Documentary featuring interviews with director Sidney Lumet, "Fail-Safe" (2000) producer George Clooney, star Dan O’Herlihy and screenwriter Walter Bernstein.
10-31-2000
16 min
THIS
HELLA
Doesn't have an image right now... sorry!has no image... sorry!
Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Jeffrey Schwarz
Production:
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, Automat Pictures
Key Crew
Producer:
Jeffrey Schwarz
Cinematography:
Michael De Avila
Editor:
Philip Harrison
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet (June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his name. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men (1957), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976) and The Verdict (1982). He did not win an individual Academy Award, although he did receive an Academy Honorary Award and 14 of his films were nominated for various Oscars, such as Network, which was nominated for 10, winning 4.
The Encyclopedia of Hollywood states that Lumet was one of the most prolific directors of the modern era, making more than one movie per year on average since his directorial debut in 1957. He was noted by Turner Classic Movies for his "strong direction of actors", "vigorous storytelling" and the "social realism" in his best work. Film critic Roger Ebert described him as having been "one of the finest craftsmen and warmest humanitarians among all film directors." Lumet was also known as an "actor's director," having worked with the best of them during his career, probably more than "any other director."
Lumet began his career as an Off-Broadway director, then became a highly efficient TV director. His first movie was typical of his best work: a well-acted, tightly written, deeply considered "problem picture," 12 Angry Men (1957). From that point on Lumet divided his energies among other idealistic problem pictures along with literate adaptations of plays and novels, big stylish pictures, New York-based black comedies, and realistic crime dramas, including Serpico and Prince of the City. As a result of directing 12 Angry Men, he was also responsible for leading the first wave of directors who made a successful transition from TV to movies. In 2005, Lumet received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement for his "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers, and the art of the motion picture." Two years later, he concluded his career with the acclaimed drama Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Sidney Lumet, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards, one for his acting and the other as a producer. In 2018, he was the recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, and in 2022, he was felicitated at the Kennedy Center Honors for a "lifetime of contributions to American culture."
In February 1941, Bernstein was drafted into the U.S. Army. Eventually attaining the rank of Sergeant, he spent most of World War II as a correspondent on the staff of the Army newspaper Yank, filing dispatches from Iran, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, Sicily and Yugoslavia. He wrote of his experiences in Palestine in an article entitled "War and Palestine".
Bernstein wrote a number of articles and stories based on his experiences in the Army, many of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. These were collected in Keep Your Head Down, his first book, published in 1945.
Bernstein first came to Hollywood in 1947, under a ten-week contract with writer-producer-director Robert Rossen at Columbia Pictures. Following that stint, he worked for a while for producer Harold Hecht, which resulted in his first screen credit, shared with Ben Maddow, for their adaptation of the Gerald Butler novel Kiss the Blood Off My Hands for the 1948 Universal film. He subsequently returned to New York, where he continued writing for The New Yorker and other magazines, and eventually found work as a scriptwriter in the early days of live television. In 1950, because of his numerous left-wing political affiliations and related activities, his name appeared in the notorious publication Red Channels, and as a result he found himself blacklisted. Throughout the 1950s, however, he managed to continue writing for television, both under pseudonyms and through the use of "fronts" (non-blacklisted individuals who would permit their names to appear on his work). In this manner, he contributed to several notable TV programs of the era, including Danger, the CBS News docudrama series You Are There and the mystery series Colonel March of Scotland Yard. (It has been incorrectly stated in some sources that Bernstein's blacklisting resulted from "unfriendly" testimony given to HUAC in 1951, but in fact he was not subpoenaed by the Committee until the late 1950s, and never actually testified.)
His screenwriting career began to rebound from the blacklist when director Sidney Lumet hired him to write the screenplay for the 1959 Sophia Loren movie That Kind of Woman. From then on Bernstein was able to work openly on films such as Paris Blues (1961) and Fail-Safe (1964). He also contributed, without receiving credit, to the screenplays of The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Train (1964), and was one of several writers who worked on the script for the ill-fated Something's Got to Give, which was left uncompleted at the time of the death of its star, Marilyn Monroe, in 1962.
Daniel Peter O'Herlihy (May 1, 1919 – February 17, 2005) was an Irish film actor, known for such roles as Brigadier General Warren A. "Blackie" Black in Fail Safe, Marshal Ney in Waterloo, Conal Cochran in Halloween III: Season of the Witch, "The Old Man" in RoboCop, and Andrew Packard in Twin Peaks. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1954 film Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to by the initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. Formerly the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson also served as a United States Representative and as the Majority Leader in the United States Senate.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Edward Binns (September 12, 1916 – December 4, 1990) was an American stage, film, and television actor. He had a wide-spanning career in film and television, often portraying competent, hard working, and purposeful characters in his various roles. Binns was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the first members of the newly formed Actors Studio, Binns began studying with Elia Kazanin the fall of 1947. After appearing in a number of Broadway plays, Binns began appearing in films in the early 1950s. Some of his notable roles include playing Juror #6 in 12 Angry Men and Lieutenant GeneralWalter Bedell Smith in the Academy Award-winning film Patton (1970). Binns featured in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest as a police detective. He played a key role as bomber pilot Colonel Grady in the 1964 film Fail-Safe. Binns also appeared in dozens of television programs including NBC's legal drama Justice, Rod Cameron's syndicated State Trooper, the syndicated adventure series Whirlybirds, the ABC/Warner Brotherswestern series, The Dakotas, the ABC rodeo drama, Stoney Burke, and ABC's war drama 12 O'Clock High. He was cast in CBS's Richard Diamond, Private Detective (as Larrabee in the 1958 episode "Pension Plan"), The Investigators and Thriller (U.S. TV series). Binns appeared as Colonel Robert Baldwin with June Allyson as his screen wife, Eleanor Baldwin, in the 1961 episode "Without Fear" of Allyson's CBS anthology series, The DuPont Show with June Allyson. Also that year he made two guest appearances on Perry Mason, first as Lloyd Castle in "The Case of the Angry Dead Man," then as Charles Griffin in "The Case of the Malicious Mariner," and in an episode of The Asphalt Jungle. He had a leading role in Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone in the 1960 episode "I Shot an Arrow into the Air". Binns also appeared in two episodes of ABC's The Untouchables as gunman Steve Ballard and in a later episode as a doctor. He was a cast member of CBS's The Nurses from 1962 through 1964. He appeared in an episode of the ABC espionage drama Blue Light early in 1966, and in ABC's It Takes a Thief (1969–1970) with Robert Wagner. Binns also appeared in one episode of the ABC series A Man Called Shenandoah, with Robert Horton, as General Korshak on CBS's M*A*S*H, in an episode of NBC's The Brian Keith Show, and in three episodes of ABC's The Fugitive. His distinctive voice was also heard in hundreds of radio and television commercials. Binns died from a heart attack at the age of seventy-four while traveling from New York City to his home inConnecticut. His ashes were scattered at his residence.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Peter Cecil Bull, DSC (21 March 1912 – 20 May 1984) was a British character actor.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Peter Bull, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor who had a career that spanned five decades in Hollywood. Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in several films now considered to be classics, earning one Academy Award for Best Actor on two nominations.
Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made his Hollywood film debut in 1935. His film career began to gain momentum with roles such as Bette Davis's fiancee in her Academy Award-winning performance in Jezebel (1938), brother Frank in Jesse James (1939), and the future President in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), directed by John Ford. His early career peaked with his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, about an Oklahoma family who moved to California during the Dust Bowl 1930s. This film is widely considered to be among the greatest American films.
In 1941 he starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classic The Lady Eve. Book-ending his service in WWII were his starring roles in two highly regarded westerns: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and My Darling Clementine (1946), the latter directed by John Ford, and he also starred in Ford's western Fort Apache (1948). After a seven-year break from films, during which Fonda focused on stage productions, he returned with the WWII war-boat ensemble Mister Roberts (1955). In 1957 he starred as Juror No.8, the hold-out juror, in 12 Angry Men. Fonda, who was also co-producer, won the BAFTA for Best Foreign Actor.
Later in his career, Fonda moved into darker roles, such as the villain in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), underrated and a box office disappointment at its time of release, but now regarded as one of the best westerns of all time. He also played in lighter-hearted fare such as Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball, but also often played important military figures, such as a Colonel in Battle of the Bulge (1965), and Admiral Nimitz in Midway (1976). He finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for his final film role in On Golden Pond (1981), which also starred Katharine Hepburn and his daughter Jane Fonda, but was too ill to attend the ceremony. He died from heart disease a few months later.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Henry Fonda, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Larry Martin Hagman (September 21, 1931 – November 23, 2012, Height 6 feet 1 inch [1.85 m]) was an American film and television actor, director, and producer. He was best known for playing ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1978–1991 primetime television soap opera Dallas, and the befuddled astronaut Major Anthony Nelson in the 1965–1970 sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.
Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of actress Mary Martin. After his parents divorced, he lived with his grandmother in Texas while his mother pursued acting roles. At age 16, Hagman followed his mother into acting and got his start in small theater productions and commercials. He began his acting career in the early 1950s, appearing in Broadway plays and television shows. He had a supporting role in the 1964 film Fail-Safe.
In 1965, Hagman was cast as Major Anthony Nelson in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. The show was a huge success, and Hagman won two Golden Globe Awards for his performance. He left the show in 1970 to pursue other projects.
In 1978, Hagman was cast as J. R. Ewing in the soap opera Dallas. The show was an even bigger success than I Dream of Jeannie, and Hagman won four Emmy Awards for his performance. He remained with the show until it ended in 1991.
In 1995, Hagman underwent a liver transplant. He returned to Dallas in 2012 for a revival of the show. He died of complications from leukemia later that year.
Walter Matthau (born Walter John Matthow; October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000) was an American actor, comedian and film director.
He is best known for his film roles in A Face in the Crowd (1957), King Creole (1958) and as a coach of a hapless little league team in the baseball comedy The Bad News Bears (1976). He also starred in 10 films alongside Jack Lemmon, including The Odd Couple (1968), The Front Page (1974) and Grumpy Old Men (1993). Matthau won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Billy Wilder film The Fortune Cookie (1966). Matthau is also known for his performances in Stanley Donen's romance Charade (1963), Gene Kelly's musical Hello, Dolly! (1969), Elaine May's screwball comedy A New Leaf (1971) and Herbert Ross' ensemble comedy California Suite (1978). He also starred in Plaza Suite, Kotch (both 1971), Charley Varrick (1973), The Sunshine Boys (1975), and Hopscotch (1980).
On Broadway, Matthau originated the role of Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple by playwright Neil Simon, for which he received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1965, his second after A Shot in the Dark in 1962. Matthau also received two British Academy Film Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In 1963, he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his performance in The DuPont Show of the Week. In 1982, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Walter Matthau, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Fritz William Weaver (January 19, 1926 − November 26, 2016) was an American actor in television, stage, and motion pictures. He portrayed Dr. Josef Weiss in the 1978 epic television drama Holocaust, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. In cinema, he made his debut in the film Fail Safe (1964) and also appeared in Marathon Man (1976), Creepshow (1982), and The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). Among many television roles, he performed in the movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975). He also worked in science fiction and fantasy, especially in television series and movies like The Twilight Zone, 'Way Out, Night Gallery, The X-Files, The Martian Chronicles, and Demon Seed.
