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.
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.