FAIL SAFE: Cold War Era Thriller, The US Heads to Nuclear War with The Soviet Union

Film Promo, 3 mins. 'Fail Safe,' (1964), directed by Sidney Lumet, featuring Henry Fonda as the US president. One of 3 films about possible nuclear annihilation made after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962- Fail Safe, Dr. Strangelove and Seven Days In May. - This unnerving procedural thriller painstakingly details an all-too-plausible nightmare scenario in which a mechanical failure jams the US 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. https://www.criterion.com/films/28825-fail-safe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail_Safe_(1964_film)