A vote for Fonda as president in Cold War drama

We’re living through an anxious time. So it seems right, and strangely reassuring, to go back to other anxious periods and see how people got through it, and how they expressed their anxieties through movies.

“Fail Safe” ( 1964) is about a combination of events leading to a nuclear disaster — one generated not by hostility between governments, but rather by outofcontrol technology. Henry Fonda is the president ( he’s terrific and kind of makes you wish he really were president), and Sidney Lumet directs the film with attention both to mood and to every nuance of performance.

It makes for a stressful film experience, but there’s a silver lining here that should not be ignored: This thing that people feared in 1964, that they expected to happen during the Cold War, never did happen.

— Mick LaSalle

“Fail Safe”:

Rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video.

Chronicle file photo