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Dr. Strangelove

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For other uses, see Strangelove (disambiguation).
Dr. Strangelove,
or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Original film poster designed by Tomi Ungerer
Directed byStanley Kubrick
Written byScreenplay:
Stanley Kubrick
Peter George
Terry Southern
Novel:
Peter George
Uncredited:
Peter Sellers
James B. Harris
Produced byStanley Kubrick
StarringPeter Sellers
George C. Scott
Sterling Hayden
Keenan Wynn
Slim Pickens
Peter Bull
James Earl Jones
Tracy Reed
CinematographyGilbert Taylor
Music byLaurie Johnson
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release dates
January 29, 1964
Running time
94 min.
CountriesUnited Kingdom
United States
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUS$1,800,000

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (aka Dr. Strangelove) (1964) is a black comedy film directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott. Loosely based by screenwriter Terry Southern on Peter George's Cold War thriller novel Red Alert (aka Two Hours to Doom), Dr. Strangelove satirizes the Cold War and the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.

The story concerns a mentally unstable US Air Force general who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, and follows the President of the United States, his advisors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer as they try to recall the bombers to prevent a nuclear apocalypse, as well as the crew of one B-52 as they attempt to deliver their payload.

In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Additionally, it was listed as #3 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs.


Plot

Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) is a delusional commander of a United States Air Force base who initiates a plan to attack the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons, hoping to thwart a Communist conspiracy to "sap and impurify" the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people with fluoridated water, which he believes has caused his impotence.

Ripper orders the nuclear armed B-52s of the 843rd Bomb Wing past their failsafe points – where they normally hold awaiting possible orders to proceed – and into Soviet airspace. He also tells the personnel of Burpelson Air Force Base that the US and the USSR have entered into a "shooting war." Although a nuclear attack should require Presidential authority to be initiated, Ripper uses "Plan R", an emergency war plan to enable a senior officer to launch a retaliation strike against the Soviets if the normal chain of command, including the President, has been killed during a sneak attack. Plan R was intended to discourage the Soviets from launching a decapitation strike against the President in Washington, D.C. to disrupt U.S. command and control and stop an American nuclear counterattack.

Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers), a Royal Air Force exchange officer serving as General Ripper's executive officer, realizes that there is no attack on the U.S. when he turns on a radio and hears pop music instead of Civil Defense alerts. Mandrake attempts to recall the wing, but Ripper refuses to disclose the three-letter code necessary for recalling the bombers.

In the War Room at the Pentagon, Air Force General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), briefs President Merkin Muffley (also played by Sellers). Turgidson tries to take advantage of the situation to convince Muffley to launch a full-scale attack on the Soviets. Turgidson believes that the United States is in a superior strategic position, and a first strike against the Soviet Union would destroy 90% of their missiles before they could retaliate, resulting in a victory for the U.S. with "acceptable" American casualties of "no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops ... depending on the breaks."[1] He is shocked when Muffley instead admits the Soviet Ambassador to the War Room, contacts the Soviet Premier on the hotline, and insists on giving the Soviets all the information necessary to shoot down the American planes before they can carry out their strikes.

The horrified Soviet Ambassador reveals that his country has constructed a doomsday device which will automatically destroy all life on Earth if a nuclear attack hits the Soviet Union. The Doomsday Device is operated by a network of computers and has been conceived as the ultimate deterrent. As a safeguard, it cannot be deactivated. Ironically, the Russians turned it on a few days before they were going to announce it publicly to the world.[2]

The President now calls upon Dr. Strangelove (a.k.a. Merkwürdigliebe), a former Nazi and strategy expert (Sellers in his third role). The wheelchair-bound Strangelove is a type of "mad scientist", whose eccentricities include a severe case of alien hand syndrome — his right hand, clad in an intimidating black leather glove, occasionally attempts to strangle Strangelove and shoots out the Nazi salute.[3] Strangelove explains the principles behind the Doomsday Device, which he says is "simple to understand... credible and convincing."

