I saw this movie when it was released and read the book. Grabbed it recently off of TCM and watched it again. More than any other film of its kind (Dr. Strangelove, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Seven Days in May come to mind) Fail Safe depicts the true nature of the 40-year Mexican stand-off that was the Cold War: the constant state of maximum alert, the incredible discipline of the military command structure. If you did not live through that era, this film will definitely help you understand what this country (the U.S.) went through. I won't comment on the quality of directing, writing, acting, etc., but I would like to make one observation: the premise that destroying N.Y. would forestall a full nuclear exchange is highly questionable. With Moscow gone and, with it, the top-level of their decision-making apparatus, who would have been left on their side to keep the Soviet end of the bargain? In a real situation, the Soviets, in chaos, would most likely have responded with a counterstrike and we would now all be living in caves. This is the argument that the Walter Mathau character should have brought up but could not because it would have created an anti-climax in the movie: spare N.Y. from U.S. bombs knowing that the chances of it being spared from Soviet bombs were small but possible -- and 'possibilities' are what this film is all about.
Review of Fail Safe
