Fail-Safe

Day 146 - 5/26/09 - Movie #146

BEFORE: Since "Armageddon" made reference to it (with Steve Buscemi jumping on the warhead and yelling "Yippie-Ki-Yay!"), I could have watched "Dr. Strangelove" next, but I have seen it before, and I've already bent my own rules on watching previously-viewed films twice so far. Instead I'll watch this dramatized account of how America's nuclear defense system worked (or could fail to work) in 1964. This movie had the bad fortune to be released just a few months after Kubrick's dark comedy, so audiences tended to not take it seriously.

Even though it's a very serious subject, there are a number of "comic" actors who appear in small roles, including Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, Sorrell Booke (the original Boss Hogg) and even our old pal, Dom DeLuise. Plus Henry Fonda plays the President (as he did in "Meteor") - Henry Fonda should always play the President.

THE PLOT: American planes are sent to deliver a nuclear attack on Moscow, but it's a mistake due to an electrical malfunction. Can all-out war be averted?

AFTER: While not entertaining per se, this film is very informative as a snapshot of what the military procedures and prevailing attitudes were during the Cold War. We see the policy of mutually assured destruction, and the perception of the USSR as the "Evil Empire", but the film also humanizes the Soviets, and portrays them as cautious in response to a possible attack. I'm surprised that the fictional Russians give the U.S. every possible benefit of the doubt.

RATING: 4 out of 10 warheads

Stay tuned this week, I've got a front-row seat for the End of the World...