History Film / FailSafe

* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: While music score was composed for the film, it was not used. The silence is far more ominous. The ambient sound effects make it worse.

* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: While a soundtrack was scored for the music, it was not used. The silence is far more ominous. The ambient sound effects make it worse.

* PowerIsSexy: Early in the film Groeteschele drives a beautiful young woman home from a cocktail party. She talks to him about the "beauty" of nuclear war and how people like him make a "marvelous game" out of death, then instructs him to pull over to the side of the road and attempts to coax him into sex.

-->'''Groeteschele:''' I make death into a game for people like you to get excited about. I watched you tonight. You'd love making it possible, wouldn't you? You'd love pressing that button. What a thrill that would be, knowing you have to die, to have the power to take everyone else with you. The mob of them with their plans, their little hopes, born to be murdered. Turning away from it, closing their eyes to it, and you could be the one to make it true. Do it to them. But you're afraid, so you look for the thrill someplace else. And who better than a man who isn't afraid? [''She reaches for him, and he slaps her in the face''] [[ShutUpHannibal I'm not your kind]].

** The President's wife only appears in a newspaper front-page photo. Apparently to increase the shock on the film's original release audience of the First Lady being sacrificed, she is modeled on Jackie Kennedy.
** In the novel, the Russian premier is openly stated to be Nikita Krushchev.

''Fail Safe'' is a 1964 UsefulNotes/ColdWar thriller film [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] a bestselling 1962 novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, directed by Creator/SidneyLumet and featuring an ensemble cast including Creator/HenryFonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Creator/WalterMatthau, Frank Overton, Edward Binns, Fritz Weaver, and Creator/LarryHagman.

* [[spoiler: DownerEnding: One of the worst in movie history. They do manage to avert a full scale nuclear war, but millions are dead and two of the worlds most important cities have been destroyed.]]

* IdiotBall / HonorBeforeReason: If the Americans had coordinated with the Soviets earlier, or if the Soviets had believed the Americans that plane 6 was acting as a diversion and had no bombs, or Grady had been willing to listen to the President (on the logic that one bomber group would have a very small impact if the war was real, but would start it if it as yet was not), the whole thing could have been prevented. This was a big part of the point of the book/film.

** JerkassHasAPoint:
*** [[spoiler:There's very little practical point in excavating for the burial of 5 million casualties, but even with New York nuked into rubble, the rest of the nation has to go on, and they need the financial/economic backbone.]]
*** Groteschele gets it earlier when the strategic planning group is discussing the question of limited war (whether or not a nuclear exchange has to be all-out from the beginning or can be limited to specific targets and goals short of total annihilation). While he doesn't necessarily agree with General Black's focus on slowing down their nuclear readiness, he concedes that it's easier to think about the topic without worrying about the possibility of a accidental launch; if the Russians launched an ICBM by accident, should a limited counterstrike be the option, or should they launch an all-out attack in retaliation? [[{{Foreshadowing}} They'll get their answer to that scenario sooner than they think...]]

* ApocalypseHow: By the end of the story, [[spoiler:the Americans trade a likely Class 4 (WorldWarIII with all of its continent-wiping atomic horror) for a very bittersweet Class 1 (the complete atomic annihilation of New York City to appease for doing the same to Moscow)]].

--->Gen. Bogan: '''EVERYBODY SHUT UP!!!!''' [[SeriousBusiness This isn't some damn football game, remember that!]]

* NotSoDifferent: In the book, as the crisis approaches its denouement, Buck remarks to himself that the only man his President can truly bare his soul to is his Russian counterpart.

** The President, for [[spoiler:greenlighting the destruction of New York and its millions of inhabitants in order to avoid an even bigger catastrophe]].

* CrazyEnoughToWork: Grady's plan to [[spoiler:evade the nuclear missile wall set to detonate ahead of them on their run-in to Moscow.]] [[spoiler:He surmises that the collection of [=SAMs=] sent their way may still have their infrared/heat seekers active, so he orders his defensive systems operator to fire their two remaining nuclear air-to-air missiles and send them on a straight-up trajectory, hoping to fool the Soviet missiles into detonating too high to cause any damage.]] It works. [[spoiler:The crew still end up with a fatal dose of radiation, and their path to Moscow is wide open.]]

