- Director
- Writers
- Walter Bernstein(screenplay)
- Eugene Burdick(from the novel by)
- Harvey Wheeler(from the novel by)
- Stars
- Director
- Writers
- Walter Bernstein(screenplay)
- Eugene Burdick(from the novel by)
- Harvey Wheeler(from the novel by)
- Stars
- Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 3 nominations total
Videos1
- Col. Gradyas Col. Grady
- (as Ed Binns)
- Gen. Starkas Gen. Stark
- (as Russell Hardy)
- Director
- Writers
- Walter Bernstein(screenplay)
- Eugene Burdick(from the novel by)
- Harvey Wheeler(from the novel by)
- All cast & crew
- See more cast details at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaColumbia Pictures produced both this movie and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). 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.
- GoofsThe interior shots of the bombers, Convair B-58 Hustlers (see Trivia), actually were shot inside of a commercial airline simulator then under repair at a a New York airport. The three crew members sit within feet of each other, in an open cockpit layout. In an actual B-58, the world's first fly-by-wire and supersonic bomber (and capable of twice the speed of sound), the three-man crew of pilot, bombardier/navigator, and defense systems specialist were seated in-line and had no physical contact with one another. To make survivable ejection possible on such a high-speed aircraft, each compartment was specifically designed as wholly contained clam-shell "pod" that would be ejected intact if the need arose. As a result, the crew had to rely on an internal telecommunications system to talk, or a string-and-pulley system that ran along the cabin wall to exchange notes if those systems failed. It's speculated that this pod design was incorporated as a presidential safeguard on modern 747 versions of Air Force One, as implied in the film Air Force One (1997).
- Quotes
Defense Secretary Swenson: General Stark, are there any papers or documents in New York which are absolutely essential to the running of the United States? General Stark?
Gen. Stark: No sir. There are important documents, but none of them absolutely essential.
Admiral Wilcox: Will there be any warning given? A lot of lives could be saved if people had a few minutes.
Defense Secretary Swenson: On this short notice, an alert to a big city would do more harm than good. It only produces panic.
Admiral Wilcox: What about this?
[Wilcox tosses a newspaper onto the table, showing the First Lady in NYC, prominently featured on the main page. Swenson sees it, then gives the paper to General Stark]
Gen. Stark: Maybe... maybe he doesn't know his wife is there.
Defense Secretary Swenson: [shaking his head] He knows.
[Groeteschele finishes writing something onto some paper]
Prof. Groeteschele: Gentlemen, we are wasting time.
Prof. Groeteschele: [walking to the podium] I've been making a few rough calculations based on the effect of two twenty megaton bombs dropped on New York City in the middle of a normal workday. I estimate the immediate dead at about three million. I include in that figure those buried beneath the collapsed buildings. It would make no difference, Admiral Wilcox, whether they reached a shelter or not. They would die just the same. Add another million or two who will die within about five weeks. Now our immediate problem will be the joint one of fire control and excavation. Excavation not of the dead, the effort would be wasted there. But even though there are no irreplaceable government documents in the city, many of our largest corporations keep their records there. It will be necessary to... rescue as many of those records as we can. Our economy depends on this.
Prof. Groeteschele: [walking disgustedly back to his seat before noisily opening and closing his briefcase] Our economy depends on this.
[after closing briefcase]
Prof. Groeteschele: And the Lord said, gentlemen, "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone."
- Crazy credits[FINAL CREDIT]: The producers of this film wish to stress that it is the stated position of the Department of Defense and the United States Air Force that a rigidly enforced system of safeguards and controls insure that occurrences such as those depicted in this story cannot happen
- ConnectionsFeatured in Henry Fonda: The Man and His Movies (1982)
I couldn't sleep without the light on after I saw this fantastically fabricated film. When a machine malfunctions and signals a U.S bomber to drop atomic missiles over Moscow, the Soviet Premier and the U.S President struggle to save the world from nuclear holocaust. The last three minutes are among the most powerful I've seen in a movie.
- iisaiah
- Jan 31, 2002
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $3,924,000
- Runtime1 hour 52 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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