MovieChat Forums > Fail-Safe (1964) Discussion > The scene where Col. Grady's wife pleads...

The scene where Col. Grady's wife pleads with him to stop the attack

posted 8 years ago by RustyShackleworth
5 replies | jump to latest

At this point there must have been some considerable doubt in Col. Grady's mind if he was doing the right thing or not. He already heard from someone who sounded like the President ordering him to turn around. Now he's hearing his wife's voice pleading to him to stop.

One thing they should have done is have the wife mention things, personal details that only she and Col. Grady would have known between each other to convince him to stop.

[–] ncdwbmk6 8 years ago

He couldn't trust anything his wife said. As far as he knew, she could be under the control of Russian agents, with a gun pointed at her and her children.

And he had probably been trained to expect the enemy to use deceptive tactics such as impersonating the President in order to prevent him from carrying out his mission.

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Fowler's knots? Did you say ... fowler's knots?

[–] RustyShackleworth 8 years ago

I understand what you are saying but still...isn't that a little far-fetched?

I do understand this is how Grady was trained and this was the mindset at the time. I'm not dismissing that.

But the Russians would have no way of knowing in advance who would be piloting which specific plane on what course on any particular day. And this was a totally random event.

Could the Russians within an hour or so, really find out who the wife of the pilot headed towards Moscow was? And then be able to find her and hold her captive all within a limited amount of time?

Grady would have to consider how could the Russians know things like where Col. Grady met his wife? What they ate the last time they had dinner together. Nicknames they had for each other. What side of the bed he sleeps on? His shoe size?

At the very least, Grady's wife should have tried convincing him with some personal details.

[–] ncdwbmk6 8 years ago

Col.Grady was a military officer. He was obligated to follow the orders he had been previously given. That's how the military works.

As I noted above, he couldn't trust anything his wife said, so personal details would be irrelevant.

The Russians could have previously identified the senior bomber pilots and the locations of their families. They could have had agents positioned nearby, and taken the families hostage at short notice. Grady did not have the option to discount that possibility, even if it's farfetched.

Look at it from Grady's perspective. Since he had been given the "go code" to bomb Moscow, he had to assume that there was a real war. If he failed to carry out his mission, that could result in American cites being destroyed and hundreds of millions of Americans being killed.

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Fowler's knots? Did you say ... fowler's knots?

[–] telegonus (741) 8 years ago

I think that the scene was set up in advance, as Grady, as played by the likable Everyman actor Ed Binns, was am amiable guy, a good guy, and yet once he was piloting the plane he had to drop "all that" and do his job. The scene of his wife pleading,--he may well have known or sensed the truth--showed just what war and the military can, in extreme cases, do to a good man, a family man. It was awful. Grady was damned if he did, damned if he didn't (follow through on his mission). This part of the movie was necessary if rather predictable.

[–] johnmiller (4008) 6 years ago

Agreed. That would have been obvious for her to do, or for someone to tell her to do. Especially when 10 million people are about to die needlessly.