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Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Edward Binns, Dan O'Herlihy ... see more see more... , Fritz Weaver , Larry Hagman , William Hansen , Russell Hardie , Russell Collins , Sorrell Booke , John P. Connell , Frank Simpson , Hildy Parks , Janet Ward , Dana Elcar , Stuart Germain , Louise Larabee , Frieda Altman , Nancy Berg Ilsa , Dom DeLuise

Based on the novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, Fail-Safe is set for the most part at Strategic Air Command headquarters, where a misguided transmission sends a squadron of bombers hurtling t... read more read more...owards Russia, fully prepared to drop their atomic weaponry on Moscow. Air Force commander Frank Overton desperately tries to establish radio contact with the bombers, but once the pilots have passed the "fail safe" point, they've been instructed to disregard any reversal of orders. Racing against time, US President Henry Fonda, through his interpreter (Larry Hagman), informs the Russian premiere of the impending nuclear disaster. Working in concert with SAC, the Russians send up interceptors to shoot down the American bombers, while some of the planes run out of fuel and crash. Unfortunately, one aircraft, piloted by Edward Binns, manages to escape destruction and continues on its fatal mission. Realizing that Moscow is doomed, the President must decide how to avert World War III. Featured in the cast of Fail Safe are Walter Matthau as a hawkish scientist, Fritz Weaver as a round-the-bend colonel, and Dom DeLuise (billed as "DeLouise") as a weeping sergeant. Fail-Safe is followed by a government-dictated disclaimer insisting that the events leading up to the nuclear disaster depicted in the film could not possibly happen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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85% liked it

6,489 ratings

Critics

92% liked it

13 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 52 min.

Directed by: Sidney Lumet

Release Date: October 7, 1964

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DVD Release Date: October 31, 2000

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Flixster Reviews (366)

  • binky013
    July 10, 2011
    binky013
    This is the flip-side of the coin upon which you find Dr. Strangelove. Riveting performances and incredibly tense telephone exchanges lead to an ending you will not forget. The closing sequence is so impossibly unacceptable that it becomes absolutely believable in its ... read moreinevitability.

    True, it's a bit dated, but If they'd found a part for Peter Sellers in this, I'm sure I would give it a full five stars : ) A seriously amazing movie that came out just months after Dr. Strangelove . Definitely the second best anti-war movie ever. Freakin riveting.
  • pier007
    May 11, 2011
    pier007
    An incredibly dramatic and intense depiction of the exagerated armamentistic career and the state of paranoia among superpowers, triggered not only by mechanical failures but by fanatism, extreme rigurosity or simple lack of human decency. Lumet's concatenation of silent and clau... read morestrophobic close ups work as a time bomb in a countdown to explotion with each passing second and the screenplay has the necessary ideological ambiguity of a tragedy, divergent positions over the same issue bouncing around, leading us to feel uneasy and desperate to work out a solution ourselves if we were among the politicians that decide our fate in the war room.
    For some, like the pragmatic but souless character played by Walter Matthau, human casualties are only statistics, war is effective to preserve the economical strenght of his country; others like the President played by Henry Fonda, are willing to take any action to straight the balance. An executive decision that seems far fetched, but makes the film even more powerful and rounds up more biblical and mythological allusions to make it seem timeless, therefore a highly probable worst case scenario.
  • ajv2688
    December 4, 2010
    ajv2688
    This movie is pretty much exactly the same as Dr. Strangelove except that it's more dialogue driven, as Lumet's movies usually are. It also has some boring scenes as Dr. Strangelove did. Overall it's pretty good too.
  • kenstachnik
    February 13, 2008
    kenstachnik
    How do more people not know about this movie? It's amazingly good.