US Army troops sent by the President arrive at Burpelson to arrest General Ripper. Because Ripper has warned his men that the enemy might attack disguised as American soldiers, the base's security forces open fire on them.[4] The Army forces win the battle and gain access to the base, and Ripper commits suicide. Colonel "Bat" Guano (Keenan Wynn) shoots his way into Ripper's office, and suspects that Mandrake, whose uniform he doesn't recognize, is leading a mutiny of "deviated preverts" [sic] and wants to arrest him. Mandrake convinces Guano that he has to call the President to tell him the recall code, which he has deduced from Ripper's desk blotter doodles to be based on the initials for PEACE ON EARTH and PURITY OF ESSENCE.

The code is issued to the planes, and those that have not been shot down return to base – except that the Soviets announce that one B-52 has not been downed as they had previously reported.[5] Damaged by a Soviet anti-aircraft missile, the plane is now flying below Soviet radar. Unable to receive the recall code, due to damage to the plane's radio equipment, and leaking fuel at an increased rate, the crew proceeds on its own initiative to a "target of opportunity," as they had insufficient fuel to reach either their primary or secondary targets. Soviet forces (at the urging of the US President) are clustered around the two known targets.

File:Slim-pickens riding-the-bomb.jpg
Major "King" Kong riding a nuclear bomb to oblivion.

As they start their bomb run, the damaged B-52's doors jam, and in forcing them open, the aircraft commander, Major "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) rides a nuclear bomb to the ground like a cowboy in the rodeo, whooping and hollering as he plummets to the ground with the bomb between his legs like a huge phallus.[6]

The bomb explodes, triggering the Doomsday Machine; according to the Soviet ambassador life on Earth's surface will be extinct in ten months. Dr. Strangelove recommends to the President that a group of about 200,000 people be relocated into a deep mine shaft, where the nuclear fallout cannot reach them, so that the U.S. can be repopulated afterwards. Because of space limitations, Strangelove suggests a gender ratio of "ten females to each male", with the women selected for their sexual characteristics, and the men selected on the basis of their physical strength, intellectual capabilities, and importance in business and the government. General Turgidson rants that the Soviets will likely create an even better bunker than the U.S., and argues that America "must not allow a mine shaft gap."

In the concluding scenes, a visibly excited Strangelove bolts out of his wheelchair shouting 'Mein Führer, I can walk!', mere seconds before the film ends with a barrage of nuclear explosions, accompanied by Vera Lynn's famous World War II song 'We'll Meet Again'.[7]

Cast

Peter Sellers' multiple roles

File:3SellersRoles.jpg
Peter Sellers plays three roles: Dr. Strangelove, President Merkin Muffley and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake.

Columbia Pictures agreed to provide financing for the film only on the condition that Peter Sellers would play at least four major roles. This condition stemmed from the studio's impression that much of the success of Lolita (1962), Kubrick's previous film, was based on Sellers' playing multiple roles. Kubrick accepted the demand considering that "such crass and grotesque stipulations are the sine qua non of the motion-picture business".[9][10]

Ultimately, Peter Sellers played three of the four roles initially written for him. At the start of production, it was expected that he would also play the role of Air Force Major T. J. "King" Kong, the B-52 Stratofortress aircraft commander, but from the beginning, Sellers was reluctant to do so. He felt that his workload was too heavy, and he was concerned that he would not be able to reproduce the Texan accent required for the character of Kong. Kubrick pleaded with him, and asked screenwriter Terry Southern (who had been raised in Texas) to record a tape with Kong's lines spoken in the correct accent. Using Southern's tape, Sellers managed to get the accent right, and started shooting the scenes in the airplane. However, Sellers sprained an ankle and could not play the role, as technical constraints would have confined him to the cramped space of the cockpit set.[9][10][11]

Sellers is said to have improvised much of his dialogue during filming, with Kubrick incorporating the ad-libs into the written screenplay as shooting progressed, so that the improvised lines became part of the canonical screenplay.[12]

Group Captain Lionel Mandrake

According to film critic Alexander Walker, the author of biographies of both Sellers and Kubrick, the role of Lionel Mandrake was the easiest of the three for Sellers to play, as he was aided by his experience of mimicking his superiors while engaged in national service in the RAF during World War II.[12]. There is also a heavy element of Sellers' friend and occasional co-star Terry Thomas.

