Sept. 10, 2002 - 10:05 pm
this was a recommendation from my mom. i think she said she caught most of it on tv one time. and no i didn't watch this because i thought the U.S. was going to get attacked or anything today. it ended up being a quite good film, but it's really a problem that was addressed by Stanley Kubrick in a much better way.
the whole time i'm thinking..."wait a minute, haven't i seen this film before??? oh yeah, that's right. it has the same exact plot as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)."
yeah, actually Stanley Kubrick was working on Dr. Strangelove at the same time that this film was being created. he learned of the project and threatened to sue for plagiarism. in order to settle the situation, Columbia decided to go ahead and throw all of its promotional effort into Dr. Strangelove instead of Fail-Safe. Fail-Safe promptly flopped at the box office.
this film is a straight-forward dramatic look at the same exact situation that Kubrick took on with his black comedy style. the situation is that America has planes flying outside of Russia waiting in case of any form of nuclear attack from Russia. and for some reason one of the planes gets the "go" signal to go ahead and attack its target. if that happens, Russia will retaliate and basically destroy the world. in this instance the attack plane can't be turned around because Russia is jamming all communication from the U.S. to the plane by radio.
the acting and direction for this film were well done and very straight-forward. the film is also shot in black and white which adds to the starkness of the situation. also the absence of music of any kind from the film heightens the effect. it's a great story and a very high quality film, but i have to say that Dr. Strangelove wins out. it's too bad that you couldn't have both films and appreciate them separately. but as it stands in history, Dr. Strangelove came out at the same time, handles the same information, and it does it better.