Review by bkoganbing

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.