    I actually screamed holy shit 4 separate times.
  • DrZeek
    December 15, 2007
    DrZeek
    Gen. Stark: They're good men, we've seen to that. If their orders are to attack, the only way you'll stop them is to shoot them down.
    Brigadier General Warren A. Black: We've got no alternative! This minute the Russians are watching their boards, trying to figure out what we're u... read morep to. If we can't convince them this is an accident we're trying to correct by any means, we're going to have something on our hands that nobody bargained for, something only a lunatic wants!

    At the same time Dr. Strangelove was made, so was this movie. It was also released months after Strangelove, which probably diminished the impact. It deals with the same plot elements, but this movie plays everything very straight. The result is a well acted, well directed, well written film on how the Cold War, nuclear arms, and the machines people worked with could turn into a drastic situation.

    A number of actors including Henry Fonda as the president and Walter Matthau as a political scientist must deal with an impossible situation to deal with.

    A technical malfunction has caused a plane to leave its fail safe position, and now it is headed towards Moscow with the intention of dropping to 20 megaton nuclear bombs on the city. Now it is up to all the various military and congressional leaders to find a way to deal with this event.

    Director Sidney Lumet makes great use of the limited settings he provides, which take place in a bunker, a control room, a board room, and few other areas. This is all done in a semi-documentary style with intense close-ups and natural silences between characters when dealing with options they are left with.

    There is no soundtrack or musical score at all in this movie, making the claustrophobic tenseness of the situation all the more thrilling, especially when dealing with later developments as the story unfolds.

    Following the first 25 minutes where all the characters are introduced in a sort of jumbled manner, the plot goes underway, and maintains its pace in a very effective manner from then on.

    This is a very good film dealing with realistic consequences of the time and is still frightening in a sense.

    Prof. Groeteschele: And the Lord said, gentlemen, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."
  • garyX
    July 27, 2007
    garyX
    A brilliant drama made at the height of the cold war in which US president Henry Fonda must use all means at his disposal to avert a nuclear war from being accidentally triggered. An extremely sobering dramatization of the consequences of nuclear armament, it draws inevitable com... read moreparison to it's contemporary Dr Strangelove. It obviously has a much more serious and understated tack, but even in this day and age when the idea of nuclear war has never seemed more distant, it still packs a punch.
  • mjgildea
    October 23, 2006
    mjgildea
    This is one of the most amazing movies I've ever seen. It obviously doesn't have the same effect it did 40 years ago, but it's still jarring nonetheless.
  • hypathio7
    February 9, 2009
    hypathio7
    I'm puzzled by the matador/bull-fighting dream scene in the opening that the audience is reminded of at the end.

    Dr. Strangelove has the US president meeting in person with his advisers in the war room, when talking to the Russian president no translator is needed, and the tec... read morehnology behind the mistake and satellite surveillance is practically ignored. Then of course you've got Sellers in three roles and the same plot is dealt with in a very humorous manner.

    This movie looks at the same issue dramatically and plays it for thrills. First, you have O'Herlihy playing General Black, an adviser to the US Secretary of Defense (Hansen), then Matthau playing Professor Groeteschele, a civilian political scientist adviser to the same. They take on a reversal of the traditional positions. General Black is a dove when it comes to war matters and the Professor is a hawk. Then we have Overton playing General Bogan and Weaver playing Colonel Cascio. They both work in the control room monitoring the maps and sending orders to the fliers. Binns as Colonel Grady is one of those fliers who is heading off on a routine patrol in a bomber plane. A computer malfunction sends Grady's bomber toward Russia by mistake and the President must be contacted. Henry Fonda plays the President in the same trustworthy, intelligent, kind-hearted, and decisive manner that many of his characters have been. And Hagman is Buck, a young translator brought in to help the President if Russia must be contacted. Well they're all in different locations talking back and forth over conference calls and radio. The Defense Secretary and all his advisers keep arguing politics and war theory, the control room keeps an eye on the progress in the sky, the fliers follow orders to the exclusion of attempts to recall them home because anything could be a Russian trick, and the President tries to be diplomatic and has to make the final decision. It's mentioned again and again that WWIII is on the verge of happening because we let our machines get out of hand. It's also about how we defend ourselves with the destructive forces that are in existence being as they are. There is also a theme of watching that we do not become what we are trying to fight against.

