One of a handful of noirs that use the nuclear age as a menacing backdrop, the under-appreciated
Split Second, actor Dick Powell’s directorial debut, brilliantly juxtaposes the difficulty of human relationships with the threat of Cold War annihilation. Having broken out of the pen, murderer Sam Hurley (Stephen McNally) and his wounded pal Bart Moore (Paul Kelly) have fled to a desert town where they force gas station customer Kay Garven (Alexis Smith) at gunpoint to drive them to their hideout in a ghost town, which also happens to sit at ground zero for an imminent atomic bomb test. When they run out of gas, they’re forced to hijack another car driven by journalist Larry Fleming (Keith Andes) and dancer Dottie Vail (Jan Sterling, bitter in a desert again as she was in 1951’s
Ace in the Hole), whom he’d just met and had offered a ride. When Hurley and his hostages arrive at the ghost town, they contact Kay’s doctor husband Neal (Richard Egan) to come to their location and perform surgery on dying Moore’s bullet wound; while the sensitive procedure is taking place, a brutal fist fight breaks out on the other side of the room. One highlight is the wonderfully despicable character, Kay Garven, who has sex with Hurley moments after he kills her extramarital boyfriend, then later abandons her husband to die after he risked his life to save hers. The film isn’t easily categorized: a prison break gives way to newspaper noir, then gold prospector Asa Tremaine (Arthur Hunnicutt) shows up to add a Western sheen; later, after the thrilling detonation sequence, we move into apocalyptic horror.
