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• All too realistic...

  • DaveC
  • 12/31/11

  Norad has experienced some close calls and glitches. I have too much experience with software and hardware to trust the disclaimer at the end of the movie. It is a tense thriller!

• ...speaking of a sleeping pill.

  • tragic figure
  • 12/31/11

  I actually did fall asleep twice during the viewing, but I did wake while both sides were negotiating. What I did see was very tense- I would like to see the rest of it now.

• • 9/25/11

• One of Sidney Lumet's best films.

  • Terry
  • 9/25/11

  "Fail Safe" has often been described as "Dr. Strangelove without the laughs". But even though the plots are virtually identical, I think it's an unfair comment. "Fail Safe" is a superb film on its own. Let's remember...this and "Dr. Strangelove" came out during the very height of the Cold War...the Cuban Missile Crisis happened just a couple of years before. And "Fail Safe" played out perfectly on those fears. Lumet did a superb job invoking such tension. Everyone in the cast is excellent. But of course, most people single out Henry Fonda as the President. He evokes calm, but look at the anguish on his face when Moscow is destroyed....and he realizes that he has to sacrifice millions of Americans to avert an all out nuclear war. And as I mentioned, this chillingly played out during the Cold War. The very last moments...when Lumet quickly flashes street scenes of New York before the screen goes blank...it's still horrific more than 40 years later. A excellent, excellent film still.

• Liberal Solutions

  • jack the hat
  • 9/18/10

  I love it when we get a liberal script of our future, if war breaks out, even by accident. Note with interest, that the President (henery Fonda) blows up New York and not Washington DC---what bravery on his part. To make it even more personal the president (Henery Fonda) knew that his wife was visting New York at the time he ordered the bomb dropped. America is to blame again according to our pinko friends in Hollywood and not her enemy.

• 'FAIL-SAFE'

  • Lynda C.
  • 7/28/10

  For me Sidney Lumets' best. Henry Fonda and the supporting cast are at their best, the scenario is so plausible it gives me goosebumps. Watched it when released and to this day political and espionage thrillers are my first love. Thanks TCM

• Excellent!

  • AnnieD
  • 7/25/10

  This is another movie I saw for the first time several years ago and it's become one of my favorites...it's the straight companion to "Dr. Strangelove". Henry Fonda is superb as the President, and Walter Matthau is a surprise as an SOB intellectual. The scenes where Henry Fonda is on the Red Phone with the Soviet Premier are squirmingly tense. I highly recommend!

• As good as a movie can be!

  • Steve
  • 2/4/10

  This is a work of art. Stop what you are doing, close the doors, take the phone off the hook and watch FAIL-SAFE. Watch it like it is worth watching because this is one great flick! A great movie has to have a great story. This one is hot and comes as close as a movie can come to the suspense of a great book. It appears low budget in retrospect but the actors maintain an intensity to keep you glued with suspense. FAIL-SAFE isn't about special effects or blockbuster stunts or ruined by some boring ass love story. Instead this is serious as serious can be. It's a mans movie I guess. It's my favorite film.

• FAIL-SAFE (1964)

  • Jay
  • 7/6/09

  One of the best anti-war films of all time, and also one of both Henry Fonda and Director Sidney Lumet's best films. Amazingly tense, extremely well written and acted. The frightening scenario is very believably done. The pace is non-stop exciting. A great classic.

• No Dr. Strangelove

  • Bruce Reber
  • 6/30/09

  "Fail Safe" is a stark doomsday thriller about the possibility of WW3 being triggered by the U.S. accidentally nuking Moscow that is played totally straight. Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove, OHILTSWALTB" came out earlier that year, a totally hilarious comic satire on the insanity of the entire concept of Nuclear war and global annihilation, so I guess after audiences saw Armegeddon played for laughs in Dr. Strangelove they didn't much care to see it shown as a distinct and nightmarish possibility in "Fail Safe". This was 1964, the height of the Cold War, when each day practically everyone in the world knew that global nuclear destruction could happen at any minute, particularly in the wake of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Both are excellent films, but I give the edge to Dr. Strangelove, for the reason that if I and the rest of humanity have to get vaporized by atomic bombs, I want to laugh myself silly while it's happening.

• Good for one viewing but that's all you'll want

  • Elwood Harvey
  • 7/12/08

  Why Stanley Kubrick chose to make a parody of this movie is beyond me. Fail-Safe is a very chilling and effective tale in my opinion. I was on pins and needles all the way up to the bitter, terrifying end. Kubrick's lackluster parody does nothing to make me laugh or to help me "stop worrying". To those who say this kind of thing could never happen, I certainly hope you're right but I'm not so sure that I have that much faith in our government or any government that is comprised of imperfect humans....

• More effective than sleeping pill

  • R Andrews
  • 10/4/07

  This movie is ridiculous and a bore...just watch Dr. Strangelove for a lesson on mutually assured destruction that actually entertains. Lumet wrote a great book about making films, but, alas he his a second rate director. As in almost all his movies, his earnestness is boring and high-handed. And most of the characters lack all nuance. This material attracted another 2nd rate entertainer when George Clooney was in a recent live teleplay version on CBS. His earnestness in Good Night and Good Luck put me to sleep too.

• Outlandish Story

  • Sid
  • 8/18/07

  Sidney Lumet has spun quite a yarn here as the U.S. defense broke the fail safe standards as a madman and a motley crue fly out to the Soviet Union to drop the bomb on Moscow. As mentioned by the producers that this sort of thing couldn't possibly happen. How can one fathom such an nightmare, still this film is quite a chiller. What makes this film so frightening is that these bombs exist and what Henry Fonda does at the end. This is a product of it's time because of the nuclear war scare.

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