President Merkin Muffley

For his performance as President Merkin Muffley, Sellers flattened his natural English accent to sound like an American Midwesterner. Sellers drew inspiration for the role from Adlai Stevenson,[12] a former Governor of Illinois, who had been the unsuccessful Democratic nominee in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections.

In early takes, Sellers faked cold symptoms in order to exaggerate the character's apparent weakness. This caused frequent laughter among the film crew, ruining take after take. This comic portrayal was ultimately deemed to be inappropriate by Kubrick, who felt that Muffley should be shown as a serious character.[12] In subsequent takes, Sellers played the role straight, though the president's cold is still evident in a couple of scenes.

Dr. Strangelove

The title character, Dr. Strangelove, serves as President Muffley's scientific advisor in the War Room, presumably making use of prior expertise as a Nazi physicist: upon becoming an American citizen, he translated his German surname "Merkwürdigliebe" to the English equivalent. Twice in the film, he accidentally addresses the President as "Mein Führer."

The character is an amalgamation of RAND Corporation strategist Herman Kahn, Nazi SS officer-turned-NASA rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, and Edward Teller, the "father of the hydrogen bomb". After the fact, the character was also compared to the later US Secretary of State and controversial Nobel Peace Prize laureate Henry Kissinger, however, it is unlikely that he served as a basis for Dr. Strangelove as, at the time the film was made, Kissinger was only a Harvard professor who wrote some books on nuclear war strategy, being relatively unknown to the public.[13] Sellers' accent was influenced by that of Austrian-American photographer Weegee, who was hired by Kubrick as a special effects consultant.[12]

Strangelove's appearance echoes the movie villains of the Fritz Lang era in 1920s Germany, in which sinister characters were often portrayed as having some disability. Sellers improvised Dr. Strangelove's lapse into the Nazi salute, borrowing one of Kubrick's black gloves for the uncontrollable hand that makes the gesture. Kubrick perpetually wore the gloves on the film set in order to avoid being burned when handling hot lights, and Sellers found the gloves to be especially menacing.[12]

Slim Pickens as Air Force Major T. J. "King" Kong

Slim Pickens, an established character actor and veteran of many Western films, was quickly chosen to replace Sellers as Major Kong after Sellers injured himself. Terry Southern's biographer Lee Hill reports that the part had originally been written with John Wayne in mind, and Wayne was in fact offered the role after Sellers was injured, but he immediately turned it down.[14] Dan Blocker of the Bonanza western TV series was approached to play the part, but according to Terry Southern, Blocker's agent rejected the script as being "too pinko".[15] Kubrick then recruited Pickens, whom he knew from his stint working on Marlon Brando's One Eyed Jacks.[14]

Fellow actor James Earl Jones recalls, "He was Major Kong on and off the set—he didn't change a thing—his temperament, his language, his behavior." According to some sources,[citation needed] the British film crew, unaware that that was the way he really behaved, thought Pickens was a method actor, and his mannerisms were his way of "finding" his performance for the character. Pickens was not told that the movie was a comedy and was only given the scenes he was in and not the entire script, in order to get him to play it "straight".

Kubrick biographer John Baxter further explains in the documentary Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove:

As it turns out, Slim Pickens had never left the United States. He had to hurry and get his first passport. He arrived on the set, and somebody said, "Gosh, he's arrived in costume!," not realizing that that's how he always dressed... with the cowboy hat and the fringed jacket and the cowboy boots—and that he wasn't putting on the character—that's the way he talked.

