told him the situation, and threatened to kill Smith if Egan didn't immediately fly to Las Vegan, rent a car, and join them at the ghost town in order to treat the wounded Paul Kelly.So now -- I hope you're following this -- there are three criminals holding a diverse group of six people hostage. The village in which they are ensconced is about to be vaporized by an atomic bomb explosion at six the next morning. Everyone knows about it, and they react with different degrees and modalities of anxiety.That's basically the set up. The drama works itself out in the broken-down, dusty bar room. The social dynamics resemble those of "The Desperate Hours." The overall structure is more like that of "The Petrified Forest." The thermonuclear device is added as lagniappe, reminding us of lines from Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "The City in the Sea" -- "While from a proud tower beyond the town, Death looks gigantically down." McNally plays it tough. He shoots and kills the insurance salesman for challenging McNally's manhood as McNally takes the terrified Alexis Smith into the kitchen "to make coffee" and closes the door behind them. But McNally has a soft spot too -- for the suffering Paul Kelly, lying there with a hole in his belly.There are a good number of other dramatic incidents (well photographed by Nicholas Musuraca, who knows his way around a noir setting). McNally gets to beat hell out of reporter Andes and sluttish Jan Sterling. He pistol whips the grizzled Arthur Hunnicutt. He extorts a sexual favor out of Alexis Smith -- who looks just fine, by the way.The ending has a car hurtling around the dusty roads like a rat trying to escape a cat, a few minutes before the blast. For the survivors -- all of them worthy citizens -- there is a deus ex mine shaft.The situation generates a good deal of tension. The performances are up to professional standards. The direction -- Dick Powell's initial effort -- is functional if not memorable in any way. None of the characters is given any complexity, with the possible exception of McNally and his concern for his wounded partner ("the only friend I ever had") and, surprisingly, the insurance salesman who should have been painted as a gutless lounge lizard but instead heroically puts his life at risk to save the honor of Alexis Smith. It's a mistake on his part because he loses the bet, and Smith, it turns out, isn't worth it anyway. The salesman's dead body lies outside, and there are a couple of half-joking references to it. "Keep that up and you'll be shaking hands with Ashley." It's too modest to be a masterpiece, but I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Breaking out of a Navada prison convicted murderer Sam Hurley, Stephen McNally, and his fellow and wounded convict Burt Moore, Paul Kelly, and friend Dummy, Frank DeKova, head straight for the ghost town of Lost Hope City that's to be pulverized in a secluded atomic explosion to take place the next morning. Kidnapping a number of people and their cars along the way Hurley expects to use them in his escape as possible hostages. What he really needs is a doctor to treat the very seriously wounded Moore.It turns out that one of the people that Hurley has hostage is Kay Garven, Alexis Smith, who's husband Neal, Richard Egan,is a doctor in Pasadena whom he calls at his doctors office to show up if he want's his wife Kay to stay alive. Kay who's divorcing Neal and is to get married to her constant companion and fellow hostage insurance man Authur Ashton, Robert Paige, in Reno still has some kind of hold on him. Neal shoots out to Lost Hope City to save her, and Moores, life even though she has no use for his. With additional hostage newsman Larry Fleming and down and out young dancer and singer Dottie Vale, Keith Andes & Jan Sterling, and local prospector Asa, Arthur Hunnicutt, later showing up at the doomed ghost town and all that's left for the people there is to get out before the atomic bomb is to be detonated.Race against the clock crime/drama with nuclear destruction as a reward to the loser makes "Split Second" more then just another 1950's cops and robbers black and white flick. With Kay doing everything in order to survive even playing up to the vicious and homicidal Hurley. Who just murdered her fiancé Authur Ashton who stood up for her.Hurley's badly wounded friend Moore seemed to have later gotten an out-of-body or near-death experience finally seeing the light, for the first time in his life. Moore telling Hurley that he first want's to hear passages from the Holy Bible and then pulls a gun on him in order to keep Hurley from killing the innocent hostages. With the atomic bomb explosion pushed up one hour, from six to five A.M, Hurley and Co.take off in a car but having no idea where their going drive right into the tower where the bomb is about to be set off. With Asa showing the "doomed" hostages a secret cave for them to hide in during the atomic explosion the entire town is blown apart, together with the fleeing Hurley Moore & Kay.In the case of the two-timing Kay her strong sense of survival only blinded her from knowing who her real friends were and voluntarily ended up with the escaped convicts as a mound of smoldering and radioactive dust.