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.

Twelve Angry Men

This 1957 movie was a great film. It has been remade several times in several formats and will inevitably continue to be redone. The reason is that the story is timeless.

The cast of this movie was very strong. Henry Fonda, Lee Cobb, Jack Klugman, E G Marshall, and Jack Warden lead the cast as twelve jurors being asked to determine the guilt of a young man accused of murdering his own father. The case is seen by the jurors as an open and shut case and they quickly vote 11 to 1 to convict. Henry Fonda's character is against the immediate conviction. He is not sure he is innocent but thinks that with a young man facing the death penalty they should consider the evidence more clearly.

A pattern emerges. The case was very circumstantial. The truthfulness of eye witness testimony is debated. One must judge the potential motive of a murderer but also the motive of a witness. The real truth in this movie is that so often jurors can be maniipulated much as advertisers manupulate consumers.

Often what is seen is not what is fact and this applies to a courtroom as well.

Through the course of the movie Fonda's side starts winning converts leading to a very strong ending.

This is a great, very riveting movie.