The Noir Odyssey
Writer: Irving Wallace
Director: Dick Powell
Cinematographer: Nicholas Musuraca
Music: Roy Webb
Cast: Stephen McNally, Alexis Smith, Jan Sterling, Keith Andes, Richard Egan
Release: May 2, 1953
Studio: RKO Radio Pictures
Percent Noir: 40%
I feel like “Split Second” should be better than it is.
When I read the plotline of actor Dick Powell’s (the first Phillip Marlowe) directorial debut, it seemed like a slam dunk. A crazy prison escapee holds a group of innocents hostage in a ghost town scheduled to explode as part of a nuclear test in only a few hours? Sign me up, pronto! Even now, dear reader, I suspect if you are reading the plotline for the first time, you are thinking to yourself: “That sounds great!”
Mix that plot with my admiration for Powell and I hopped into the film with high hopes, and then waited for them to be met. And waited. And waited. Jeez, for a movie that clocks in at 84 minutes, it sure takes an eternity to get where it needs to go.
For a film directed by an actor, it’s surprising that not a single character ever becomes more than a type. There’s the dry reporter (Keith Andes), the down-on-her-luck spunky blonde (Jan Sterling in a role Audrey Totter must have turned down), the diva whose marriage is on the rocks who’s willing to do anything to save herself (Alexis Smith). Then there’s her new boytoy (Arthur Paige) and a homeless vet who has been living in the ghost town for years (Arthur Hunnicutt). There are three escaped convicts – leader Sam Hurley (Stephen McNalley), his injured friend (Paul Kelly) and some other dude (Frank de Kova) who we are told is mute but the writer probably just forgot to give him lines. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, the diva’s estranged-but-goodhearted husband (Richard Egan) shows up to fix Hurley’s injured buddy. Phew.
At one point, almost all of the above characters are stuffed in a car heading for the ghost town, and the visual is so inadvertently humorous that it feels like a deleted scene from a Marx Brothers movie. Perhaps the screenplay would have done better to have less characters that you could really dig into, but I have my doubts that screenwriter Irving Wallace could have pulled off much depth either way. Worse, I’m betting that you can guess the fate of each of the above characters just by reading the above details – it’s that predictable. It’s like “Key Largo” without any of the biting dialogue, memorable characters or storytelling surprises.
Even were I to give leeway to the film using types, then the film doesn’t play fair with them – either turning up the most cliché part of their personality to “11” or making them wildly inconsistent. The diva literally kisses and cries and kisses and wails in her mink coat (in the middle of the desert) and in the climax is cued up in the dialogue to have a crying fit, which she immediately has in the most dramatic way ever. The injured villain has a smear of blood on his shirt near his stomach but acts completely healthy until 51 minutes into the film, when he’s suddenly on death’s door. The homeless guy is set up to be crazy, but in reality is more rational than most of the characters – a missed opportunity.
The worst offender, though, is Hurley, whose writing is wildly inconsistent. In one moment, he’s so self-aware that he basically tells his entire future and how the world will react to his story, and in the next he’s a horny bastard trying to bed both women at the same time. He doesn’t seem dangerous at all, despite murdering two people savagely, and near the end when he violently spins out of control you wonder where this character came from and why Hurley couldn’t have been this interesting the entire film.
The magnification of the problem comes because the characters are essentially just sitting around for 85% of the running time twiddling their thumbs. Much is made of taking the hostages and getting to the ghost town, but then everyone just sits around waiting for a doctor to show up while time ticks away towards the blast. I picture a much more streamlined version of the film, where the bomb will go off in six hours and the doctor is immediately one of the hostages, so the surgery happens right away – it feels much more tense, no?
We finally get to the nuclear blast, but even then the movie doesn’t play fair. A car with Hurley, the injured guy and the diva takes off to escape the blast zone, leaving the good guys alone to die in the town with only minutes to spare! Oh no! But wait, good thing the homeless guy remembered there’s an old mine nearby that can save them! So all this time the audience had been in false suspense? Really? Deus ex mine-icha.
That said, the explosion is mightily impressive. The editor’s mixing of real footage and (what I presume are) miniatures is fantastic – seeing Hurley’s car flip and flop in the blast is a tremendous visual. Are these few moments reason enough to watch everything that preceded it? Nah – look the ending up on YouTube and thank me later.
If I’m being blunt, I would say that this is a total waste of 2 hours. It’s all fairly competent, but aside from the two-minute climax not a single moment stands out as outstanding… or even engaging. It’s a fantastic premise for a film (I’m shocked it hasn’t been remade), but the execution is sorely lacking. Go watch “Key Largo” instead.
Score: *1/2
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