Fail Safe (1964 film)

Fail Safe is a 1964 Cold War thriller film directed by Sidney Lumet, based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. It portrays a fictional account of a nuclear crisis. The film features performances by actors Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau and Frank Overton. Larry Hagman, Fritz Weaver, Dom DeLuise and Sorrell Booke appeared in early film roles.

Fail Safe describes how Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States lead to an accidental thermonuclear first strike after an error sends a group of US bombers to bomb Moscow.

In 2000, the novel was adapted again as a televised play, starring George Clooney, Richard Dreyfuss and Noah Wyle, and broadcast live in black and white on CBS.

Plot

During a VIP visit to the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), at Offutt AFB in Omaha, Nebraska, an alert is initiated by USAF's early warning radar that an unidentified flying object is making an unauthorized intrusion into American airspace. Defense protocols dictate that SAC must keep several bomber groups airborne 24 hours a day in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. Following the alert, bombers are ordered to proceed to predetermined aerial "fail-safe points" to await the final go-ahead before proceeding towards Soviet targets.

Shortly after they reach those points, the alert is canceled. The intruder is identified as an off-course civilian airliner. However, a computer error results in a "go code" being sent to one bomber group, ordering them to attack their predetermined target, Moscow. SAC headquarters begins trying to rescind the order. It fails because a new Soviet countermeasure has begun radio jamming communications between the bomber group and SAC. With his orders apparently confirmed, Colonel Jack Grady (Edward Binns), the US bomber group's commander, commands the group to continue to their target.

With pressure mounting, the President of the United States (Henry Fonda) and his advisers attempt to recall the group or shoot them down. Communications are initiated with the Soviet Chairman in which mistakes on both sides (the American accidental launch of the mission and the Soviet jamming) are acknowledged. The jamming ceases, but the crew follows their training and protocols and dismisses the counterorders as a Soviet ruse.

The President struggles to find a resolution that will stop the Soviet Union from launching a counterattack; if he fails, an all-out nuclear holocaust will be unavoidable. He offers to sacrifice an American target to appease the Soviets, and he orders an American bomber towards New York City. The President's advisers in the Pentagon discover that the First Lady is visiting New York City.

The lone surviving American bomber devastates Moscow. The President orders General Black (Dan O'Herlihy), whose wife and children live in New York, to drop the same nuclear payload on that city, using the Empire State Building as ground zero. After releasing the bombs, Black, who is flying the bomber, commits suicide. The last scenes of the film show images of people in New York going about their daily lives, unaware that they are all about to die.

Cast

Production

The film was shot in black and white, in a dramatic, theatrical style with claustrophobic close-ups, sharp shadows and ponderous silences between several characters. There was no musical underscoring or any music played, except as radio background during a scene at an Air Force base in Alaska. With few exceptions, the action takes place largely in the White House underground bunker, the Pentagon war conference room, the SAC war room, and a single bomber cockpit (a "Vindicator bomber"). Shots of normal daily life are seen only after the title opening credits and in the final scene depicting an ordinary New York City day, its residents entirely unsuspecting of their imminent destruction, each scene ending with a freeze-frame shot at the moment of impact.

The Soviets are not depicted in the film. The progress of the attack is followed on giant, electronic maps in the Pentagon War Room and SAC Headquarters. Conversations with the Soviet Premier (Russian language occasionally heard in the background on the "Hot-Line") are translated by an American interpreter (Larry Hagman). Suspense builds through dialog between the President and other officials, including an advisor to the Department of Defense, Professor Groeteschele (Walter Matthau), an old college friend of the President, General Black (Dan O'Herlihy) and SAC commander General Bogan (Frank Overton).

The "Vindicator" bombers (an invention of the novelists) are represented in the film by sometimes stock footage of a real US aircraft, the Convair B-58 Hustler. Fighters sent to attack the bombers are illustrated by film clips of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, Convair F-102 Delta Dagger, Dassault Mirage III and McDonnell F-101 Voodoo. Stock footage was used because the United States Air Force declined to cooperate with the film's producers, fearful of negative publicity from a premise that implied a lack of control over nuclear strike forces.^[2] The scene depicting Grady's Group Six bombers taking off under afterburner power was stock footage of a single B-58 takeoff edited to look like several bombers taking off in succession. A nightmare quality is imparted to many of the flying sequences by depicting the planes in photographic negative. It is visible in several of the negative sequences that the Soviet interceptors were actually French Mirage fighters with Israeli markings.

Reception

When Fail Safe opened, it garnered excellent reviews, but its box office performance was poor. Its failure rested with the similarity between it and the mutually assured destruction satire Dr. Strangelove, which appeared in theaters first. Still, the film later was applauded as a Cold War thriller. The novel sold through to the 1980s and 1990s, and the film was given high marks for retaining the essence of the novel.^[3] Over the years, both the novel and the movie were well received for their depiction of a nuclear crisis, despite many critical reviews that centered on one fallacy: the "fail safe" command sequence was misinterpreted.^[2]

Lawsuit

Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove were both produced by Columbia Pictures in the period after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when people became much more sensitive to the threat of nuclear war. Strangelove director Stanley Kubrick, who adapted Peter George's novel Red Alert, insisted that the studio release his movie first (in January 1964).^[4] Fail Safe so closely resembled Red Alert that George filed a plagiarism lawsuit. The case was settled out of court.^[5]

See also

• List of American films of 1964
• The Bedford Incident, a 1965 film chronicling the escalating conflict between the captain of an American destroyer and a Soviet submarine in the North Atlantic.

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Fail Safe (1964 film)

• Fail Safe at the TCM Movie Database
• Fail-Safe at the Internet Movie Database
• Fail-Safe at AllMovie
• Fail-Safe at the American Film Institute Catalog