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Fail-Safe Overview:

Fail-Safe (1964) was a Adventure - Drama Film directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Max E. Youngstein and Charles H. Maguire.

Fail-Safe BlogHub Articles:

Fail-Safe (1964)

By Beatrice on Mar 31, 2018 From Flickers in Time

Fail-Safe Directed by Sidney Lumet Written by Walter Bernstein from a novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler 1964/USA Columbia Pictures Incorporated First viewing/Netflix rental Something must have been in the water in 1964.  The public got not one but two apocalyptic thrillers.  Dr. Strangelo... Read full article

Fail-Safe (1964)

By Raquel Stecher on Nov 30, -0001 From Out of the Past - A Classic Film Blog

The year was 1963 and Columbia Pictures was in a pickle. They had two Cold War movies currently in production that basically told the same story but in very different ways. One was Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a farce based on the otherwise ... Read full article

Fail-Safe (1964)

By Raquel Stecher on Nov 30, -0001 From Out of the Past - A Classic Film Blog

The year was 1963 and Columbia Pictures was in a pickle. They had two Cold War movies currently in production that basically told the same story but in very different ways. One was Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a farce based on the otherwise ... Read full article

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Fail-Safe Quotes:

The President: How did you get to be a translator, Buck? You don't seem the academic type.
Buck: [nervously] I guess I have a talent for languages, sir. I hear a language once I pick it right up. I don't even know how. They found out about it in the Army.
The President: You sound sorry they did.
Buck: No, sir. It's a very interesting job.
[pauses]
Buck: That is, most of the time.
The President: Well, you did a good job today, Buck.
Buck: Thank you, sir. All I did was repeat what he said.
The President: You didn't freeze up. Another man might have.
Buck: You're the one who didn't, sir.
The President: I wonder what it's like outside? Looked like rain before.
Buck: The radio said it would clear by the afternoon.
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Fail-Safe Facts
The film has no music - either score or source music - whatsoever.
Columbia Pictures produced both this movie and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Director Stanley Kubrick insisted his movie be released first, and it was, in January 1964. When Fail-Safe was released, it garnered excellent reviews, but audiences found it unintentionally funny because of "Strangelove", and stayed away. Henry Fonda later said he would never have made this movie if he had seen "Strangelove" first, because he would have laughed too.
The view of the satellite zooming into a closer shot is actually film taken from a camera mounted on a captured German V2 rocket launched from White Sands, New Mexico. The film is run backwards to show the illusion of zooming closer to the ground.
The large, metal phone the President uses to talk to the Soviet premier was actually a special phone used by explosives companies during blasting.
Dana Elcar's first film role.
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