Fail Safe (1964) Hurtles towards the Criterion Collection
On January 28, 2020, the Criterion Collection releases Fail Safe on Blu-ray. Sidney Lumet directed the film starring Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, and Fritz Weaver.
‘Fail Safe’ Criterion Summary
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.
Special Features
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary from 2000 featuring director Sidney Lumet
- New interview with film critic J. Hoberman on 1960s nuclear paranoia and Cold War films
- “Fail-Safe” Revisited, a short documentary from 2000 including interviews with Lumet, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, and actor Dan O’Herlihy
- PLUS: An essay by critic Bilge Ebiri
New cover by Adam Maida
Also available on iTunes
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On January 28, 2020, the Criterion Collection releases Fail Safe on Blu-ray. Sidney Lumet directed the film starring Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, and Fritz Weaver.