Ten Seconds to Hell (1959)

Thanks for the memories!

So much average

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

TEN SECONDS TO HELL is one of the most atypical Hammer films I can remember seeing. Other than a few technical credits this has no connection to other Hammer films whatsoever. It's a post-war thriller, shot in Germany by Hollywood director Robert Aldrich, with an American cast including Jack Palance and Jeff Chandler. The film is very much like THE HURT LOCKER of its day, featuring a bomb squad working through the ruins of a bombed-out Berlin, striving to save the populace from unexploded ordnance. What follows is a character-based study in duty, camaraderie and fear, bolstered by some fine bomb-defusing suspense sequences. Chandler and Palance work well together and if this isn't as good as THE HURT LOCKER that's no surprise; it's still gripping for its day.

Ten Seconds To Hell is a story about six former German soldiers who have the dirty job of defusing all the unexploded bombs that the RAF Bomber Command under Arthur 'Bomber' Harris left in Berlin post World War II. During the late hostilities these men incurred the wrath of the Nazis, but apparently not enough to warrant a concentration camp. Or maybe someone got the bright idea that a person truly expendable in the eyes of the Third Reich was just the kind you want for this work.The six who are led by Jack Palance and Jeff Chandler are working for the British Army and get a salary and extra food rations coupons, something most useful in a devastated Berlin. But this is a fatalistic group and Chandler proposes a kind of tontine with their salaries as the work has a high fatality rate, last man standing collects the pot. Of course the last two standing are Palance and Chandler as per the screen billing.These two got a rivalry going over Martine Carol who gets those tired war weary hormones into overdrive. Not clear whether she's part of the tontine, but she'll take what comes.Ten Seconds To Hell could have been a much better film and certainly the bomb defusing scenes have tension built in. But the execution seems to fall flat though the cast gives it their best shot.

I watched this in a colorized version (shudder, I know!), but I guess it's better than nothing!! This is yet another war-themed film for Aldrich but a novel one, dealing with a six-man bomb-disposal unit in Germany after the end of World War II.As such, it's much closer in spirit to the stark (and often hysterical) ATTACK! (1956) than the sweeping blockbusters - THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967) and TOO LATE THE HRO (1970; see review above) - of the next decade. Indeed, here, Jack Palance is again given a sympathetic role - while Jeff Chandler, uncharacteristically, essays the villainous type. Interestingly, the film was made by Britain's House of Horror - Hammer Films (in association with United Artists) - with shooting taking place at Germany's celebrated UFA studios! Plot-wise, however, the film is somewhat contrived: Palance and Chandler hate each other's guts but still lodge together and, of course, fall for their attractive - and lonely - French landlady (Martine Carol); by the end, only they have survived their dangerous line of work and the two face-off in a literally explosive climax! While no classic, it's professionally handled and has undeniable moments of power (one of the deaths is filmed in a way that we never see the man's face but, when the remaining members of the group are reconvened, we realize that Wesley Addy is missing; Chandler's story about his uncle teaching him to always look out for himself first and how the latter was the first to suffer for it).

Six nonconformed former German soldiers work for the British occupation forces on defusing blind shells in Berlin. The men, of very different characters, make a bet, that those who stay alive should get half of all their pays. Indeed one after another of them perishs. So it comes to the showdown between Koertner (Jack Palance) and Wirtz (Jeff Chandler), who also compete for the affection of their host Margot (Martine Carol).This exciting adventure movie is staged carefully by past master Robert Aldrich. He shows in fascinating details bomb deactivation and the atmosphere of Berlin lying in ruins - a striking metaphor for the devastated lifes of the characters! Chandler and Palance are believable in their roles. Psychological it impress through the description of the fatefully scratched squad, whose members are not able to get out of this suicidal job.In short: A depressing but exciting look on World War II survivors, who battle for the reorganization of their lifes.