FAIL-SAFE
A film review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
Copyright 1997 Jamahl Epsicokhan
Warning: This review contains some spoilers for the 1964 film "Fail-Safe." If you haven't seen the film yet, proceed with caution.
Nutshell: A relevant, intelligent, suspenseful drama. Still powerful today, even after the end of the cold war.
-------------------- "Fail-Safe" (USA, 1964) Drama, 111 minutes
Screenplay by Walter Bernstein Based on the novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler Produced by Max E. Youngstein Directed by Sidney Lumet
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan Rating out of 4: ***1/2 --------------------
The most ironic aspect of nuclear war is that it doesn't have a winning side and a losing side. In a nuclear confrontation, everybody loses, and the aftereffects have devastating effects that impact the entire world--assuming the world survives. The idea--and perhaps the only real option--is to avoid war at all costs. This is the theme of Sidney Lumet's "Fail-Safe," a fictional drama based on the novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler.
"Fail-Safe" takes place during the heart of the cold war (the actual film was released two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis), when the United States and the Soviet Union were in static discord over an issue that can be summarized in a single word: communism. The premise centers around a combination of accidents and operation flaws. Five U.S. bombers carrying nuclear warheads are ordered to set a routine course for Moscow after an unidentified aircraft is spotted heading toward America. The unidentified aircraft turns out to be a commercial airliner, but a mechanical failure strikes the military base that commands the bombers. Suddenly out of contact, and with standing orders to remain on course until receiving new directives, the bomber pilots cannot be recalled, and they proceed to Moscow with the intention of destroying it with a nuclear strike.
A great deal of "Fail-Safe"'s plot follows various characters as they attempt to devise ways of stopping the U.S. bombers from reaching Russia's borders--at any cost. The plot is compelling, and the story creates urgency and dread by painting the grimmest of worst case scenarios. The reality sets in quickly as one attempt to turn the bombers after another fails. General Bogan (Frank Overton), taking orders directly from the President of the United States himself (Henry Fonda), is powerless--the fate of the world lies in the hands of an automated, pre-programmed system that may not be stoppable, simply because the creators of the war machines were too efficient in their task to make a no-win situation winnable.
The events in "Fail-Safe" are fascinating because they're anything but predictable, but the real reason "Fail-Safe" works is because it understands more about nuclear war than what exists within the confines of its plot. A key ingredient to the film is its ability to create an ongoing polemic about nuclear war, communism, the cold war, and the United States' role in all of it. Most of this is through the film's use of the character Groeteschele (Walter Matthau), an arrogant civilian theorist of nuclear weapons use who, incidentally, is on the President's advising staff for analyzing the statistical plausibility of waging a nuclear war.
Many of the film's most pointed messages arise from discussions where Groeteschele is one of the key voices. Early in the film, he hosts a dinner party where he explains the importance of "strategy" in a nuclear assault to "minimize" casualties. "What's the difference between 60 million and 100 million dead?" a guest asks impatiently. "Forty million," Groeteschele responds wryly. The problem with Groeteschele's mindset is that he *believes* nuclear combat to be a viable method of war. The only difference to him between nuclear Armageddon and conventional warfare is the raw data and the casualty totals.
Groeteschele realizes that these weapons can destroy the world several times over. Yet his answer to the arms race is not to slow down and try to cool the situation off, as General Black (Dan O'Herlihy) has often recommended. On the contrary--according to Groeteschele, that would lead to Russia having *more* nuclear weapons than the U.S., which would clearly put America at a disadvantage. Such a stance was perhaps the central paradox and misguided practice of the arms race. "Fail-Safe" clearly sees it as one of the central issues of the cold war, and, likewise, it becomes a central theme in the film. Why continue to build such machines of mass destruction while already possessing enough of them to destroy the world several times over? Is it wise? Is it even logical? No, not really.
Although "Fail-Safe" is more about the issue of nuclear weapons than it is about the political ramifications of communism, there is a scene in the film that deals with communism in an intentionally superficial, one-sided sort of way. Again, this is achieved through Groeteschele, who is easily the film's most important character in terms of the larger-theme significance. In addition to providing the central "pro-nuclear war" voice that the film warns against, he also makes key remarks about Communists that show just how much fear and resentment people of the period were prone to when it came to communism. The context the film uses suggests that this hatred was often glib. One of Groeteschele's "logical" trains of thought ventures so far into fantasy theoretical prediction that it's merely absurd. He labels the average Marxist an "unfeeling, calculating machine" that will do whatever it takes to preserve itself. Groeteschele takes it so far as to say that if the U.S. drops the warhead on Moscow, the Soviets will *instantly* surrender, for to retaliate would invite counter-measures that would further destroy Russia's home soil--which must be preserved at all costs. Groeteschele seems to forget these people are human beings with emotions; General Black quickly reminds him that the Soviets would attack out of revenge--as any normal person would. The irony here is Groeteschele's own mechanical theorizing. He is so quick to judge the enemy that he doesn't even realize his own seemingly programmed thought patterns.
Once the film makes it evident that turning the U.S. bombers will be impossible, the question becomes what the *consequences* of destroying Moscow will be. Just how will the Soviet Union's leader react, and what can the President do to convey his best intentions? (Just *how* does one pass off the deaths of millions of people as an *mishap*?) With the help of his translator Buck (Larry Hagman), the President negotiates at length with the Soviet leader, in scenes that prove amazingly taut and powerful in their simplicity, with Lumet's long takes of Fonda and Hagman in the same frame, exchanging the dialog between the President and the Soviet leader. Without getting into too much detail, I will say that the compromise they ultimately reach is very costly, yet necessary and as sensible as possible under the circumstances. (That is, as sensible as a nuclear "incident" can probably be.) It does accomplish what it must: it avoids an all-out war, something that simply isn't possible because of its all-too-real consequences. Dramatically, the ending is quite powerful, and the use of O'Herlihy's character as the symbolic "matador" (providing a bookend to the film by ending the story while tying into his dream sequence from the film's opening), is particularly appropriate.
"Fail-Safe" is a production of a major Hollywood studio (released by Columbia Pictures), and it has the structure of a high-tension suspense thriller that one might expect from a Hollywood film. Nevertheless, under Lumet's direction and Walter Bernstein's intelligent adaptation of Burdick's and Wheeler's novel, the film continues to have a lasting effect even after the events on screen have unfolded. The film often warns that the automation of war is something that may make nuclear holocaust an unintentional consequence of such mass arming. But it was the conscious, human choice to *initialize* this automatic arming that "Fail-Safe" also finds dangerous. In retrospect, the arms race seems to be one of the most puzzling exercises in futility of the century. It's just fortunate that both sides were finally able to come to their senses and slow down, rather than continuing Groeteschele's dangerous approach of speeding up and causing a possible meltdown.
-------------------- This review Copyright (c) 1997 by Jamahl Epsicokhan, all rights reserved by the author, including the right to reproduce with the intent of unauthorized distribution, electronic or otherwise. This review is an original work of fair criticism and remains the property of the author.
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