Excellent work by the great Sidney Lumet and writers Bernstein, Wheeler, and Burdick. The idea here is man trusting the ultimate security of the world to machines created by and managed by humans. Technology can perform such remarkable actions, with accuracy and reliability hard to us to match. But what if it still fails? What if a coil burns out, a code has an error, or security protocol cannot correct a mistake that puts millions of innocent civilians at risk? Add into that equation the battle between reasonable, compassionate humans and the brutal, calculating ones who only see opportunity and paranoid betrayal? The pacing and tone are excellent. Lumet keeps the tension high as the drama plays out in a quickly paced ensemble performance. Matthau is great as an egghead civilian 'political scientist' who has never had to face the horrific realities of warfare but plays with human life like it's all some cynical game. He gets called on it in my favorite line from the film- "You learned so well that now there's no difference between you and what you want to kill." Fonda makes a great president. Hagman gives one of his best performances. And Dom DeLuise is a non-comedic role. 4 stars

Realistic brink-of-doom political thriller that superbly ratchets the tension of its horrifying scenario to breaking point... A must-see classic.

It's Dr. Strangelove, also from 1964, but playing it straight. According to Wikipedia there first was a 1958 novel called Red Alert on which Dr. Strangelove was based, and then a 1962 novel called Fail-Safe, which Lumet adapted, but which turned out to have plagiarized Red Alert. As part of the out of court settlement of the copyright case, Kubrick got to release his movie first, which initially doomed Lumet's effort. It's still a good film though. A bit stagey, just like 12 Angry Men, but also with the same kind of furious earnestness (looking for words here), which makes it a lot scarier than Dr. Strangelove. Again Henry Fonda is the moral center of it all.

Without reiterating, this is a well done film whose ending is not entirely expected. Fonda's superb acting skills are fully displayed here and, if no other reason, makes the film worth watching. And, Robertson has never been better!

This movie will sit with you. It grabs, holds and squeezes. Excellent film for those with interests in suspense, military, and history films. As well as psychological drama. An excellent historical and eerily relevant today. The geopolitics are different today, in some ways, but really the same. Commensurate response to attacks apply to the current escalation in Ukraine-Russia. I don’t normally watch movies this old for a lot of reasons. I do recommend this one.

A somber Strangelove? No dice, lady.

Dr. Strangelove without the laughs but with tons of suspense. A must for people who want to understand just how high the stakes were during the Cold War and how close we might have come to total annihilation. A masterpiece of suspense from the great Sidney Lumet and a crackerjack cast -- including Walter Matthau's uncharacteristic, shocking portrayal of a sociopathic doom-monger. (Doom is still possible but it's currently less likely to come over the world all at once, the way it once might have -- assuming Putin doesn't go nuts, anyway.)

It isn't perfect but it is an All Time Classic. There is no music in this and at first this has a very dry feel but it gets intense on the backs of a riveting story, excellent acting, and makes up for the slow/dry 30 minute start. This definitely could've benefitted from a surreal soundtrack especially in the first 30 minutes and it could just not rely on it afterwards. The pacing still is incredible despite a solid but slow start. The key is once Henry Fonda shows up this gets way more focused, the acting gets more intense, and the editing while very good overall gets insanely good. The cinematography is really good also with the black and white really matching the camerawork of the Manchurian Candidate. This also has one of Lument's trademarks of most of the movie takes place in 3 claustrophobic rooms. The grainy look of this gives it a found footage ascetic similar to Godzilla and works really well. The only issue is really when the stock footage is used and jet fighter shots kind of feel out of place. This is a film that doesn't have lots of action and most of the time we see triangle blips on a screen moving at 1 mile an hour. But it becomes riveting and is a testament to Lument's direction. It does a great job of not relying on any explosions, dogfights, or big screen spectacles. This is a bit jumpy at first on top of being dry and slow at first but the underlying commentary and gut wrenching choices make you think throughout and is so powerful especially with the end. This is something everyone should see once.

Tense dialog! War drama by Sidney Lumet. Superb performance. This was released almost the same time as Dr. Strangelove. This one is serious direction.

