Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Fail-Safe
1964
***
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Ed Binns, Fritz Weaver, Larry Hagman, William Hansen

Due to computer error, US bombers receive instructions to drop their nuclear bombs on Moscow. Fueled by paranoia, the military has developed a system which makes it impossible to countermand the attack order. A few months earlier Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove turned a similar scenario into a scathing satire. Sidney Lumet's bleak Cold War thriller, however, takes itself very seriously. This is a cinematically dull mix of stagy one-room scenes and poor quality stock footage, but the story is gripping, even if the ending is rather idealistic. Adapted from a novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. Remade for TV in 2000.