Pickens, who had previously played only minor supporting and character roles, stated that his appearance as Maj. Kong greatly improved his career. He would later comment, "After Dr. Strangelove the roles, the dressing rooms and the checks all started getting bigger."

George C. Scott as Gen. Buck Turgidson

Director Kubrick tricked Scott into playing the role of Gen. Turgidson far more ridiculously than Scott was comfortable with doing. Kubrick talked Scott into doing "over the top" practice takes, which Kubrick told Scott would never be used, as a way to warm up for the "real" takes. Subsequently, Kubrick used these takes in the final film, causing Scott to swear never to work with Kubrick again.[16]

During the filming, Stanley Kubrick and George C. Scott had differences of opinions regarding certain scenes. However, Kubrick got Scott to conform based largely upon his ability to beat Scott at chess (which they played frequently on the set).[17]

The character is said to be loosely based on Air Force General Curtis LeMay.[18]

Production

Novel and screenplay

File:Kubrickstrangelove.jpg
Kubrick on the set of Dr. Strangelove.

Kubrick started with nothing but a vague idea to make a thriller about a nuclear accident, building on the widespread Cold War fear for survival.[13] While doing in-depth research for the planned film, Kubrick gradually became aware of the subtle and unstable "Balance of terror" existing between nuclear powers and its intrinsicaly paradoxical character. At Kubrick's request, Alistair Buchan (the head of the Institute for Strategic Studies), recommended the thriller novel Red Alert (1958) by Peter George.[19] Kubrick was impressed with the book, which had also been praised by game theorist and future Nobel Prize in Economics winner Thomas Schelling in an article written for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and reprinted in The Observer,[20] and immediately bought the film rights.[21]

Kubrick, in collaboration with George, started work on writing a screenplay based on the book. While writing the screenplay, they benefited from some brief consultations with Schelling and, later, Herman Kahn.[22] In following the tone of the book, Stanley Kubrick originally intended to film the story as a serious drama. However, as he later explained during interviews, the comedy inherent in the idea of mutual assured destruction became apparent as he was writing the first draft of the film's script. Kubrick stated:

My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the early weeks of working on the screenplay. I found that in trying to put meat on the bones and to imagine the scenes fully, one had to keep leaving out of it things which were either absurd or paradoxical, in order to keep it from being funny; and these things seemed to be close to the heart of the scenes in question.[23]

After deciding to turn the film into a black comedy, Kubrick brought in Terry Southern as a co-writer. The choice was influenced by reading Southern's comic novel The Magic Christian (1959), which Kubrick had received as a gift from Peter Sellers.[9] Sellers is also sometimes considered an uncredited co-writer, as he changed many lines by way of improvisation.

Sets and filming

Dr. Strangelove was filmed at Shepperton Studios, in London, as Peter Sellers was in the middle of a divorce at the time, unable to leave England.[24] The sets occupied three main sound stages: the Pentagon War Room, the B-52 Stratofortress bomber and the last one containing both the motel room and General Ripper's office and outside corridor.[9] The studio's buildings were also used as the air force base exterior. The film's set design was done by Ken Adam, the production designer of several James Bond films (at the time he had already worked on Dr. No). The black and white cinematography was by Gilbert Taylor, and the film was edited by Anthony Harvey and Stanley Kubrick (uncredited). The original musical score for the film was composed by Laurie Johnson and the special effects were by Wally Veevers.

For the War Room, Ken Adam first designed a two level set which Kubrick initially liked, only to decide later that it was not what he wanted. Adam next began work on the design that was used in the film, an expressionist set that was compared with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Fritz Lang's Metropolis. It was an enormous concrete room (130 feet long and 100 feet wide, with a 35-foot high ceiling[21]) suggesting a bomb shelter, with a triangular shape (based on Kubrick's idea that this particular shape would prove the most resistant against an explosion). One side of the room was covered with gigantic strategic maps reflecting in a shiny black floor inspired by the dance scenes in old Fred Astaire films. In the middle of the room there was a large circular table lit from above by a circle of lamps, suggesting a poker table. Kubrick insisted that the table be covered with green baize (although this could not be seen in the black and white film) to reinforce the actors' impression that they are playing 'a game of poker for the fate of the world.'[25] Kubrick asked Adam to build the set ceiling in concrete to force the director of photography to use only the on-set lights from the circle of lamps. Moreover, each lamp in the circle of lights was carefully placed and tested until Kubrick was happy with the result.[26]