This one goes in the "heavily exceeded expectations" category as I had never even heard of this film until I started tackling Sidney Lumet's filmography. Fail Safe utilizes a minimalistic approach to create a tightly plotted, cold war thriller that had me fully engrossed and on the edge of my seat for most of the duration. Fonda was the MVP for me, cemented in that impressive final scene, but Hagman offered excellent support. Walter Matthau is a personal favorite of mine and I enjoyed seeing him in a more serious role. I really dug the conclusion as well, surprising me while at the same time making the film far more impactful. Edit: It is interesting to read about the problems that came about for this film as a result of the similarities to Dr. Strangelove

Fail Safe is the scariest movie I've ever watched. Perhaps recent geopolitical events have lent it a little additional power, but I think it will remain relevant so long as WMDs exist. Regardless of whether one supports disarmament, it is important to carefully examine the possibility of an accidental apocalypse. There are obvious comparisons to Dr. Strangelove, which came out the same year and has a similar premise, but I think a more interesting comparison is with one of director Sidney Lumet's previous features, 12 Angry Men. Both films are largely composed of tense conversations in claustrophobic rooms, with camerawork that focuses on the anguish and frustration on the actors' faces, but the stakes in Fail Safe are much greater than one man's life - the filmmakers use these humble sets to convey a looming global catastrophe, and extremely effectively, too. Perhaps it is heretical of me to make such a comparison, but I think Fail Safe actually edges out 12 Angry Men as the lofty summit of Lumet's career.

Fail safe, filmed in stark B&W to match the depth of it's inherent drama, is a Cold War drama of increasing tension brought to a shattering conclusion. Full of superior performances highlighted by Henry Fonda's solid US President, is not just a period piece, but has possible ramifications as long as there are nuclear weapons extant.

The first 30 minutes are really slow but then it gets good. So if you can sit thru first 30 minutes you get a good movie. (Good performance by a young Larry Hagman.)

I watched it when it first came out and just watched it on 온라인카지노추천. It's still tense, frightening, and VERY WELL DONE. It's weird to see Walter Matthau in a serious role, though. It's worth a watch, if only to remind us that something like this could happen. In 1980, a malfunction in a Russian satellite said that American ICBMs were heading to Russia. If not for a man in a bunker who didn't believe the satellite data, Russia might have launched their missiles! (See Wikipedia "The man who saved the world") Fail Safe had the unfortunate timing to come out at the same time as Dr. Strangelove and suffered at the Box Office. Especially since Kubrick played some tricks to get his movie into the theaters first. But Fail Safe has stood the test of time. There's nothing outdated about it. I don't know if America and Russia still fly nukes close to each other's borders, though. I hope those cat and mouse games are over because it seems we're beyond the idea that either side could win an all out nuclear war. An atmosphere poisoned by radiation for a hundred years does not seem like the winner would gain much. This movie is a "cautionary tale" that still reminds us to keep our dog on a tight leash. It's been over 70 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked and the world has managed to avoid using nuclear weapons. If we can all keep this up, it will be the first time in human history that a very effective weapon was not used (except once, of course, and that was used as a "demonstration"). The only other example I can think of is poison gas, used in World War II. it was used once and people saw how terrible the agony of the victims was that everyone avoided using it again. I guess there are "humane" ways to kill.

This is a tense thriller and melodrama for the thinking man. Could such an accident happen? What would we do in the circumstance if we were in power? The issues of nuclear accidents, man versus machine still exist today. Lumet's direction is crisp and his focus is laser-like on the human challenges in a dangerous nuclear situation, told especially through many revealing close-ups. Walter Matthau is extremely good as the hard-nosed militant, and Henry Fonda is outstanding as the President.

This is really a horror movie. It convinces you of the verisimilitude of its setting, despite not having the cooperation of the DoD, who wanted nothing to do with it and wouldn't provide pictures or stock footage of their facilities. The style of the camera is unobtrusive but maintains tension throughout the film. I watched it in tandem with Dr Strangelove which is the superior film, but Failsafe has sympathetic characters with people only following their directives rather than indulging their bloodlust, which highlights the criticism of creating and relying on machines instead of human reasoning.

Playing it safe by playing everything straight, Lumet's film fails precisely for the same reason that Kubrick's succeeds so well: Whereas the latter comedy understands the inherent and inescapable absurdity of nuclear strategy, by taking itself so seriously, the former tragedy devolves into unwitting farce, the humanity and reality sapped out of the characters (particularly Matthau and Fonda) in the name of ostensible humanist realism.

I haven't seen this film since it was released. The story is about an accidental nuclear strike and all the Cold War paranoia of the time. Starring as President is Henry Fonda, as calm as a cucumber. This is a film that fits in with Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, and On the Beach.

Tense portrayal of one of the most terrifying possibilities of the cold war. The telephone call scene between Henry Fonda and the Russian premier with Larry Hagman as translator is unforgettable.

Incidentally imperfect, but perfect in its essence. A singular, unforgettable experience. A tragedy of Greek purity. Everyone . . . everyone was doing what they thought was right. This is one of the most impressing films I've ever seen. Fonda, O'Herlihy, Hagman, Overton give masterful performances. Matthau's performance adds the eat of overcoming an unsympathetic script. (One of the weaknesses in this masterpiece is its willingness to flatten its "villains." Matthau smashes through this, poor Fritz Weaver is given little to work with and the result is a character only an ideologue could credit.)