Fail Safe (1964 film)

Fail-Safe
original movie poster
Directed by	Sidney Lumet
Written by	Walter Bernstein
Produced by	Sidney Lumet Charles H. Maguire Max E. Youngstein
Starring	Henry Fonda Dan O'Herlihy Walter Matthau Dom DeLuise
Cinematography	Gerald Hirschfeld
Edited by	Ralph Rosenblum
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	October 7, 1964
Running time	112 min.
Language	English

Fail-Safe is a 1964 film directed by Sidney Lumet, based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. It tells the story of a fictional Cold War nuclear crisis. The film features an all star cast, including Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, and early appearances by Fritz Weaver and Larry Hagman.

Plot

The film takes place during the Cold War, when tensions with the Soviet Union were at their height. The movie starts with a dream sequence of a bull being killed by a matador. When the dreamer wakes, we learn that he is Air Force General Warren Abraham "Blackie" Black (Dan O'Herlihy), and he believes that the dream is some sort of personal omen. The scene shifts to the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) near Omaha, where a Congressman (Sorrell Booke) and defense industry executive are being given a tour of the facility by both Colonel Cascio (Fritz Weaver) and General Bogan (Frank Overton). During the tour, SAC detects an unknown aircraft approaching North America from Europe. American fighter planes are deployed to meet the potential threat. According to routine, American strategic bombers are directed to fly to various predetermined points outside the borders of the Soviet Union, called the "fail-safe" points.

The bombers have standing orders to loiter at their "fail-safe" points, until they receive either orders to return to base or a special attack code that is transmitted through a special "fail-safe" box in each group commander's plane. The original "threat" is proven to be innocuous, and orders are issued to have the American bombers recalled. At that time, an error light goes off on the fault indicator ("K-13") component of the SAC computer system. The component is quickly replaced. Installing the replacement causes a momentary flash on the big screen at SAC, but then everything then seems normal. At the same instant, a technical failure causes the correct attack code ("CAP 811") to be transmitted to Group Six which is waiting at its fail-safe point in northern Alaska. Group Six consists of six Vindicator supersonic bombers (see B-58 Hustler stock footage of which is often used to represent Vindicators in the movie) and is commanded by Colonel Jack Grady.

According to procedure, Colonel Grady (Edward Binns), first confirms the attack code is correct and then tries to contact SAC in Omaha to verify the fail-safe order, but due to a new kind of Soviet radio jamming, he cannot get through. With a valid fail-safe order in hand and his radio jammed by the Soviets, Grady follows procedure and gravely commands his crew to open their sealed operational orders for the day: Group Six is directed to bomb Moscow. At this point, a series of disastrous standing orders come into play: the bomber crews are trained to begin their attack upon receiving the correct attack code on the fail-safe box; after they have gone a short way they are then to refuse any alterations to their mission whatsoever; they are trained to ignore all verbally communicated orders and to anticipate every possible form of trickery from the Soviets (including imitation of commanders' voices and friendly aircraft) designed to dissuade them from their mission.

At meetings in Omaha, the Pentagon, and in the bomb shelter below the White House, American politicians and scholars debate responses to the developing situation. Professor Groeteschele (played by Walter Matthau) (a character said to be loosely based on Herman Kahn) suggests the United States follow this accidental attack with a full-scale attack, and says that the Soviets will then surrender. In contrast, General Black urges that every effort be made to either recall or destroy the American bombers before they reach their target; otherwise the Soviet Union will respond with an all-out nuclear response.

Following procedure, the Air Force orders four fighter jets to attempt to shoot down Group Six. The fighters are ordered to use their afterburners to increase their speed and give them a chance of catching the bombers, but this means that the fighters will quickly run out of fuel, sending the pilots to certain death in the freezing ocean. Even though it is likely to fail, the attempt is intended to show the Soviets that the attack by Group Six is an accident, not part of a full-scale nuclear assault. Unfortunately, the fighters run out of fuel before they are within range of the bombers. They fire their missiles hopelessly before falling into the sea.

In the White House, the President of the United States (Henry Fonda) contacts the Soviet premier and slowly begins to convince the Premier that the attack is a mistake. He is helped out by translator Peter Buck (Larry Hagman). The President offers assistance in shooting down Group Six. The Soviets decline the offer, despite the President's warnings that the extraordinary speed of the bombers make it likely at least one will succeed in reaching Moscow.

The Soviets reluctantly acknowledge that they were experimenting with a secret new jamming system and agree to turn it off. By radio, the President attempts to persuade Grady that the mission is a mistake and to return to base. Following his standing orders, Grady responds that he can no longer accept tactical alterations by voice, and turns off his radio.

Having limited luck, the Soviets reverse themselves and ask for SAC assistance. The President orders a conference line to be set up with the Soviets and formally directs everyone at SAC to assist the Soviet effort to shoot down the American bombers.

