Fail Safe

media release: USA | 1964 | DCP | 111 min.

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Dan O’Herlihy

After a computer error deploys a U.S. bomber group to nuke Moscow, those on the ground in Washington scramble to stop the planes and negotiate with the Soviets to prevent all-out global conflict. Fonda stars as the level-headed but beleaguered President of the United States in the movie that has become known as the “straight” version of Dr. Strangelove, which was released the same year and by the same studio. Fail Safe remains one of Hollywood’s boldest and darkest dramatizations of a nuclear worst-case scenario. Lumet’s mastery of claustrophobic tension is on full display here, piling on complications and impossible choices that build to a truly unforgettable ending.

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LUMET/FONDA: After a decade of directing live television, director Sidney Lumet made the leap to feature films with a small scale, one-room drama, 12 Angry Men (1957), a now iconic classic. His star, Henry Fonda, had already been a Hollywood leading man for over twenty years, and his presence lent the young director’s film a level of gravitas and star power uncommon for such a modest debut. The actor/director duo would work together on two more films films over the next seven years: the rarely screened Stage Struck (1958) and the Cold War thriller Fail Safe (1964), showcasing the dynamic potential of aging Hollywood stalwarts in the ascendant milieu of stylistic realism.