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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

Today in 1964 Fail Safe was released in theaters.
#filmsky #nukesky

Fail Safe poster.
A shattered book and a bomber plane with the text: “FAIL SAFE WILL HAVE YOU SITTING.
ON THE BRINK OF ETERNITY!
FAIL SAFE”

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

John Lithgow again broadcasts “hello, is there anyone out there? Anyone at all?”

Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The doctor finds his house… the rubble left over from it. Some folks have built a tent there. He yells at them to get out of his house. One of the tent people offers him an onion. The doctor kneels on the ground and cries and the man with the onion hugs him…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The doctor wanders around Kansas City and finds where his home was. There is someone with a gas mask stealing rings off of dead people.

Back at the hospital the pregnant woman gives birth finally. The baby cries and so does she…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The whole gym at the college is full of people dying of radiation poisoning the farmer’s daughter is there. She has lost her hair. The college kid says the doctor said he’d be able to take her home in a couple of days. I assume he means in a box…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The doctor has radiation sickness. He decides to take a little vacation and see the sights… in Kansas City. He takes a ride with the army. We see some folks executed by firing squad. The farmer’s son is permanently blind…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

When the farmer returns to the farm some folks have set up camp on his property. He confronts them and they kill him…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The farmer attends a meeting about the coming crops. Telling them to remove the top 5 inches of top soil and dump it. No word on where to put all of the soil. They are to grow for human consumption not animal…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The military is distributing some food but not nearly enough leading to a food riot and the military shooting some folks before being overrun, outside of the hospital…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

A presidential broadcast plays over images of dead people and people dying in the hospital. John Lithgow breaks out the Einstein WWIII quote, “IDK what weapons they will fight WWIII with but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones.” The doctor collapses, wakes up in the hospice area…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

His daughter who had run outside has radiation sickness to the point that she is bleeding vaginally, pale, nauseous and weak. The college kid takes the farmer’s kids to the hospital in a horse drawn carriage through a bunch of bodies…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The farmer’s daughter starts hallucinating that the college kid is her dead fiancé and tries to make out with him while he’s sleeping. The soldier makes it to the hospital, the farmer’s family leaves the basement and goes to church…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

We find out that the town the soldier is from no longer exists so his wife and kid are dead.

There are rumors that people are being executed in the street. Several days in there are still candles at the hospital…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The farmer’s daughter has a breakdown and runs out of the basement, the college kid follows. There is radioactive dust everywhere, all the farm animals are all dead. she curls up inside the house with her wedding gown…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The college professor is broadcasting on a short wave radio he speaks to the doctor. Neither he nor the doctor have managed to raise anyone else. I remember when I was a kid watching this really wanting to get a radio because of this film…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The college student finds his way to the farm and ends up in the basement with the family.

The college student is premed. He DXs the farmer’s son with flash blindness. The soldier is still walking about, lots of apocalypse pr0n…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

After the war ends, we find out the farmer left the family dog outside of the basement. The doctor makes it back to the hospital. The soldier had hidden in a metal truck container he begins walking wrapped in a blanket through the fallout…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

Everyone who was still in the city dies, folks outside the city have varying outcomes, lots of nuclear destruction pr0n.

The nuclear war from beginning to end lasts approximately 20 minutes in the film. Then, fallout…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

Of course I have to mention the iconic: launch scenes, (musical aside from me “when we all join hands just to watch the skies… for a moment”), the mom making the bed freak out, the soldiers guarding the nukes debate what to do after launch, sirens sound in the city to chaos, the EMP…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

Everyone starts preparing, or well, reacting… reactions range from looting to making phone calls. Except for some folks who simply haven’t heard yet…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

After about 40 minutes of character introduction the war becomes nuclear in Germany (this is back when there was an east & west Germany). Followed immediately by the activation of the emergency broadcast system…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

Pretty much everyone listens to or watches the news but most folks seem unconcerned about the potential forthcoming war. Mostly there is interpersonal drama. Then the war starts, suddenly everyone cares about the news…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

First we meet all of our major players in their normal prewar lives. Frankly in this story their prewar lives aren’t terribly important except in as much as it informs where they are when the war starts. Lots of “splendor and beauty” shots of the countryside with swelling music…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

The film follows a handful of people near Kansas city Missouri immediately prior and immediately following a nuclear war. Including a hospital doctor, a college professor, an enlisted man, a pregnant woman, a college student, a farmer and his family…

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Nuclear War Films @nukefilms.bsky.social · 2d

If you’ve never seen it or haven’t seen it in a long time it’s worth watching for the political effects it had, it is an incredibly historically important movie.

And here comes the movie synopsis…

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