The President calls Air Force General Black, with whom he went to college and trusts. He reminds the General of the story of the sacrifice of Abraham and tells him he has a special mission for him, but that he may be asking a great deal of him. He confirms that General Black's wife and kids are at home in New York City. Without question, General Black agrees to do whatever the President may ask and departs for Andrews Air Force Base to receive further orders.

At SAC headquarters, General Bogan attempts to stop the attack by supplying the Soviets with important information about the Vindicators bombers. Many at SAC are reluctant to share technology secrets and to doom the airmen of Group Six. Bogan's executive officer, Colonel Cascio, becomes mentally unstable and he believes the Soviets are playing a trick. Cascio strikes Bogan and attempts to take over command of SAC, falsely claiming that he is acting under the authority of the President. Cascio is removed by security officers and Bogan's authority is restored, but precious time has been wasted.

The American President conference calls the Soviet Premier, the American ambassador in Moscow, and the Soviet delegate to the United Nations in New York. The Premier tells the President that Soviets forces are at full readiness to retaliate. He asks what the President plans to do if the bombers cannot be stopped. The President explains that if Moscow is destroyed, the fireball will melt the American Ambassador's phone making a high-pitch noise on the other end of the line. The President then tells all three men along with everyone at SAC and the Pentagon, that he has ordered a Vindicator Bomber to take to the air in the United States and that if Moscow is destroyed, he will order this new bomber, equipped with the same bombs, to destroy New York City.

Meanwhile, the Soviet PVO Strany air defense corps has managed to shoot down two of the six planes. With information provided by the Americans, the Soviets shoot down two more planes. Only Grady's bomber and the decoy plane, which carries no bombs, remain on course to Moscow. Grady orders Flynn, the pilot of the decoy plane, to gain altitude and lure the Soviet fighters away, so that Grady can get past them. General Bogan tells Marshal Nyevsky, the Soviet commander, to ignore Flynn's plane because it has no bombs and is only trying to draw their fire and let the armed bomber get past. Despite Bogan's warnings, Nyevsky casually says they will "try for a kill in any case" and concentrates his fighters on the decoy plane. While the decoy plane is destroyed, Grady's plane slips past the fighter net. Realizing that his foolishness has likely allowed the remaining bomber a clear path to Moscow, Nyevsky collapses and is replaced.

With Moscow in range, following procedure, Colonel Grady opens up the radio to contact SAC to inform them that they are about to make the strike. Grady's wife is put on the radio and attempts to convince him to abort his mission. Grady is not sure whether it is her or a Soviet impostor and all the while he is distracted by a Soviet missile attack (see below). Ultimately, he turns off the radio and concentrates on avoiding the missile.

While this is happening, as a last-ditch measure, the Soviets fire a barrage of nuclear surface-to-air rockets into the sky above the remaining bomber's expected path, hoping to detonate them all at once forming a thermonuclear barrier and knocking the low-flying Vindicator out of the sky. Seeing through the plan, the Vindicator fires two of its own defensive missiles and guides them straight up, successfully leading the Soviet rockets high in the air. The Soviet missiles then detonate too high and Colonel Grady's bomber survives the resulting blast.

Grady tells his crew that the radiation from the blast means they will not be able to live more than a couple of days if they ever returned home. He suggests they fly the aircraft low over Moscow and ascend to the fusing altitude of the bombs, detonating the bombs aboard the aircraft. Agreeing, his navigator notes, "There's nothing to go home to anyway".

Knowing that both Moscow and New York are likely to be destroyed, the Soviet Premier stands down his offensive weapons. He tells the American President that this was all an accident, that no one is to blame. The President disagrees, saying they are both to blame, and that they let their machines get away from them. Both men agree that they must make sure it never happens again.

In Washington and Omaha everyone listens to the American ambassador, on a conference line from the embassy in Moscow, as he reports hearing explosions and seeing lights in the sky. A moment later a shrill electric wail fills the ears of all who listen, as the ambassador's phone melts from the nuclear fireball enveloping Moscow.

With grave resolve, the President orders an American bomber to destroy New York City. He knows that the First Lady happens to be visiting New York at the time and presumably will be killed in the bombing he has just ordered. Likewise the New York attack is carried out by his friend, General Black, whose own wife and two sons are at home in the doomed city.

As the bomber approaches New York a somber General Black orders that he alone will control the aircraft and drop the bombs—that the "final act" will be his.

A countdown to drop the bomb is made by a crewman. Simultaneously 10 quick scenes of busy New York people and animals appear.

Immediately after releasing the bomb over the city, General Black injects himself with a suicide pin. As he dies he remembers his dream and says, "... the matador, the matador, the matador, ... me, me."

Each of the 10 New York scenes is revisited and freezes. The final one is that of a child's face. Then the film ends. After the fade to black, a crowd is heard cheering, "Ole! Ole!", and the crowd is slowly drowned out by the sound of jet engines and then these, in turn, fade to the shrill tone of the melting telephone.

