Favourite Actors

FAIL-SAFE is a film that has been a go-to for me since my early teens when it was always playing on the tube. I find the whole cast to be solid, to say the least, but was really taken by Frank Overton, especially when he has to holler at his own people so the Russians will "know we're on the level." Overton was for me utterly dismal in a good STAR TREK episode called THIS SIDE OF PARADISE that I've probably seen as many times as the Lumet movie (as in, lots & lots), but it took me decades to recognize he was the same guy that I was so impressed with in -SAFE.

Awhile back I found the Clooney remake on DVD for something like four bits and with great trepidation, gave it a watch. I was surprised to find Brian Dennehy stunningly ineffectual (might be the first time ever), but Richard Dreyfuss did very well in the Fonda part, so instead of hating the presentation (like I did with the MANCHURIAN remake), I gave it a grudging pass -- though I don't know that I'd ever rewatch it.

My wife and I love Fritz and wish some of his near-cameo appearances had been bigger parts, especially in MARATHON MAN and the THOMAS CROWN remake.

FS' cast is just incredible. Fonda, Matthau and Hagman are, of course, the big guns, but it may have been Dom Deluise--of all people--in not much more than a cameo as Sgt. Collins, that had, for my money, the greatest moment in the film. He was, of course, commanded to betray his country to the Soviets in front of all his peers. It was a form of psychological rape, and Collins portrays the sickening nature of what he has to do just perfectly. These two sentences, in context, may be my favorite lines in all of cinema: "It can be overloaded, by increasing the power output and sliding through radar frequencies as fast as possible. What happens is the firing mechanism reads the higher amperage as proximity to the target, and detonates the warhead." The way Deluise says the word "warhead" in a descending tone and with an almost auditory shudder is electrifying.

Then, of course, there's Ed Binns' wife hysterically trying to convince him that his attack on Moscow is a mistake simultaneous with Russia's attempt to knock them out of the sky with an atomic blast.

Then, there's the bleak, fast-cut ending with the shrill sound and the black screen.

I could probably write a small book on F-S.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

FS' cast is just incredible. Fonda, Matthau and Hagman are, of course, the big guns, but it may have been Dom Deluise--of all people--in not much more than a cameo as Sgt. Collins, that had, for my money, the greatest moment in the film. He was, of course, commanded to betray his country to the Soviets in front of all his peers. It was a form of psychological rape, and Collins portrays the sickening nature of what he has to do just perfectly. These two sentences, in context, may be my favorite lines in all of cinema: "It can be overloaded, by increasing the power output and sliding through radar frequencies as fast as possible. What happens is the firing mechanism reads the higher amperage as proximity to the target, and detonates the warhead." The way Deluise says the word "warhead" in a descending tone and with an almost auditory shudder is electrifying.  

Then, of course, there's Ed Binns' wife hysterically trying to convince him that his attack on Moscow is a mistake simultaneous with Russia's attempt to knock them out of the sky with an atomic blast.

Then, there's the bleak, fast-cut ending with the shrill sound and the black screen.

I could probably write a small book on F-S.

Editor Ralph Rosenblum wrote a memoir detailing many of the films he worked on, and it is a very fascinating book, full of stories I'd never heard anywhere else, and with very useful info, particularly about Lumet's PAWNBROKER. There are three whole chapters on saving THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY'S, and boy, anytime I think about how incredibly good a director Friedkin was on some pics, I go right back to this in my mind, where he basically turned in an awful cut and walked, leaving something like a year-long salvage in his wake. There's also a lot about A THOUSAND CLOWNS and a heartbreaking story about GOODBYE COLUMBUS, and plenty on the early Woody Allen films (yes, the early funny ones, and then some.)

But the only bad part of the book from my perspective is that it just skates right over FS -- I think it only mentions the tech challenge of taking one single shot of a military aircraft -- all that they could get -- and then resorting to immense trickery, reusing it for nearly all the aircraft flybys in the film. Given how history has given it such short shrift compared with STRANGELOVE, that omission seems strange, almost unforgivable.

Sometimes I wonder if the seeds for a pretty good TV miniseries called World War III came from FS. The scene where Overton talks briefly with his new Russian counterpart over the audio link and they bond briefly over memories of wartime London came to my mind when I watched that 80s miniseries, which has a moment near the climax when the Russians take the American pipeline base, and all seems lost. Until the Russian commander -- TLD's Koskov -- meets the American leader face-to-face for the first time. Both have really gotten the 'war-weary' thing in a big dose by this point. He declares that right then, they can end the war before it really starts, and certainly before it turns into a runaway nuclear escalation. It is just this beautiful moment that can get me teary-eyed even now, though I haven't reseen the show in 40 years ... and then of course something ELSE happens, and hilarity does not ensue.

I just checked my movie list and I haven't seen FAIL-SAFE in two years. Guess I'll be pulling out the DVD again very soon (might be a solo view, as the bullfighting stuff up front seriously turns my wife off. Plus ever since she heard that story about Lumet witnessing a gang-rape on a train while in military service and doing nothing about it, she has a tendency to reject watching his movies, no matter how much we loved NETWORK, THE HILL, THE ANDERSON TAPES, SERPICO and DOG DAY, to name just a few others.)

I hate the bullfighting scene as well. Same goes for its analogue in OHMSS. Fortunately, both are relatively brief, and you get them out of the way early in the film.

As for Lumet himself, he may well have been a scumbag. But if I let the character of directors/actors/producers etc. determine what I watch, I wouldn't have seen very much. We all make our own choices based upon the criteria that suit us, however.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

I hate the bullfighting scene as well. Same goes for its analogue in OHMSS. Fortunately, both are relatively brief, and you get them out of the way early in the film.

As for Lumet himself, he may well have been a scumbag. But if I let the character of directors/actors/producers etc. determine what I watch, I wouldn't have seen very much. We all make our own choices based upon the criteria that suit us, however.

What interests me is how character flaws make somebody more compelling in fiction but turn me off to them completely in real life. The first full-length spec script I wrote had a main character with a backstory that hinged on how, 20 years earlier, he had been one of the soldiers at Kent State. He was haunted by not knowing if he was responsible for death or maiming, as his barrel was still cold after the incident, but that didn't necessarily mean he hadn't squeezed off a round or two. I decided it came off as a bit melodramatic and kept cutting it down, to the point that we have him on the verge of talking about it and then slam-cutting to the famous poster of the woman crying over a guy's body from the incident, which is in somebody else's abode. He doesn't ever fire a gun again, till about two-thirds of the way through this movie, at which point he becomes pretty much like any action hero in order to save his ex-wife.

I had this backstory before I had anything else in the script outside of an Abby Hoffman-like antagonist who turns out to be a puppet for a serious baddie. I often wonder if it would have gotten a better reception if I left the full backstory in -- it actually got a fairly high-level turndown from a VP at Joel Silver's company, though I have a feeling that was more because I wrote a kickass cover letter than the script itself!

Gary Oldman -one of the best actors and impersonators out there.
Favourite films and performances: The Nolan Batman films, Leon, True Romance, Bram Stokers Dracula, JFK.