** During the first discussion between the President and the Premier, the Russians initially refuse any assistance from the Americans to shoot the bombers down, and they only relent when it becomes clear that just 6 bombers are giving half the Soviet air defenses an incredibly hard time.

* MultitaskedConversation: Buck, the Russian translator, is saddled with this, especially as he has to not only relay the Premier's words, but also provide clues to the President of the Premier's emotional state—Buck's not actually speaking on the phone circuit, but is monitoring the conversation. But when the President reveals [[spoiler:his proposal to nuke New York City to level the scales in case Moscow is destroyed]], Buck's statement of "Holy Mother of God" could be either taken as his own reaction, that of the Premier, or both.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Both the President and Soviet Premiere.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:In order to prevent all-out nuclear war, the President orders American bombers to dump a nuclear payload on UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity -- effectively signing the death warrant of five million people, including the visiting First Lady and General Black's wife and daughter -- as a gesture of appeasement to the Russians.]]

* DrivenToSuicide: General Black, after [[spoiler:he is forced to drop nuclear weapons on New York City and kill five million New Yorkers, including the President's wife and his own wife and daughter]].

** Groetschele is clearly modeled on UsefulNotes/HenryKissinger, who at the time the book was written was a political scientist best-known for his writings on limited nuclear war.

* ApocalypseHow: By the end of the story, the Americans trade a likely Class 4 (WorldWarIII with all of its continent-wiping atomic horror) for a very bittersweet Class 1 (the complete atomic annihilation of New York City to appease for doing the same to Moscow).

** Groetschele is clearly modeled on Henry Kissinger, who at the time the book was written was a political scientist best-known for his writings on limited nuclear war.

A {{remake}}, directed by Creator/StephenFrears and featuring an AllStarCast including Creator/RichardDreyfuss, Creator/NoahWyle, Creator/BrianDennehy, Creator/SamElliott, Creator/JamesCromwell, Creator/HankAzaria, Creator/NormanLloyd, Creator/DonCheadle, Creator/GeorgeClooney, and Creator/HarveyKeitel, was {{broadcast live}} on Creator/{{CBS}} in 2000.

[[quoteright:298:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fail_safe_moviep_2073.jpg]]

''Fail Safe'' is a 1964 UsefulNotes/ColdWar thriller movie based on a bestselling 1962 novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, directed by Creator/SidneyLumet and featuring a cast including Creator/HenryFonda and Creator/WalterMatthau. It was also adapted for a live broadcast drama on Creator/{{CBS}} in 2000, which starred Creator/GeorgeClooney, Creator/HarveyKeitel and Creator/DonCheadle.

In TheSixties, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) sees a bogie on its radar screen and scrambles its bombers to "fail-safe points" to investigate whether it is a Russian incursion. The bogie turns out to be harmless, and most of the bomber groups are ordered to return home. However, SAC's computer mistakenly transmits a "go code" to one of the bomber groups, commanded by Colonel Jack Grady, ordering them to enter Russian airspace and drop their nukes on Moscow. The remainder of the book deals with the lengths the Americans are willing to go to keep the situation from escalating and keep Grady from reaching his target.

For a similarly themed (but darkly satirical instead of serious) movie from 1964, see ''Film/DrStrangelove''.

* InfantImmortality: [[spoiler: BRUTALLY averted. Obviously there are millions of children in both Moscow and New York City. But on a more specific level we know that General Black's children were in New York. And just to drive the point home even more the countdown and Time Stands Still images to end the movie show many young children including literally the final frame of the movie before the credits.]]

* DuelingWorks: ''Film/DrStrangelove'' was made from the same source material, but plays it as a black comedy.

* DuelingWorks: ''Film/DoctorStrangelove'' was made from the same source material, but plays it as a black comedy.

* NotSoDifferent: The pacifistic General Black's rebuke to Professor Groeteschele's recommendation for a first strike.

For a similarly-themed (but far more satirically comedic) movie from 1964, see ''Film/DrStrangelove''.

* FamousLastWords:
** "''[[spoiler:Katie]]...a dream...a dream...the matador...the matador... the matador...me...me.''" Spoken by [[spoiler:General Black.]]
** Courtesy of the American ambassador in Moscow: [[spoiler:"Mr. President, I can hear the sounds of sirens in the distance, and I can see the trail of defensive missiles going off. The sky is awfully bright, just like a Fourth of July—"[[HellIsThatNoise (screeching caused by phone melting in nuclear fireball)]]]]