Fail Safe
This unnerving procedural thriller painstakingly details an all-too-plausible nightmare scenario in which a mechanical failure jams the United States military’s chain of command and sends the country hurtling toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Working from a contemporary best seller, screenwriter Walter Bernstein and director Sidney Lumet wrench harrowing suspense from the doomsday fears of the Cold War era, making the most of a modest budget and limited sets to create an atmosphere of clammy claustrophobia and astronomically high stakes. Starring Henry Fonda as a coolheaded U.S. president and Walter Matthau as a trigger-happy political theorist, Fail Safe is a long-underappreciated alarm bell of a film, sounding an urgent warning about the deadly logic of mutually assured destruction.
Special Features
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary from 2000 featuring director Sidney Lumet
- New interview with film critic J. Hoberman on 1960s nuclear paranoia and Cold War films
- “Fail Safe” Revisited, a short documentary from 2000 including interviews with Lumet, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, and actor Dan O’Herlihy
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Bilge Ebiri
New cover by Adam Maida
Special Features
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary from 2000 featuring director Sidney Lumet
- New interview with film critic J. Hoberman on 1960s nuclear paranoia and Cold War films
- “Fail Safe” Revisited, a short documentary from 2000 including interviews with Lumet, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, and actor Dan O’Herlihy
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Bilge Ebiri
New cover by Adam Maida
Cast
- Henry Fonda
- The president
- Walter Matthau
- Dr. Groeteschele
- Dan O’Herlihy
- General Black
- Frank Overton
- General Bogan
- Edward Binns
- Colonel Grady
- Fritz Weaver
- Colonel Cascio
- Larry Hagman
- Buck
Credits
- Director
- Sidney Lumet
- Screenplay by
- Walter Bernstein
- From the novel by
- Eugene Burdick
- From the novel by
- Harvey Wheeler
- Produced by
- Max E. Youngstein
- Director of photography
- Gerald Hirschfeld
- Film editing by
- Ralph Rosenblum
A scene from Fail Safe
