Atomic Drama

SPLIT SECOND-1953-Escaped killer Sam Hurly (Stephen McNally) holds a bunch of people hostage in a ghost town where the next day there is going to be an A-bomb test. Hostages include a reporter (Keith Andes), a dancer (Jan Sterling), a married woman (Alexis Smith) in Reno for a divorce and her boyfriend (Robert Paige). Hurly keeps them in line with the help of his mean, silent henchman Dummy (Frank DeKova). Somehow he blackmails the divorce woman's doctor/husband (Richard Egan) to come and tend his wounded partner (Paul Kelly). An old prospector (Arthur Hunnicutt) shows up midway through too. There's a lot of talk, soul searching and a fist fight during an operation. It ends with a mushroom cloud (but the good guys survive). 

Slightly far-fetched, SPLIT SECOND was the first directorial effort from actor Dick Powell who three years later would make the notoriously bad THE CONQUEROR which had some atomic bomb issues itself they say...

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Just In Time For Mother's Day!

THE BIG CUBE-1969-Stage actress Adriana Roman (Lana Turner) retires from acting to marry rich widower Charles Winthrop (Dan O’Herlihy) whose daughter Lisa (Karin Mossberg) has mixed feelings about it. Her friends are a bunch of psychedelic mod hippies who like to hang out at clubs, say weird things and experiment with acid. Her gold digging boyfriend Johnny (George Chakiris from WEST SIDE STORY) is thrown out of his college for making LSD in his lab. When Dad breaks up a party where a dancer (Pamela Mason) does a striptease Lisa blames her step-mom (who in actuality is her real mom). When Dad gets lost at sea Mom inherits his estate and the right to choose who their daughter should marry. Naturally she sees through Johnny boy and will not give her consent. After sex Johnny convinces Lisa that mom actually killed dear old dad. They spike her pills with LSD and she becomes a paranoid nut who’s colorful “trips” are pretty wild. She's committed to a sanitarium and Lisa marries Johnny. After Lisa realizes Johnny’s a dirt bag she helps Adriana’s manager (Richard Egan) bring her out of her funk by having her star in a play he wrote that relates her trouble! Johnny winds up having a pretty bad acid trip of his own.

Shot in Acapulco by director Tito Davidson.

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