Split Second

An escaped convict and his gang hold two couples hostage overnight in a deserted town scheduled to be destroyed by an atom bomb test the following morning. A solid if talky little Noir B-movie featuring strong performances from Stephen McNally as the ruthless con with a strong streak of loyalty towards his elder henchman, and Jan Sterling as a girl dogged by hard knocks. Richard Egan also impresses as the doctor husband of a spoiled woman heading to Reno with her lover when she falls foul of McNally. Her desperation to survive at all costs might have made for an absorbing sub-plot had Alexis Smith not been so overwrought. The climactic atomic blast remains impressive even today.

Three desperate escaped convicts flee into the Nevada wastelands. Along the way they kidnap 5 travelers and force them to hole up in a ghost town for one night. To complicate matters, the government is planning to detonate an atomic bomb early the next morning which will turn the old town into toast. Very tense drama with a nerve tingling finale.

Excellent crime thriller with a group of people being held hostage by escaped killers. Stephen McNally nabs his role as a killer and Alexis Smith is wonderful as the neurotic wife of a doctor-husband, Richard Egan, who she is leaving for an insurance executive. Bored with life, but with a clinging desire to live, Smith will stop at nothing to survive including trying to fall for the McNally character. Set in the Nevada desert with the complications of nuclear testing about to be unleashed with a bomb, the film is nicely paced and offers interesting character developments. The ending gets you to think if the survivors really did survive and what they would have to endure due to nuclear fallout.