Lacking cooperation from The Pentagon in the making of the film, the set designers reconstructed the cockpit to the best of their ability by comparing the cockpit of a B-29 Superfortress and a single photograph of the cockpit of a B-52, and relating this to the geometry of the B-52's fuselage. The B-52 was state of the art in the 1960s, and its cockpit was off limits to the film crew. When some United States Air Force personnel were invited to view the reconstructed B-52 cockpit, they said that "it was absolutely correct, even to the little black box which was the CRM."[12] It was so accurate that Kubrick was concerned whether Ken Adam's production design team had done all of their research legally, fearing a possible investigation by the FBI.[12]

In several shots of the B-52 flying over the polar ice en route to Russia, the shadow of the actual camera plane, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, is visible on the snow below. The B-52 was a model composited into the arctic footage which was sped up to create a sense of jet speed.[27] Home movie footage included in Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove on the 2001 Special Edition DVD release of the film show clips of the Fortress with a cursive "Dr. Strangelove" painted over the rear entry hatch on the right side of the fuselage.

Fail-Safe and Seven Days in May

Red Alert author Peter George collaborated on the screenplay with Kubrick and satirist Terry Southern. Red Alert was far more solemn in tone than its film version and the character of Dr. Strangelove never even existed on its pages. The main plot and technical elements, however, were quite similar. A novelization of the actual film, rather than a re-print of the original novel, was also published by George. This was based on an early draft, where the film was intended to be bookended by aliens arriving at a wrecked earth and trying to determine what had happened. George committed suicide in 1966.

During the filming of Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick learned that Fail-Safe, a film with a similar theme, was being produced. Although Fail-Safe was to be an ultra-realistic thriller, Kubrick feared that its overall plot resemblances would damage Strangelove's box office potential, especially if it were to be released first. Indeed, the novel Fail-Safe (on which the film of the same name is based) is so similar to Red Alert that Peter George sued on charges of plagiarism and settled out of court.[28] What worried Kubrick the most about Fail-Safe was that it boasted an acclaimed director, Sidney Lumet, and first-rate dramatic actors, Henry Fonda as the American President and Walter Matthau as the bold ex-Nazi advisor to the Pentagon, Professor Groeteschele. Kubrick decided that it would be in his film's best interests for a legal wrench to be thrown into the gears of the Fail-Safe production. Director Sidney Lumet recalls in the documentary, Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove:

We started casting. Fonda was already set... which of course meant a big commitment in terms of money. I was set, Walter [Bernstein, the screenwriter] was set... And suddenly, this lawsuit arrived, filed by Stanley Kubrick and Columbia Pictures.

Kubrick tried to halt production on Fail-Safe by arguing that its own 1960 source novel of the same name had been plagiarized from Peter George's Red Alert, to which Kubrick himself owned the creative rights. Also, he pointed out the unmistakable similarities in intentions between the characters Groeteschele and Strangelove. The plan ended up working exactly as Kubrick intended; Fail-Safe opened a full eight months behind Dr. Strangelove to critical acclaim, but mediocre box office results.

Also released in 1964 was Paramount Pictures' Seven Days in May. The plot involves a coup attempt by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prevent the President of the United States from signing a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviets, who, they believe, cannot be trusted.

Original ending: the pie fight scene

The cream pie fight removed from the final cut.

The end of the film shows Dr. Strangelove exclaiming "Mein Führer, I can walk!" before cutting to footage of nuclear explosions,[29] but it was originally intended that the film would end with everyone in the War Room involved in a pie fight, and this scene was filmed.

