Unjustly deemed the dull stepbrother of the contemporaneously released Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe was never given a fair chance in 1964. Accused of plagiarizing Peter George's novel Red Alert, which was the basis for Kubrick's film, Fail-Safe was subsequently dogged by poor publicity, and then meagerly distributed and exhibited several weeks after Dr. Strangelove, effectively nullifying its cold-blooded nuclear horror story. It is now readily apparent that the studios and public were wrong: Fail-Safe is genuinely terrifying and plausibly plotted, illuminating the inherent folly of ceding wartime logistics to a technological system when nothing less than the survival of the world is at stake. Nuclear deterrence was nothing if not an emotional and moral pact between the US and USSR, which rested on a simple mutual threat: If you attack us, we'll obliterate not only you but perhaps the entire world with you. Fail-Safe, then, examines a possible result of entrusting such protocol to a computer, which tends to glitch and freeze at the worst times, as it inevitably does here. American fighter jets loaded with the nuclear payload to level Moscow reach their "fail-safe" points (areas just off Russia's coast at which they are either instructed to turn back or strike) and are given the go-ahead when headquarters isn't able to patch a busted microchip in time to issue fallback orders. Upon passing through fail-safe, the pilots are to complete their mission regardless of any further command, since any subsequent communication might well be enemy subterfuge.
This brilliant suspense scenario in place, the remaining two acts and epilogue oscillate between fascinating philosophical ruminations about human responsibility for the impending disaster and how to deal with its aftermath—Walter Matthau is particularly good as an adviser who functions as a prophet of war, as essentially George C. Scott's character in Strangelove played straight, to frighteningly zealous effect—and the efforts of those on both sides to stop the bombers from reaching Moscow. The film has a few weaknesses, both minor, in its simplicity of staging and occasionally severe camera angles, which seem to strain for austere effect. Otherwise, this is intellectually engaging and aesthetically satisfying, with director Lumet expertly building the tension between four primary locations, inspired black-and-white photography that occasionally goes negative, or X-ray-like, as in the inventive, cyclical opening and closing scenes, and a handful of noteworthy performances from Henry Fonda as the American president, Dan O'Herlihy as a good military man with a haunted conscience, and Frank Overton as a general who rises to the occasion with admirable courage.
This brilliant suspense scenario in place, the remaining two acts and epilogue oscillate between fascinating philosophical ruminations about human responsibility for the impending disaster and how to deal with its aftermath—Walter Matthau is particularly good as an adviser who functions as a prophet of war, as essentially George C. Scott's character in Strangelove played straight, to frighteningly zealous effect—and the efforts of those on both sides to stop the bombers from reaching Moscow. The film has a few weaknesses, both minor, in its simplicity of staging and occasionally severe camera angles, which seem to strain for austere effect. Otherwise, this is intellectually engaging and aesthetically satisfying, with director Lumet expertly building the tension between four primary locations, inspired black-and-white photography that occasionally goes negative, or X-ray-like, as in the inventive, cyclical opening and closing scenes, and a handful of noteworthy performances from Henry Fonda as the American president, Dan O'Herlihy as a good military man with a haunted conscience, and Frank Overton as a general who rises to the occasion with admirable courage.
