Our ongoing series reviewing the greatest Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror movies. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.
Directed By: Sidney Lumet
Produced By: Sidney Lumet, Charles H. Maguire, Max E. Youngstein
Written By: Walter Bernstein (Screenplay), Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler (Novel)
Starring: Henry Fonda, Dan O’Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman
Original Release: 1964
Reviewed By: John J. Joex
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)
Synopsis: While a Congressman is touring the United States Strategic Air Command facility and expressing his displeasure with how automated it has become, an unidentified object comes onto the monitoring screen triggering the bombers in flight to maneuver to their “fail safe” positions. The object proves to be no threat but as the recall order is issued, a malfunction causes the attack code to be transmitted to one of the bomber groups. The commander of the group attempts to contact SAC, but Soviet jamming blocks the signal so he decides to proceed with the designated mission: to bomb Moscow. The president (played by Henry Fonda) is alerted to the situation and a fighter squad is dispatched to shoot down the bombers. It fails, though, prompting the president to contact the Soviet Premier and inform him of the situation. Talking through an interpreter (played by a young Larry Hagman), the president informs the Soviet leader that SAC will do everything they can to assist the Russians in shooting down the bombers. But despite the joint efforts (fraught with much tension and distrust), one of the bombers gets through and prepares to drop its nuclear warheads on Moscow. This results in the president offering a horrific compromise to his Russian counterpart to avoid a full scale nuclear war.
Review/Commentary: Coming out in late 1964, this was the other film of that year dealing with the threat of a breakdown in the nuclear arms chain of command with devastating consequences. The first was of course was Stanley Kubrick’s renowned Dr. Strangelove, the apocalyptic dark comedy starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, and Slim Pickens (and for more on that one, check out my Must-Watch List review at this link). Consider Fail Safe the flip side of that coin as it offered a deadly serious look at the subject which proved no less engaging or poignant. Where Dr. Strangelove used satire to drive home its point, Fail Safe relied on hard-hitting, white-knuckle drama.
Consider this essentially a speculative fiction movie because it does not really introduce any fantastic elements, just a what-if situation on how we would face the situation presented in the film. And Fail Safe brings something to the genre sorely lacking: drama. Too often Speculative and Science Fiction films become all too intellectual and feel distant and unemotional. This is something that can be seen in even the greatest examples of the genre like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, and The Andromeda Strain. Movies of that caliber do manage to persevere despite their emotional shortcomings, but many others have been less fortunate and lost their audiences because of their heady stoicism. Fail Safe does not fall into that trap, nor does it descend into melodrama. Instead it gave the main stars the opportunity to deliver performances of a lifetime including Henry Fonda as the president faced with an unparalleled moral dilemma, Walter Matthau as a hawkish nuclear expert who sees this as an opportunity for a first strike on Russia (giving us this film’s version of George C. Scott’s General Buck Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove) and Larry Hagman as the green interpreter thrust into the middle of this terrifying situation. And if you can get through the scene in which the president presents his frightful compromise to the Soviet Premier without chills running up and down your spine, and perhaps a tear in your eye, you need to check your pulse.
The movie has a cramped feel to it, taking place within only a few tight settings, compressing the drama and placing the onus for the film’s success on the actors and the director. But Sidney Lumet already had experience helming this type of film having directed the courtroom drama 12 Angry Men back in 1957. And he coaxed the same level of intensity and apprehension out of the actors in Fail Safe that we saw in his earlier film, proving that a movie, Science Fiction or not, does not have to have an enormous budget or fancy special effects to succeed. A strong cast (and behind the scenes crew) along with a tightly-written, well-executed script will serve the purpose just as well.
Unfortunately, since this film followed the highly successful Dr. Strangelove at the box office and since it was pegged as somewhat of a downer compared to the satirical Kubrick film, Fail Safe has not received the recognition over the years that it deserves (for more on that, read about the war of the nuclear war movies). As mentioned above, the performances by the excellent cast carried this film, even though they have gone mostly unheralded. And the message of the film does not suffer because they chose to frame it as a drama as opposed to the dark comedy of Dr. Strangelove. Both films have their own points to deliver on the threats of nuclear escalation, and neither pulls any punches. And the messages of both films still resonate today long after the Cold War has ended.
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