Accounts vary as to why the pie fight was cut. In a 1969 interview, Kubrick said: "I decided it was farce and not consistent with the satiric tone of the rest of the film."[24] Alexander Walker observed that "the cream pies were flying around so thickly that people lost definition, and you couldn't really say whom you were looking at."[12] Nile Southern, son of screenwriter Terry Southern, suggests that the fight was intended to be less jovial. "Since they were laughing, it was unusable, because instead of having that totally black, which would have been amazing, like, this blizzard, which in a sense is metaphorical for all of the missiles that are coming, as well, you just have these guys having a good old time. So, as Kubrick later said, 'it was a disaster of Homeric proportions.'"[12]

The Kennedy assassination

A first test screening of the film was scheduled for November 22, 1963, the day of the John F. Kennedy assassination. The film was just weeks from its scheduled premiere, but as a result of the assassination, the release was delayed until late January 1964, as it was felt that the public was in no mood for such a film any sooner.

Additionally, one line by Slim Pickens ("a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff") was dubbed to become "in Vegas". The original reference to Dallas survives in some dubbed foreign versions of the film, such as the French release.

The pie-fight scene included General Turgidson exclaiming, "Gentlemen! Our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime!" after Muffley takes a pie in the face, and editor Anthony Harvey states that "[the scene] would have stayed, except that Columbia Pictures were horrified, and thought it would offend the president's family."[30]

Themes

Sexuality

From the opening scene of the B-52 "mating" in flight with the KC-135 Tanker (set to an instrumental version of "Try a Little Tenderness") to General Ripper's sexual frustration being at the root of the eventual apocalypse, sexual references are apparent throughout the film.

The character of Dr. Strangelove is laced with innuendo, even aside from his suggestive name. He is the character responsible for creating fantasies of a polygamous post-apocalyptic society with a ratio of "ten females to each male", suggesting Nazi efforts like the Lebensborn project. This raises the possibility that the subtitle of the film refers to Dr. Strangelove as the "I" who learned to "love the bomb" – because the mutual destruction of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would make way for the return of the Nazis.

General Jack D. Ripper is named after Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer who murdered prostitutes in London in the late 1880s. General Ripper's primary concern about Communism is his assertion that water fluoridation is "a Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids," of which he was made aware when his "loss of essence" during sexual intercourse greatly fatigued him. He continues to explain that women "seek the life essence" and then states, "I do not avoid women...but I do deny them my essence". Here, "essence" is used as a synonym or euphemism for "semen". Ripper's sexual problems are further mirrored in the difficulties of the B-52's crew in finally dropping the bomb; after all the effort of evading Russian attacks and bringing the plane to its target, and as bombardier goes through the complex ritual "foreplay" of preparing and arming the bomb for use, all is rendered impotent by the simplest of problems - the bomb doors fail to open.

Many characters' names involve sexual wordplay. Group Captain Lionel Mandrake's last name refers to the Mandrake plant, which has mythical fertility properties. The Soviet Ambassador Alexei de Sadesky is named for the Marquis de Sade, and Premier Dmitri Kisov's last name is pronounced "Kissoff"; literally a pun on "kiss off". Major "King" Kong rides a phallic-looking H-bomb, which explodes as he approaches the "target of opportunity", Laputa (in Spanish: la puta means "the whore"). President Merkin Muffley's first and last name each crudely imply that he is a pussy by nature, since a "merkin" is a female pubic wig used mainly by prostitutes in the 18th century, and 'muff' (pubic hair) refers to the area where the wig is applied. The name of General Buck Turgidson is derived from turgid, a biological term meaning full of fluid to the point of hardness, as in an erection, applied to "buck" as an explicit symbol of virility.

Colonel "Bat" Guano's name literally means "bat-feces", whereas scatalogical and sexual humour are often combined. The term 'bat-shit' is also a slang word for insanity. Although sent to arrest General Ripper, Colonel Guano turns out to be another Anticommunist who feels the Communist threat as sexual, namely "preversion" [sic].

