FAIL SAFE

The same year Kubrick brought us to the edge of the apocalypse with DR STRANGELOVE, Sidney Lumet did it again, only this time without the laughs. Indeed I can think of few more sobering films than FAIL-SAFE which has an almost identical scenario to Kubrick's film but plays it for melodramatic suspense. This time it's a mechanical fault that sends six bombers past their fail-safe point en route to Moscow and possibly World War Three.

Made at the height of the Cold War the film is an earnest and sometimes hysterical plea for nuclear disarmament that at the time would certainly given you pause for thought and a few sleepless nights. If Walter Bernstein's script lays on the arguments a tad too thickly you can't fault Lumet's handling of the material, (dispensing with a music score, for example), nor the terrific performances of most of his cast. If Walter Matthau comes across as nothing more than a sounding board and Fritz Weaver's degeneration into madness, a bit too obvious then Dan O'Herlihy, Frank Overton, (it's his best role), a young Larry Hagman and, best of all, Henry Fonda as the President forced into making the hardest decision of his life, more than compensate. Indeed this is one of Fonda's best performances; he's as believable an American President as I've seen on screen, making you wonder, had the actor chosen to go into politics, just how far he might have gone. Gerald Hirschfeld did the brilliantly bleached cinematography.