    It was good with some really surprising moments, but it just wasn't as stylish as Dr. Strangelove. And I love the satiric tone of the other movie. I think the tone of Dr. Strangelove has definitely led to it being more popular. For people who don't get the humor, this may be a thriller they'd appreciate, but on the other hand this movie, Fail-Safe, includes some tough pills to swallow. People who look at war like a football game, like some of the soldiers in the control room do, cheering to see a loser lose need to look at the bigger picture. People who think that any cooperation with a political rival, even when for the mutual safety of many lives, is a bad thing would probably not enjoy the message here. So actually, people who like Dr. Strangelove probably like this too, and people who do not like one probably don't like the other.
  • fb714907265
    February 27, 2012
    fb714907265
    Remember when movies had to have acting and dialog? You'll find a lot of that here, plus tension, drama and what appears to be stock footage of jets. While dated, the story holds up, and oddly enough is as relevant as it was back then.
  • fb39107385
    January 1, 2012
    fb39107385
    Having seen Dr. Strangelove prior to this, I must say that I found this version of the story better and more realistic. Although the cold war is over, this is what could have eventually happened, and in actuality, since nuclear warheads do still exist, it could potentially still... read more happen. When The President announces how he plans to resolve the situation, it is suspenseful as you wonder whether or not he will actually go through with it, and when he does, it is beyond shocking. As the final scene played out, it shook me in a way that no other movie ever has and as the credits rolled I had to simply take a deep breath and regain myself. Very powerful stuff.

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Critic Reviews

Emanuel Levy
July 3, 2011
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

Lumet's tense political drama is riveting, but unfortunately it was released the same year as Kubrick's similarly-themed Dr. Strangelove, which was a satire and more thus more popular Full Review

Pablo Villaca
February 2, 2009
Pablo Villaca, Cinema em Cena

Lumet, o mais subestimado dos diretores, mantém a tensão sempre constante, extraindo ainda grandes atuações de seu elenco e investindo num desfecho impactante e corajoso.

Dennis Schwartz
July 19, 2007
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Tense, chilling and earnest Cold War political thriller. Full Review

Ken Hanke
October 20, 2004
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Still impressive Cold War thriller from a time when WW III seemed inevitable.

John Urbancich
August 8, 2002
John Urbancich, Sun Newspapers of Cleveland

Wow! One of the scariest black and white films of all time.

June 29, 2011
Variety

Click to read the article Full Review

Nell Minow
December 23, 2004
Nell Minow, Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies

No review available.

Frank Swietek
June 24, 2004
Frank Swietek, One Guy's Opinion

No review available.

Christopher Null
March 1, 2004
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com

Click to read the article Full Review

Daniel M. Kimmel
February 8, 2004
Daniel M. Kimmel, Worcester Telegram & Gazette

No review available.

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

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Facts

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    • President: Colonel Grady, this is the President. What you are flying has been caused by a mechanical failure. I order you and your men to fly back at once.
    • Col. Grady: I am beyond the point of voice commands.
    • President: Damn it Grady, this is the President.
    • President: What we'll hear is a sharp high pitched noise. The will be the sound of the Ambassadors phone melting from the fireball.
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Fail-Safe Trivia

  • On the Midway, at The Cheyenne Social Club, Mister Roberts used The Tin Star as a Fail-Safe to protect Yours, Mine, and Ours. Who am I?  Answer »
  • The Americans accidentally launch a nuclear attack against which major Soviet city in the 1963 movie Fail-Safe?  Answer »
  • Henry fonda played the president of the United States in which movie?  Answer »
  • "The Matador, the Matador... me... me." Fail-Safe   Answer »
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