There is only one woman in the entire film; General Turgidson's secretary. She appears not in an office, but in a small bedroom with twin beds and a sun lamp, wearing a bikini swimsuit. The General, when he appears from the bathroom, also wears bathing trunks. Although she tells a caller that she and the General are completing paperwork, the clear implication is that they have a sexual relationship. In fact, in a later phone call, Turgidson tells her that he does not love her only for her sexual favors, and that he intends to make her his wife.

Satirizing the Cold War

Dr. Strangelove takes passing shots at numerous Cold War attitudes, such as the "missile gap", but it primarily focuses its satire on the theory of mutual assured destruction (MAD), in which each side is supposed to be deterred by the fact that a nuclear war would be a cataclysmic disaster for both sides, regardless of who "won". Herman Kahn in his 1960 On Thermonuclear War used the concept of a doomsday machine in order to mock mutually assured destruction; in effect, Kahn argued, both sides already had a sort of doomsday machine. Kahn, a leading critic of American strategy during the 1950s, urged Americans to plan for a limited nuclear war, and later became one of the architects of the MAD doctrine in the 1960s. The prevailing thinking that a nuclear war was inherently unwinnable and suicide was illogical to the physicist turned strategist. Kahn came off as cold and calculating; for instance, in his works, he estimated how many human lives the United States could lose and still rebuild economically. This attitude is reflected in Turgidson's remark to the president about the outcome of a pre-emptive nuclear war: "Now I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I am saying no more than 10 to 20 million killed. Tops!" Turgidson also has a binder which is labeled "World Targets in Megadeaths".

Many have compared the portrayals of Ripper and Turgidson to the fiery Air Force general, Curtis LeMay, and many of his direct subordinates who openly lobbied for war with the Soviet Union.

Reception

Dr. Strangelove was listed as #26 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies (#39 on the 10th Anniversary Edition) and #3 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs. Sellers' line "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" made #64 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes.

The film has also been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the 24th greatest comedy film of all time. It is one of the films to have received a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it is ranked 15th top movie of all time on TopTenReviews Movies. In addition to this, the movie is ranking #5 in the All-Time High Scores chart of Metacritic's Video/DVD section with an average score of 96.[31]

Roger Ebert has Dr. Strangelove in his list of Great Movies,[32] saying it is 'arguably the best political satire of the century.'

Awards

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and also seven BAFTA Awards, of which it won four.

Academy Awards nominations:

BAFTA Awards nominations:

  • Best British Actor: Peter Sellers
  • Best British Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick, Peter George, Terry Southern
  • Best Foreign Actor: Sterling Hayden

BAFTA Awards won:

  • Best British Art Direction (Black and White): Ken Adams
  • Best British Film
  • Best Film From Any Source
  • UN award.

In addition, the film won the best written American comedy award from the Writers Guild of America and a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Kubrick himself won two awards for best director, from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, and was nominated for one by the Directors Guild of America.

