Ten Seconds to Hell

The war is over, Berlin is rubble, and unexploded bombs are still sitting under the city. Six men back from a German army bomb disposal unit come together to defuse them. They make an agreement among themselves: their wages go into a common fund, and whoever is still alive at the end divides it. Two of the men both need each other and cannot stand each other. Robert Aldrich's film is about arithmetic rather than heroism: every bomb is an entry that enlarges the survivors' share. Jack Palance and Jeff Chandler face off, and the tension between them works more slowly than the bombs but just as surely. The ruined landscape of post-war Germany shows the winner and the loser walking among the same stones. The suspense does not come from the explosions but from a hand shaking.