Favorite Movie Series - "Fail Safe"

"Fail-Safe"
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Starring: Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau and Larry Hagman

Fail-Safe was directed by the great Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon) in 1964. Here Lumet expands on the technique he himself perfected in 12 Angry Men. He uses facial close-ups as the climax of the film approaches to build tension and emotion. Lumet was famous for his focus on the face, and here he uses that to perfection.

The film has a straightforward plot: The military is running drills for hypothetical nuclear escalation with The Soviet Union. The fighter planes, armed with nuclear warheads, will fly to "Fail-Safe" points around the globe. They are to remain there until they receive the instruction that it is only a drill and fly back to their respective bases. If they hear nothing they are to assume the United States has been attacked, open sealed instructions, and bomb whatever Soviet location listed. The message to return to base is received by all but one fighter squadron due to a technical error. The remainder of the film consists of U.S. officials frantically trying to reach the squadron and prevent nuclear holocaust. This will not be easy - The fighters are trained very specifically to ignore any communication beyond the Fail-Safe point as it could be Soviet manipulation.

The way Lumet constructs the events that have to take place for this to occur is disturbing in its deliberate march toward its conclusion. So many things happen that bring us to the climax and aftermath, and each is entirely plausible within the realm of the militarized and paranoid world that existed in 1964.

At the heart of the film is man's reliance on technology and the pitfalls and disasters that can result when the human element is removed from the equation. The communication to the fighter planes fails, and the fighters themselves have been so de-humanized and programmed through their training that reason will not affect them. The march toward their mission is on auto-pilot - both in the cockpit and in the minds of the men operating it.

This film came out the same year as another Cold War classic: Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. When you put the two films side by side, it is stunning how similar yet different they are. The plot and even many of the characters are eerily the same. The only difference is the treatment of the material. Strangelove is pure satire, Fail-Safe is deadly serious. Both work exquisitely.

Lumet was a master film maker, and this is equal to the best work he has ever done. It is tortuously suspenseful, reflective, and sobering. The conclusion is stark and almost unbelievable. The fact that it is not fully incomprehensible is terrifying.