Fail-Safe [Criterion Collection] ( Blu-ray ) 01/28/20

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 novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, 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.

CONDITION: NEW

Actors: Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Edward Binns
Directors: Sidney Lumet
Producers: Sidney Lumet, Tim Bevan, Paul Webster, Max E. Youngstein, Eric Fellner
Format: Blu-ray, Subtitled
Language: English
Region: Region A/1
Number of discs: 1
Rated:
NR
Not Rated
Studio: The Criterion Collection
DVD Release Date: January 28, 2020