Fail-Safe Information

Fail-Safe is a 1964 cold war thriller film directed by Sidney Lumet, based on the 1962 novel Fail-Safe written by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. It portrays a fictional account of a Cold War nuclear crisis. The film features performances by veteran actors Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau and Frank Overton. Early film appearances include Fritz Weaver, Dom DeLuise, and Larry Hagman as the interpreter.

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 the early 1960s, Cold War tensions existing between the United States and the Soviet Union are heightened. An accidental thermonuclear first-strike attack by a group of United States Vindicator bombers (Convair B-58 Hustler aircraft) is launched in a mission against Moscow (the capital of what was then the Soviet Union).

Amidst an ordinary tour for VIPs at the U.S. headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) at Offutt AFB in Omaha, Nebraska, an alert is initiated when SAC radar indicates an intrusion into American airspace of an unidentified flying object. The standard procedure of SAC is to keep several groups of bombers constantly flying around the clock as a most immediate response to any potential nuclear attack on the country. Upon any initial alert from headquarters, these airborne groups proceed to pre-identified aerial points around the globe called "fail-safe points" to await an actual "go code" before proceeding towards Russian targets.

Shortly after reaching those points, the flying object is identified merely as an off-course airliner and the alert is canceled. However, a technical error sends an errant "go code" to a group of bombers, ordering them to proceed and attack their target. Coincidentally and simultaneously, a new Russian jamming device begins radio jamming of communications between SAC headquarters and the bomber group with the result that the group commander, Colonel Jack Grady (Edward Binns), begins to lead the attack on Moscow.

Pressure mounts as the President of the United States (Henry Fonda) and his advisers attempt to recall the group or shoot them down. Communications are begun with the Soviet Chairman, whereupon mistakes on both sides (the American accidental launch of the mission and the coincidental Russian jamming) are acknowledged. The jamming is reversed; however, SAC training and protocols cause the crew to reject counter-orders to abort the mission.

Before completion of the accidental attack on Moscow, the President realizes the severity of the situation and seeks a resolution to the matter that will avoid reprisal from the Russians and, ultimately, an all-out nuclear holocaust. With this threat in mind, the President orders an equally nuclear-armed American bomber toward New York City - which otherwise would be destroyed by the Soviets, along with many other American cities, in any counter-attack. Upon failure to stop the destruction of Moscow, the President orders General Black (Dan O'Herlihy) in the bomber over New York to drop the same nuclear payload which struck Moscow, in the hope that it will appease the Soviets.

Cast

• Dan O'Herlihy as Brigadier General Warren A. "Blackie" Black, USAF
• Walter Matthau as Professor Groeteschele
• Frank Overton as General Bogan, USAF
• Ed Binns as Colonel Jack Grady, USAF
• Fritz Weaver as Colonel Cascio, USAF
• Henry Fonda as the President
• Larry Hagman as Buck, the President's interpreter
• William Hansen as Defense Secretary Swenson
• Russell Hardie as General Stark

• Russell Collins as Gordon Knapp
• Sorrell Booke as Congressman Raskob
• Nancy Berg as Ilsa Woolfe
• Hildy Parks as Betty Black
• Janet Ward as Helen Grady
• Dom DeLuise as Technical Sergeant Collins, USAF
• Dana Elcar as Mr. Foster
• Louise Larabee as Mrs. Cascio
• Frieda Altman as Mrs. Jennie Johnson

Production

The film was shot in black and white, in a dramatic, theater-stage-play format with claustrophobic close-ups and ponderous silence occasionally between several characters. There is no musical underscoring nor is any music played in any scenes within its run. 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 B-58 "Hustler"). "Real" world life is 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 freezing at the moment of impact. No mushroom clouds appear in the film.

The Soviets are never seen in the film. The progress of the attack is followed almost exclusively on giant, electronic maps overlooking the War Room in the Pentagon 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, significantly including the character representing the advisor to the Department of Defense, Prof. Groeteschele (Walter Matthau), an old college ally, General Black (Dan O'Herlihy), and, most importantly, 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 U.S. aircraft, the Convair B-58 Hustler, shown in negative. Fighters sent to attack the bombers are illustrated by film clips of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and McDonnell F-101 Voodoo. Stock footage was used inasmuch as the United States Air Force declined to cooperate with the film's producers fearful of possible negative publicity from a fictional plot predicated on an inability to positively control its nuclear strike forces. 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.

The film was the second movie role for comedic actor Dom DeLuise. He plays the unfortunate Sgt Collins who triggers the false go signal by replacing a failed electronic module in the master "fault indicator", a control computer for the entire SAC complex. Later in the film, a reluctant and frightened Collins is forced to give the Soviets information on how to destroy the nuclear tipped air-to-air missiles on the American aircraft by Bogan after Cascio and his immediate subordinate refuse to do so.

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. Despite this, 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. Over the years, both the novel and the movie were well-received for their depiction of a nuclear crisis, although garnering a legion of critical reviews that centered on the one fallacy, in that the "fail safe" command sequence was misinterpreted.

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. Director Stanley Kubrick, adapting Peter George's novel Red Alert, insisted the studio release his movie first (in January 1964). "Fail-Safe" so closely resembled Red Alert that George filed a plagiarism lawsuit. The case was settled out of court.