We are pleased to announce the next Movie Matinee at Beit Knesset Hanassi. On Tuesday, December 9, we will present the highly acclaimed film FAIL SAFE. The film came out in 1964 during high tensions in the Cold War. It “capitalized” on the paranoia and fear of that time.
In 1959, the Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro staged a coup d’état. Castro aligned with the Soviet Union in the conflict between the United States and the Soviets. In 1961, President John Kennedy approved and promised support for an amphibious assault on Cuba by a group of lightly armed exiles. On April 17, 1961, around 1,200 exiles, armed with American weapons and using American landing craft, waded ashore at the Bay of Pigs. The planners hoped that the exile force would obtain a beachhead. That would serve as a rallying point for the Cuban citizenry. The people would rise up and overthrow Castro’s government. The assault was a disaster with most of the attackers taken prisoner. It only served to raise the temperature of the Cold War significantly.
A few months later, the East Germans, with the encouragement and support of the Soviets, put up the Berlin Wall. They sealed off West Berlin with barbed wire fences overnight.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the next year. The crisis was the confrontation between Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev over the Soviet placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba, less than 100 miles from the United States. The situation escalated into a direct and dangerous showdown between the two superpowers. It is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.
It is thus no great surprise that three films dealing with the heightened tensions in the Cold War were released in 1964. In addition to Fail Safe, there was Seven Days in May and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The former presented a plot by the highest leaders of the American military to take over the presidency. They believed the sitting president was weak and soft on protecting the United States from the Soviet nuclear build-up.
The latter is probably the best dark comedy ever made. Its gallows humor, highlighted by the brilliant Peter Sellers in three roles, made people howl with laughter at the nuclear threat.
In Fail Safe, there is no humor. There is a technical malfunction at an American military base. The glitch sends American bombers to Moscow to deliver a nuclear attack on the city. It is estimated six million Russians will be obliterated.
The crux of the movie is how that American president and the military respond to the imminent destruction of the Soviet capital. Perhaps the most “presidential” of all American actors, the inimitable Henry Fonda plays the president. His conversations with his generals while the American pilots fly into and over the Soviet Union are extremely interesting. Most fascinating are his calls with the Soviet leader.
Are the United States and the Soviet Union on the “same side” in trying to stop the attack? Or, as some of the American military leaders advise, should the president allow the bombing and end the Cold War with a quick, deadly, one-sided “hot war”? Fonda’s decision-making process keeps the movie’s viewers on the edge of their seats.
And we are left asking ourselves, what would a real president do if such a tragic situation actually occurred Chas v’Shalom.
This is an excellent film with superb performances by each of the actors. Sadly and frighteningly, it is again timely. A recent opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post by Professor Louis René Beres is entitled “Trump's risky nuclear policy: ‘Tepid legality’ is preferable to ‘maximum lethality’”
From the piece:
Under the tutelage of Donald Trump, the United States faces growing risks of a nuclear war. These risks could be manifested incrementally or all at once. They concern both intentional and unintentional conflicts. World peace requires enforceable world law. However, in announcing a Department of Defense name-change to Department of War on September 5, 2025, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth promised “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.” The message was clear: Better an invigoratingly hot war than a disappointingly lukewarm peace.
Professor Beres is an emeritus professor of international law at Purdue University and the author of many books and scholarly articles on international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism.
Perhaps President Trump and his Secretary of Defense War should watch our film.
The movie is in English and has English subtitles.
The Movie Matinee is at 2:00. The film is 1¾ hours in length.
There will be a brief introduction of the film and a short talk and discussion after the screening.
There will be refreshments. No reservations are required.
Beit Knesset Hanassi is located at 24 Ussishkin Street. The admission is 20 shekels for members of the shul and 30 shekels for non-members.
If you can please bring the exact change, we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
For more information, please contact Mark at 0548 01 1957 or [email protected].
