I was in elementary school during the Cuban Missile Crisis (and remember the bomb shelter, and duck and cover drills). Fail Safe reminded me how that could have turned out even worse than the ending of this film.
shareAgreed. I also grew up doing duck and cover drills and being told that it wasn't *if* the bombs would fall, it was *when*. To this day, the final scene of the fast cuts right after the countdown still sends literal shivers up my spine.
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I'm just a patsy!
I remember "drop, duck and roll" drills in the early 1960s. Now that I think of it, it was an old school with oil-soaked, varnished wooden floors and desks, and I doubt we'd be very safe in case The Bomb dropped!
shareWhat is even more terrifying is how close we actually did come to a nuclear war (or nuclear exchange depending on how you view matters). President Kennedy felt we had been to odds of 1 out of 3 to about 1 out of 2 chance of actual use of nuclear weapons during the missile crisis. In the 1990s new declassified Soviet documents showed that the odds of a nuclear exchange during that crisis were actually greater than even!
shareMe too. I remember the duck and cover drills as if they were yesterday and this movie left me SPEECHLESS.
shareYes. I remember seeing this for the first time as a teenager in the early 80s - probably on TBS - and having basically exactly Buck's "Holy mother of god" reaction when I heard the President's proposal. Except my reaction rhymed very well with the name Buck.
Terrifying.
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
Being that this film was made very much during the Cold War, and much of the dialogue goes down some rather chilling avenues, I'd be curious to know what the emotional climate was like on set.
"Cristal, Beluga, Wolfgang Puck… It's a f#@k house."
All of these "nuclear" films are like this. It's like watching Stalker. The horror it emits is by putting yourself in that situation.
share'The Day After' (1983) is the one that was terrifying for me to watch. Maybe it was the time. Most films don't have any effect on me.
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