Five travelers sweat it out at gunpoint in an abandoned mining town in the Nevada desert. A killer escaped from the pen holds them, intending to scram after a doc tends to his wounded accomplice. Like The Petrified Forest and Key Largo, Split Second's tale of captives and captors lets the sweat drip, the tension build, the dialogue zing and when the occasion calls, the fists and bullets fly. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking: the mining town is practically ground zero for an A-bomb test slated to unleash its mushroom cloud in just a few hours. Musical-star-turned-film-noir-hero Dick Powell makes his taut and tough directorial debut, guiding Stephen McNally, Alexis Smith and Jan Sterling in this split-second suspense thriller.