Political Films: 100 Most Significant Movies–Hoberman’s Survey of Critics Rankings
Number 100: One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977), France, Agnes Varda
(See our review)
No 99. Fail Safe, U.S. Sidney Lumet
Scripted by blacklisted writer Walter Bernstein, Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe is based on Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler’s best-selling novel.
Reflecting the zeitgeist, it tells in a serious (and earnest) mode the story of a U.S. plane that’s accidentally, but nearly fatally, ordered to bomb U.S.S.R, then the country’s most threatening enemy.
This tumultuously aggressive event inevitably plunges the American and Soviet governments into an urgent crisis, with the cloak ticking in as time is running out to avert a looming, global WWIII.
Grade: B+ (**** out of *****)
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Theatrical release poster
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The high-tension drama, done in a bleak and grim mode, is directed with taste and intelligence by Sidney Lumet. It all-star ensemble is headed by Henry Fonda (as the U.S. President), Walter Matthau, Dan O’Herlihy, Fritz Weaver, Larry Hagman, and other gifted thespians.
Released by the same studio (Columbia) just seven months after Stanley Kubrick’s military farce, Dr. Strangelove, Fail Safe suffered at the box-office by following that wild farce, which was based on a similar premise.
(Rumor has it that Kubrick threatened Columbia with a plagiarism lawsuit, forcing the studio’s brass to release his film first).
Audiences opted for Kubrick’s biting, off-the-wall satire, though “Fail Safe” continued to enjoy a long life as a stage play.
Fail Safe is a suitable companion piece to Lumet’s earlier (and better) 12 Angry Men, also with Henry Fonda. Both films are staged in a similar visual style, relying on building up tension and claustrophobic atmosphere, magnified by the use of the participants’ close-ups.
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 U.S. 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
Credits:
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Screenplay by Walter Bernstein, Peter George (uncredited), based on “Fail-Safe” by Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler
Produced by Lumet, Charles H. Maguire, Max E. Youngstein
Cinematography Gerald Hirschfeld
Edited by Ralph Rosenblum
Black and white
Production and distribution: Columbia Pictures
Release date: October 7, 1964
Running time: 112 minutes
Box office $1.8 million (rentals)
