Fail Safe: How Do You Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb?

 Being of an older generation, I still remember the fears of the Cold War when tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union could have lead to world destruction. Many times over the decades following the second world war the two sides were pushed to the brink of doing the unthinkable. Now the threat of an all out nuclear war has subsided, or at least been pushed aside by the threats of global terrorism. 

I often wonder just how close we still get to the unthinkable? It's a terrorizing thought.

It isn't often now a days that a movie really scares the crap out of me. I guess I've become desensitized to a lot of stuff over the years. 

Today I watched a movie that honestly chilled me to the core. 

Fail Safe is a 1964 drama in which a technical glitch leads to an accidental airstrike by US bombers on the Soviet Union. Despite all attempts to recall the aircraft, one plane makes it to it's target. The president, played by Henry Fonda, convinces the Soviet president that the attack is honestly a mistake, but ultimately has to make the gravest of decisions to prevent a counterattack. 

It's a gripping drama that will leave you with goosebumps and a mind full of repressed childhood fears of nuclear destruction.

Now, if your a movie buff like me you are probably wondering where you have heard of that plot before?

Yes, the plot for Fail Safe is essentially the same as Stanley Kubrick's dark comedy Dr. Strangelove. As you may recall in that film a deranged Air Force general, who believes his lack of sex drive is caused by fluoride in drinking water, orders an airstrike on Russia. Just like in Fail Safe, one bomber gets through and drops it's bomb (with actor Slim Pickens on board) on target leading to a nuclear war.

 

Here is where things get interesting. Since the films are so much alike, and were released the same year (1964) Kubrick actually sued the makers of Fail Safe for copyright infringement and won. Ultimately Columbia Pictures, who produced Strangelove, bought the rights to Fail Safe. Strangelove was released first and critics ultimately bashed Fail Safe for being a copycat of Kubrick's film.

Here is where things get even weirder. The movie Fail Safe is based on on the 1962 novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. Likewise, Dr. Strangelove was based on the 1958 novel Red Alert by author Peter George. As you would guess, George sued Burdick and Wheeler for copyright infringement and was awarded an out of court settlement. 

I strongly suggest you see both films!