Fail Safe

In Dr. Strangelove, director Stanley Kubrick decided that the only sensible commentary on the absurdities of nuclear war was an absurd film. His light treatment of the possibility of accidental war produced a sharp political and social satire.

With almost identical plot and characters, Fail Safe pretends to be a high-minded discussion of the same topic. But it comes off as a monstrous joke. Where Strangelove is mocking. Fail Safe is sententious, and where Strangelove is incisive Fail Safe is obtuse. Director Sidney Lumet has merely placed a stock collection of political and military figures in an unrealistic situation and had them mouth inanities about cold war and atomic destruction.

First, there's a conscientious and loyal air force general who has nightmares about a matador killing a bull. He's willing to do anything for his country and his President, who's a college buddy of his, and he says that nuclear war is unthinkable, that anyone who says we can survive one is crazy. In the end he blows up New York and kills himself.

Then there's the "hardheaded" professor who says that our chances of surviving atomic war are pretty good but they would be even better if we attacked first. After all, Communism is our mortal enemy, right, so why not? The Russians might kill 60 million Americans, but we'll kill all of them.

And there's the wise, paternal President. He gets on the hot line to Russia's Premier when a bomber group, sent beyond its fail safe point through a mechanical accident, enters Soviet territory. Despite American and Russian efforts to recall and later destroy the squadron, one plane bombs Moscow. The President must demonstrate dramatically America's lack of animosity toward Russia and prevent total disaster. So he orders another bomber to destroy New York.

This plot might have made an enjoyable, if not plausible, melodrama. But the film's ludicrous script turns the plot into a parody of itself. The President pleads with Russia's Premier for "Peace Through Understanding" and the Professor tells the chief of staff to strike while the U.S. has the advantage. Meanwhile, everyone draws a long face because man has let machines take over his destiny and isn't it awful that we might go to war when no one wants to, except the professor.

Director Lumet, cursed with a terrible script, compounds his misfortune with unimaginative photography. With one shot of a B-52 flying low over its target, Stanley Kubrick represents the conflict of a desire for victory and a fear of destruction more effectively than does all of Fail Safe. But Lument's camera work, instead of adding to Fail Safe's statement, merely wears out the viewer with its monotonous tension. He uses all the standard melodramatic shots, close-ups of sweating brows and tight lips, prolonged views of radar screens and bug-eyed pilots in oxygen masks. This technique is a device for making the viewer nervous and reinforcing tension in the film. But used too heavily, as it is in Fail Safe, the technique becomes irritating.

A competent cast tries its best under the pressing circumstances. Henry Fonda is a reassuring President, Edmund O'Brien is a likeable air force general, and Walter Matthau portrays a thoroughly despicable professor.

Fail Safe is too absurd to be realistic, and too simple minded to be a commentary on world politics. Its only traces of realism are recognizable titles and place names, like President, 20 megaton bomb, and Moscow. The story would have lost all its impact if a fictitious city instead of New York had been destroyed. Perhaps a bombing of Hollywood would have been more appropriate.