Cast

• Henry Fonda - the President
• Dan O'Herlihy - Brig. Gen. Warren A. Black (or "Blackie")
• Walter Matthau - Prof. Groeteschele
• Frank Overton - Gen. Bogan
• Ed Binns - Col. Jack Grady
• Fritz Weaver - Col. Cascio
• Larry Hagman - Buck, the President's translator
• William Hansen - Defense Secretary Swenson
• Russell Hardie - Gen. Stark
• Russell Collins - Gordon Knapp
• Sorrell Booke - Congressman Raskob
• Nancy Berg - Ilsa Woolfe
• Dom DeLuise - Sgt. Collins
• Frieda Altman - Mrs. Jennie Johnson
• Hildy Parks - Betty Black
• Janet Ward - Helen Grady
• Louise Larabee - Mrs. Cascio
• Dana Elcar - Mr Foster

Production

The film is shot in black and white with a minimalist, documentary-style format, with claustrophobic close-ups, and long silences between the characters. Except for the final "countdown" scenes the action takes place largely in bunkers, conference rooms, and a cockpit. Only in these last scenes do people and animals appear active and "alive" in the normal day-to-day world.

The movie is constructed so that the Soviets are never seen. The action is portrayed almost exclusively on the giant maps overlooking the War Room in the Pentagon and SAC Headquarters, and the Soviet Premier's words are translated by an American interpreter (Larry Hagman).

The "Vindicator" bombers (an invention of the novelists) are represented in the film by sometimes awkward stock footage of various real U.S. aircraft (the B-58 Hustler, as well as the F-100 Super Sabre, The F-102 Delta Dagger and the F9F Cougar) and usually shown in photographic negative. This footage was used because the US Air Force would not cooperate with the film's producers due to the risqué subplot and a main plot predicated on fictional Air Force failures.

Underscoring the nightmare quality of the drama, the film features several eerie scenes. Gen. Black's dream about the matador is blurred and shaky; the "Fail-Safe" main title switches starkly back and forth several times between black letters on a white background, and white letters on a black background. When the bombers and fighters are shown in flight, the soundtrack is sometimes eliminated entirely. At another point, the stock footage of the planes is rendered as a photographic negative.

Action messages in real life

One of the necessary plot elements in Fail-Safe is the inability of Colonel Grady's group to hear the correct action message because of Soviet jamming of a digital signal. However, by 1964, the U.S. Air Force used single-sideband radio to transmit Emergency Action Messages to air crews; this has the advantage of not being easily jammed. A theoretical means to jam such signals is a key part of the film's plot. The movie's closing credits are followed by a disclaimer stating that the United States Air Force has protective devices and safeguards that are used all the time to keep the events of the story from happening.

Reception

When Fail-Safe opened, it garnered excellent reviews, but its box-office performance was poor. Its failure rested with the similarity between it and Dr. Strangelove, which appeared in theaters first. Despite this, the film later was applauded as a cold war thriller. Over the years, both the novel and the movie were well-received for their depiction of a nuclear crisis. The novel sold through to the 1980s and 90's, and the film was given high marks for retaining the essence of the novel.

Lawsuit

The book so closely resembled the novel Red Alert by Peter George (which was adapted by George and Stanley Kubrick into the mutually assured destruction satire Dr. Strangelove the same year), that George filed a plagiarism lawsuit. The case was settled out of court.

Popular culture

Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb were both produced by Columbia Pictures in the period after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when people became much more sensitive to the threat of nuclear war. Strangelove director Stanley Kubrick insisted the studio release his movie first (in January 1964). Strangelove shares many plot similarities with Fail-Safe (and was legally derived from Red Alert - see above), but added black humor and satire to the mix.

Fail-Safe influenced the story of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Defiant" and the Seven Days episode "HAARP Attack". There are similar scenes in the Deep Space Nine episode, such as those between Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and Dukat (Marc Alaimo) who coordinate the search for the stolen Defiant from a war room on Cardassia Prime. Fritz Weaver (Cascio) also appeared in the series, in the earlier episode "Tribunal". (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

Fail-Safe was also parodied on:

• SCTV used a Henry Fonda imitation and the countdown montage in the episode "CCCP 1", which revolves around a Soviet hijacking of the network's satellite.

The famous 1964 ad Daisy by the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential campaign featured a shot similar to the final one from the movie, with a smash zoom into the face of a young girl playing.

2000 adaptation

In 2000, the novel was adapted again as a televised play also titled Fail Safe, starring George Clooney, Richard Dreyfuss, and Noah Wyle and broadcast live in black and white on CBS.

See also

• By Dawn's Early Light, later book and film with a similar theme

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Dolan Edward F. Jr. Hollywood Goes to War. London: Bison Books, 1985. ISBN 0-86124-229-7.
• Evans, Alun. Brassey's Guide to War Films. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, 2000. ISBN 1-57488-263-5.
• Harwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies". The Making of the Great Aviation Films, General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.

External links

• Fail-Safe at IMDb
• Fall-Safe at AllMovie