Fail Safe

Fail Safe (1964)

Directed by Sidney Lumet

Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe is one of the first Hollywood films to seriously propose that nuclear Armageddon could be brought about by system error. A technical malfunction sends American bombers to Moscow with orders to attack, and the President (Henry Fonda) must work desperately to stop catastrophe before it's too late. Based on a novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, the screenplay is excellent, the tension relentless, the performances more than sufficient to create the desired effect.

As far as nuclear war goes, we as a world apparently have not made any progress toward reducing the risk of suddenly and catastrophically wiping out most of Earth's population. If anything, it's now worse. More nations have nuclear weapons, command structures are more fragmented, and the possibility of miscalculation or accident has only multiplied.

It is ironic that the movie hinges on a mechanical failure. Even now, politicians are talking about AI-controlled weapons, and we all know the safety rating of AI is not anywhere near 100%. We're rushing headlong into systems we don't fully understand, trusting machines to make decisions that could end civilization, convinced that technology will save us from the very problems technology creates. Fail Safe warned us sixty years ago that putting apocalyptic power into automated systems is insanity. We apparently weren't listening.

Does this film hold up? Indeed it does. Fail Safe, like some others from Lumet, aged very well. The black-and-white cinematography, the claustrophobic sets, the faces in close-up sweating through impossible choices—all of it still works, still creates dread. Henry Fonda's President, calm and desperate simultaneously, remains one of the most convincing portraits of leadership under unimaginable pressure.

Fail Safe is as urgent today as it was in 1964, maybe more so. We're still playing the same game with higher stakes and worse odds. We are...