History Film / FailSafe

* HellIsThatNoise: The horrible shriek of a telephone being abruptly cut off [[spoiler:by a massive nuclear explosion. The man on the other end was the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and the city being destroyed was Moscow]]. The sound is so loud and piercing that it reverberates around the President's bunker.

** The strongest example is during the beginning of the Soviets' defense against the bombers. When one of the bombers takes out a Soviet fighter squardron with its nuclear-armed air-to-air missiles, the entire American control room explodes in cheers. Bogan shouts everybody back to quiet, as the Americans winning against the Soviets is the BAD ending in this crisis...

** Marshal Nevsky, General Bogan's counterpart in the Soviet air defense command, has this problem as well. [[spoiler:As the Soviets get more effective against the bomber group, the bombers switch to a ground-hugging flight plan, causing them to fall off American and Soviet RADAR. Colonel Grady sends up the #6 plane in the group (which carries no bombs but more defensive jammers and decoys) to draw attention away from the two remaining bombers. Bogan tells Nevsky this, but Nevsky decides to press the attack on the plane anyways, despite Bogan's empathic warnings. Once the plane is destroyed, Nevsky collapses, the implication being that he realized his actions will ensure the success of the other bombers against Moscow.]]

* TheSixties: The height of the Cold War. Many of the characters are old enough to be veterans of more recent wars (WorldWarII and Korea) and the horror that they've seen has moulded them greatly.

* ForWantOfANail: A computer error sends a "go code" to an American bomber group, leading them to assume that war has started and that a nuclear attack on Moscow has been authorized.
* GoneHorriblyRight: The president and SAC open a line of communication to Grady's fleet ordering them to stand down. But because they have been told that the Soviets might send transmissions imitating their commanders during training, the fleet follows protocol and ignores the counter-orders.

** The book adds in some background to this: Groeteschele's family were German Jews (IIRC), and his father had seen what was coming with the Nazis and emigrated out of there quickly. Said father often argued that point with his fellow Jews in America, claiming that if the Germans had racked up enough deaths trying to exterminate the Jews, they might have rethunk their policies. So it's a little of this trope and WellIntentionedExtremist.

** 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.]]

* MoralDilemma: As the crisis escalates, the Americans are put in a position where they must either divulge the weaknesses of the nukes Colonel Grady is carrying to the Russians or risk the breakout of nuclear war.

* NoMatterHowMuchIBeg: A dramatic, GoneHorriblyRight version. The bomber wings' standing orders are to not deviate from the plan of attack without the proper counter-order code (which SAC doesn't know), regardless of who's giving the order (they have been trained with the possibility that whoever calls them over the radio may be a Russian agent imitating a higher-up). This goes as far as Grady ignoring ''his own wife'' when she calls begging him to stop and saying things only she would know (Grady simply says she may have been compromised somehow, although he does show some amount of HeroicBSOD afterwards).

* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Groeteschele believes that Moscow will surrender in the face of an all-out attack, as according to Communist doctrine the [[YouCantFightFate failure of capitalism is inevitable]]. It doesn't occur to him that the Soviets would be motivated by PatrioticFervor as well as ideology.

** JerkassHasAPoint: They have less than ten minutes left, so it's impossible to evacuate anyone at all, but by recovering the most important financial records (by fax, for example) they might tone down the severity of the inevitable economic recession.

* ScientistVsSoldier: The "soldiers" want to prevent WorldWarII from happening because they know perfectly well (many of them from personal experience) that it's an apocalyptic no-win scenario. Professor Groeteschele, the sole "scientist", calls for a full-on commitment to nuclear warfare because his research tells him that it's statistically likely that America ''might'' "win".

* TheSixties

* TheBigBoard: ''Fail-Safe'' was one of the first movies (along with DrStrangelove) to have this now-ubiquitous feature.

** The standing orders given to the Wing (to refuse any type of order if lacking an authentication code, no matter who gave it) was supposed to be a fail-safe against potential sabotage via false intelligence. Lacking said authentication code, SAC can only sit back and see as their radioed pleas to the Wing remain unheard.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: 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.
** The President's wife only appears on a newspaper front-page. Apparently to compound the impact on the film's original audiences of the First Lady's life being sacrificed, she greatly resembles ''Jackie Kennedy''.

** The book adds in some background to this: Groeteschele's family were German Jews (IIRC), and his father saw what was coming with the Nazis and emigrated out of there quickly. Said father often argued that point with his fellow Jews in America, claiming that if enough German deaths racked up trying to exterminate the Jews, they might rethink their policy. So it's a little of this trope and WellIntentionedExtremist.
* HeroicBSOD: Grady goes through this as he hears his son's voice through the radio telling him there is no war, no longer sure what the truth is.

** JerkassHasAPoint: They have less than ten minutes left, so it's impossible to evacuate anyone at all, but by recovering the most important financial records (by fax, for example) they might tone down the severity of the inevitable economic recession

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

-->'''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''] I'm not your kind.

* WarHawk: Professor Groeteschele is an academic example (not just because he's an academic), insisting on [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste not letting the current crisis go to waste]] and follow up the accidental first strike with a ''real one'', hoping to catch the Russians unaware.

'''''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.

* JerkAss: Professor Groeteschele. He tries to egg on the president to follow up Grady's attack with a genuine one, and after [[spoiler:the president orders the nuking of New York as a conciliatory gesture]], suggests recovering corporate financial records instead of victims.

** Jerkass Has a Point: They have less than ten minutes left, so it's impossible to evacuate anyone at all, but by recovering the most important financial records (by fax, for example) they might tone down the severity of the inevitable economic recession