| | Fail-Safe DVD (3 Customer Reviews)
| Category | Mystery DVDs, Dramas Movies, Television/TV Series Videos, Action/Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, Recommended, War, Essential Cinema, Politics, Disturbing, Cold War, Nuclear Destruction | | Starring | Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, Dan O'Herlihy, Fritz Weaver, Sorrell Booke, Frank Overton, Edward Binns, Russell Collins, William Hansen, Russell Hardie | | Director | Sidney Lumet | | Costume Designer | Anna Hill Johnstone | | Director of Photography | Gerald Hirschfeld | | Editor | Ralph Rosenblum | | Producer | Max E. Youngstein | | Production Designer | Albert Brenner | | Screenwriter | Walter Bernstein | | Source Writer | Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler |
Black & White; Closed Captioned; Bio/Filmographies; Soundtrack English; Soundtrack French; Soundtrack Spanish; English Subtitles Following closely on the heels of Stanley Kubrik's DR. STRANGELOVE (all too closely for Kubrick and company, who quickly filed a lawsuit alleging plagiarism), Sidney Lumet's FAIL-SAFE employs a similarly stylized and heightened dramatic structure in its nerve-crushing moral tale. Taking place over the course of a single day, the film follows government and army officials in Nebraska, New York City, and Washington, D.C., as they go about their day supervising, examining, and speculating on the fragile state of affairs engendered by the tense nuclear standoff between the U.S. and Russia. When an off-course commercial airplane triggers the Pentagon's complex "fail-safe" maneuver, leaving an arsenal of nuclear-bomb-carrying jet fighters at the ready, a mechanical error puts the entire world in danger of destruction. Riveting performances from a rich cast are pushed even further by Lumet's stark and ominous direction. Walter Matthau gives an uncharacteristic turn as a cold and contemptuous political scientist unswerving in his convictions that the U.S. must stand strong against the communist menace. Henry Fonda plays the American president who must navigate the complex and urgent political trauma and prevent total destruction, even at an unthinkable price. Theatrical release: October 7, 1964.
Shown at the second New York Film Festival on September 15, 1964.
The film's premise closely resembled that of DR. STRANGELOVE, which had been released in January of 1964. Columbia Pictures and others involved in the making of the earlier film found out about the novel FAIL-SAFE and filed a federal court suit against the authors, the book's publishers, and independent production company ECA, which was planning to make the movie version. The makers of STRANGELOVE charged that the writers, Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, had plagiarized the book on which STRANGELOVE was based. But this entire situation was resolved when Columbia received distribution rights for FAIL-SAFE and ECA dissolved. ECA producer Max Youngstein went on to produce FAIL-SAFE for Columbia.
The film was remade as a live television movie in 2000, directed by Stephen Frears and starring George Clooney, Richard Dreyfuss, Harvey Keitel, Brian Dennehy, and Don Cheadle. Fail-Safe Reviews: "...[Frears] makes a sterling job of reviving the original film's taut, monochrome claustrophobia. A compelling exercise in human drama..."
-- Danny Leigh, Sight and Sound Fail-Safe | List Price | $14.94 (You save $4.59) | | Studio | Sony Pictures Home Entertainment | | Orig Year | 1964 | | DVD Encoding | Region 1 | | All Time Sales Rank |  4190  | | CD Universe Part number | 1181116 | | Catalog number | 5424 | | Discs | 1 | | Release Date | Oct 31, 2000 | | Rating | Not Rated | | Also Known As | Fail Safe | | Running Time | 113 Minutes | | Additional Info | Widescreen; Special Edition | | Movie Details | B&W; Mono Sound; Digitally Mastered; Letter Boxed; Widescreen; Special Edition |
Fail-Safe Movie Review Average Rating: (4 out of 5 stars)   Suspense to the end
A sixties thriller worthy of the two main protaganists, Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau. A computer failure is about to cause the start of global armageddon. With Fonda trying to avoid it and Matthau advocating to take advantage of the technical "glitch" and do to the Russians what the Japanese did at Pearl. Fonda's last ditch effort to avoid catastrophe will forever cause debate amongst the viewers. A young Larry Hagman does his patriotic part.
Remade 40 years later with George Clooney, this original is by far the better version.
Submitted by spmcdonnell (United Kingdom) 
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No
Good movie, good dvd
The dvd was excellent, a top notch transfer, of a very good print. The extras are well done.
The movie itself is very good, with great performances by Fonda, Larry Hagman,and Matthau. It's tense, and gives you a good view of what the cold war, and our nuclear program were like. The movie scared me when I saw it on TV as a kid, and the tension and drama were still effective now.
Submitted by wmryanloghry (Vancouver, Washington)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No  I am the Matador
This movie only seems sterile on the surface. In some ways it exceeds Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" in surreaelism by proposing what seems like an absurd conclusion to a nuclear poker game.
A Soviet secret weapon interferes with bomber communications. As a result a flight of strategic bombers passes its "fail safe" point and continues into the USSR to deliver death. After they fail to intercept the group SAC personel are ordered by the President to cooperate in the destruction of their own assets.
Technology runs smack into duty, ideology and conflicts between sentiment and honor. I felt very torn by this conflict; I remember how real the Soviet threat was, and yet I realize in retrospect how hopeful that we never "let the balloon go up". I also realize how a greater good can supercede duty and how a deeper sense of duty can supercede blind ideology.
The movie is resolved in a shocking way, a devil's bargain is struck and then consummated. In the end the circle closes, General Black is indeed the Matador.
