Fail Safe

This 1964 movie directed by Sidney Lumet was adapted from the book of the same name. Produced at the height of the cold war and released just a couple of years after the Cuban Missile Crisis the movie tapped into a serious fear of the potential not only of nuclear war but the potential for accidental nuclear war.

Henry Fonda who might have been one of the more underrated actors of his generation stars as the President. As the movie begins the Strategic Air Command in Omaha is being toured by a Congressman. Concurrently Political Scientist Walter Matthau, a known hawk even on the subject of nuclear war, is attending a meeting at the Pentagon. Against this backdrop an unidentified object is picked up on radar approaching the United States. the object soon appears as a plane off course and the warnings are ceased. Near Alaska however a bomber squadron has a malfunction in their radio's and gets an inaccurate message advising them to proceed past the Fail Safe point and drop their bombs on Moscow.

This creates a catastrophe. The pilots trained to expect tricks once their mission starts do not listen to requests to turn back. The Russian President after being convinced of the story of this being accidental still has to deal with hawks in his cabinet who feel that Russia should attack. On the United States side much the same occurs, with many generals advocating taking this accident and making it a pretense to finish the Russians off.

The President holds firm and as means to preventing full out nuclear war comes up with a solution to convince the Russians of our innocence that will shock you.

This is a very good,suspenseful movie. One can only imagine how somebody felt in 1964 watching it.