FAIL-SAFE
TCM, 1:30 p.m. ET
Henry Fonda makes a wonderful President of the United States, and Larry Hagman an efficient yet very nervous interpreter, in this thrilling 1964 movie about a Cold War face-off gone to the most serious of extremes. Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove mined this same subject for laughs, but Fail-Safe, directed by Sidney Lumet, was dead serious. And was, and still is, seriously dramatic.