Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe (1964) is a movie that largely gets overlooked despite its quality and critical acclaim. This is because it was released the same year and adapted from the same source material as Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Peter George’s novel Red Alert. 

I’m going to be blunt. Dr. Strangelove is a better movie. But that is hardly surprising. I think that Dr. Strangelove is one of the greatest movies of all time. Fail-Safe serves as an interesting comparison piece, however. No, scratch that, Fail-Safe stands on its own as a great movie. Most will only see it though to compare it to Kubrick’s film. The differences between the two works are interesting – most obviously, Fail-Safe is not a comedy. However, there is a far subtler distinction that renders Fail-Safe more interesting in some ways. In Kubrick’s film, the situation arose from human incompetence – a general goes insane and brings us past the point of no return. In Fail-Safe, however, the problem arises completely from a mechanical error. A technician in the film points out that mechanical problems, however improbable, are still possible. The problem, and most interesting point, comes from the fact that the bombers are instructed to continue their mission after a certain point, no matter what. This includes vocal instructions to abort. During the film, the President of the United States (brilliantly played by Henry Fonda) contacts the pilots and gives them a direct order to abort their mission and leave Soviet airspace. However, being good soldiers, they refuse to not follow through on their orders. In the film, our society has reached a point where humanity is totally eliminated from the picture, technology has total reign. This power we have given to technology ultimately leads to the nuking of Moscow which then leads to the nuking of New York City.

Despite the reputation of its director, Fail-Safe is largely ignored today. While definitely not better than Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe is able to stand on its own, while simultaneously being a great companion piece to Kubrick’s film.