Submitted by G. Herron (Pennsylvania, USA)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No
| Have you seen this movie? |  |
Fail-Safe DVD Region 1
Keep Case
Letterbox -
1.85
Widescreen -
1.85
Additional Release Material:
Trailers
Featurette: FAIL SAFE REVISITED
Audio Commentary: Sydney Lumet - Director
Interactive Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Text/Photo Galleries:
Production Notes
Biographies:
1. Sydney Lumet - Director
2. Henry Fonda - Star
3. Walter Matthau - Star
4. Larry Hagman - Star
Purchase Fail-Safe Movie To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Aguirre, The Wrath Of God DVD (1973)
Fail-Safe film
 $14.39 
Based on the journals of Brother Gaspar de Carvajal, AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is director Werner Herzog's hallucinatory tale of Spanish colonialists searching for El Dorado, the legendary city of gold, in 16th-century Peru. When the travellers reach an impasse, a scouting party is assembled to search for any traces of the mythical empire. As they attempt to forge their way through the dense jungle, more and more of the party falls ill while their ruthless leader, Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), grows increasingly insane.
Widely considered to be Herzog's finest film, AGUIRRE, ...
| | Invasion Of The Body Snatchers DVD (1956)
Fail-Safe review
$10.29
Don Siegel's cult masterpiece, interpreted as an allegory of both McCarthyism and Communism, is undoubtedly one of the screen's most disturbing evocations of paranoia. It stars Kevin McCarthy as Dr. Miles Binnell, a physician whose traumatized arrival in the emergency room of a San Francisco hospital leads the staff to believe he's lost his mind. In a series of flashbacks, he unwinds a bizarre account of his last few days. After his return from a trip to rural Santa Mira, his nurse, Sally (Jean Willes), explains that his office has been flooded with patients who have made appointments yet never appeared. Former girlfriend Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) tells him that she's unable to rid herself of the belief that the man claiming to be her uncle is an impostor. A hysterical young boy refuses to return home, claiming that his mother is not his mother. Miles's concern over this pattern of incidents, temporarily allayed by some jargon from the town psychiatrist, is newly aroused when he gets a phone call from friend Jack Belicec (King Donovan), who begs him to come over and take a look at the strange mannequinlike figure that's suddenly appeared on his pool table. This exceptionally ...
| | Hard Eight DVD (1997) Widescreen
Fail-Safe DVD
$9.79
Sydney (Philip Baker Hall), a mysterious professional gambler, befriends John (John C. Reilly), a young man in trouble, and teaches him the ways of making a living in the casinos of Reno. John gets involved with Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow), a pretty waitress who doubles as a prostitute, and Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson), a two-faced criminal. When trouble erupts, suddenly Sydney has to rescue his young friend, but a secret from his past threatens to destroy everything he has tried to build up.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson's highly acclaimed ...
| | Multiplicity DVD (1996) Full Frame; Keep Case
Fail-Safe movie DVD
$9.79
| | Seven Days In May DVD (1964) Widescreen
Fail-Safe video
$15.65 
Burt Lancaster stars as General James Scott in Frankenheimer's film of Rod Serling's adaptation of Fletcher Knebel and Charles Waldo Bailey's bestselling novel set in the early 1960s. Like much of the American public, Gen. Scott, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff is unhappy with a nuclear arms pact with the Soviet Union recently signed by President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March). But the extent of Scott's displeasure is not fully understood until his aide, Col. Martin "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), finds some messages suggesting that the general and the Joint Chiefs have been planning a military takeover of the government at a top-secret air base in Texas. The plan is scheduled to go into effect in seven days, while the president is in sequestration during a military drill. Duly informed, the President sends Senator Raymond Clark (Edmond O'Brien), to investigate the base, and the Senator is held there against his ...
| | One Night At Mccool's DVD (2001) Widescreen
Fail-Safe film
$16.89 
The title refers to the night when three men, Randy (Matt Dillon), his cousin Carl (Paul Reiser) and Detective Dehling (John Goodman), all meet Jewel Valentine (Liv Tyler) at a bar called McCool's. Actually, they don't so much meet her as fall under her spell when they first lay eyes on her. In her clinging red dress she looks like a cross between a beautiful damsel in distress and the Lady In Red looking for John Dillinger. The story begins with Randy, desperate to be rid of Jewel, hiring a sleazy hitman, played by Michael Douglas in an outré toupee. His story of how Jewel led him to ruin, filmed in a stylized flashback bathed in blue, is ...
| | Sharpe's Eagle DVD (1993)
Fail-Safe review
$14.75
| | Dick Tracy Collection DVDs (2003)
Fail-Safe DVD
$17.59
| | Classic Archive - Yevgeny Mravinsky DVD (2005)
Fail-Safe movie DVD
$20.25
The Soviet Union's ...
| | God's Waiting List DVD (2006) Widescreen
Fail-Safe video
$9.29
A brother and sister compete with each other to open similar businesses as GOD'S WAITING LIST begins. But things take a sharp turn for the worse as the sister is crippled in an "accident" that seems to have been engineered by her brother. As the wheelchair-bound sibling seeks help in the Lord, she has some tough challenges to face as the truth about her misfortune points firmly in her brother's direction.
In a harsh urban environment, a brother and sister ...
| | Hired To Kill DVD (2007)
Fail-Safe film
$7.09
Standard Screen; Soundtrack English
| | Mapmaker DVD (2007)
Fail-Safe review
$17.89
Standard Screen; Soundtrack English
| | Hoodz - Murder City, Home Of Birdman & Lil Wayne DVD (2008)
Fail-Safe DVD
$11.69
|
|
|
Email a Friend
