FAIL SAFE - BLU-CRITERION COLLECTION

Details

• Release Year: 1964
• Genre: Drama, Suspense/Thriller
• Plot: This unnerving procedural thriller painstakingly details an all-too-plausible nightmare scenario in which a mechanical failure jams the United States military’s chain of command and sends the country hurtling toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Working from a contemporary best seller, screenwriter Walter Bernstein and director Sidney Lumet wrench harrowing suspense from the doomsday fears of the Cold War era, making the most of a modest budget and limited sets to create an atmosphere of clammy claustrophobia and astronomically high stakes. Starring Henry Fonda as a coolheaded U.S. president and Walter Matthau as a trigger-happy political theorist, Fail Safe is a long-underappreciated alarm bell of a film, sounding an urgent warning about the deadly logic of mutually assured destruction.
• Cast: Frieda Altman, Robert Gerringer, Geri Miller, Charles Tyner, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Edward Binns, Fritz Weaver, Henry Fonda, Larry Hagman, William Hansen, Russell Hardie, Russell Collins, Sorrell Booke, Nancy Berg, John Connell, Frank Simpson, Hildy Parks, Janet Ward, Dom DeLuise, Dana Elcar, Stewart Germain, Louise Larabee, Sidney Lumet, Walter Bernstein, Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler, Peter George
• Director: Sidney Lumet
• Runtime: 1:52
• Company: Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Sony Pictures Releasing International, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Inc., The Criterion Collection
• Media Format: Movie