Cultural references

  • 'Strangelove! The Musical', a theatrical musical adaptation of the movie was performed during the 2007 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, directed by Dave Harmon and Mark Sutton.
  • The Coen Brothers paid an apparent homage to Dr. Strangelove in their movie, Raising Arizona. The code letters used by General Ripper, 'P.O.E' ('Peace on Earth') and variation, can be seen written on the door of a gas station door after the John Goodman and William Forsythe characters break out of prison.
  • The science officer character in the Muppet Show skit known as Pigs in Space was called Dr. Julius Strangepork in reference to the character in the film.
  • There are references to Dr. Strangelove in two episodes of The Simpsons:
    • In "Homer the Vigilante", Homer forms a vigilante militia group, and when he sees a nuclear bomb on display at Herman's Military Antiques, he imagines himself as Major Kong, with the bomb named "Hi There, Daddy-O", since it is to be dropped on some beatniks.
    • In "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming", Sideshow Bob steals a nuclear bomb and threatens destruction of the town unless all television broadcasts are shut down. A meeting to discuss the threat is held in an underground War Room similar to the one in the movie, with one character taking on the likeness of Dr. Strangelove.
  • In the video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, there is a campaign level named "No Fighting in the War Room", in reference to the quote from the film.
  • The piece of radio equipment onboard the B-52 which is designed not to receive messages lacking a specific code-prefix is designated as the "CRM-114 Discriminator". Stanley Kubrick has used "CRM-114" or similar terms in several of his movies, although the reference in Dr. Strangelove is the best known one, and other movies and television shows have used it as well, in apparent homage to Kubrick.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ "the breaks, Informal. the way things happen; fate: Sorry to hear about your bad luck, but I guess those are the breaks."
  2. ^ The doomsday weapon is described as based on "cobalt-thorium-G" – this was inspired by the real idea of a cobalt bomb, conceptualized by nuclear pioneer Leo Szilard, founder of Council for a Livable World.
  3. ^ During the scenes in which Dr. Strangelove is fighting with his own right arm, Peter Bull (playing the Russian ambassador) can be seen barely suppressing a laugh. Indeed, Kubrick had difficulty getting a take without someone laughing. Dr. Strangelove: 40th Anniversary Edition, 1964
  4. ^ "Peace is Our Profession", which was the actual motto of the Strategic Air Command, appears on a billboard in this scence.
  5. ^ The B-52 is named "The Leper Colony", a direct tribute to the classic 1949 bomber movie Twelve O'Clock High, in which 'Leper Colony' is crewed by the worst airmen in the 918th Bomb Group.
  6. ^ Chris Sheridan, War and Sex, 1995
  7. ^ Dame Vera Lynn, in an interview on the BBC that celebrated her 90th birthday, said when she first saw the movie, the audience laughed at the use of her singing 'We'll Meet Again' against a backdrop of exploding atomic bombs. The audience then realized it was not funny and became strangely silent.
  8. ^ Tracy Reed also appears as the centerfold in the Playboy magazine that Major Kong is shown reading. For the pose, Reed lay face down with her breasts covered with her arms and a book was placed over her bikini bottom. In spite of this, her mother was furious. In the novel the Playboy model is referred to as 'Miss Foreign Affairs'. Brian Siano, "A Commentary on Dr. Strangelove", 1995 and "Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove", a documentary included with the 40th Anniversary Special Edition DVD of the film.
  9. ^ a b c d Terry Southern, "Notes from The War Room", Grand Street, issue #49
  10. ^ a b Lee Hill, "Interview with a Grand Guy": interview with Terry Southern
  11. ^ In the fictonalized biopic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, it is suggested that Sellers faked the injury as a way to force Kubrick to release Sellers from the contractual obligation to play this fourth role.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove", a documentary included with the 40th Anniversary Special Edition DVD of the film
  13. ^ a b Brian Siano, "A Commentary on Dr. Strangelove", 1995
  14. ^ a b Lee Hill - A Grand Guy: The Life and Art of Terry Southern (Bloomsbury, 2001), pp.118-119
  15. ^ Biography for Dan Blocker at Internet Movie Database
  16. ^ A Bombardier's Reflection
  17. ^ "Kubrick on The Shining" from Michel Ciment, 'Kubrick', Holt, Rinehart, and Winston; 1st American ed edition (1983), ISBN 0-03-061687-5
  18. ^ "Reflecting on Curtis E. Lemay"
  19. ^ Alexander Walker, "Stanley Kubrick Directs", Harcourt Brace Co, 1972, ISBN 0-15-684892-9, cited in Brian Siano, "A Commentary on Dr. Strangelove", 1995
  20. ^ Phone interview with Thomas Schelling by Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, published in her book The Worlds of Herman Kahn; The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War (Harvard University Press, 2005) "Dr. Strangelove"
  21. ^ a b Terry Southern,"Check-up with Dr. Strangelove", article written in 1963 for Esquire but unpublished at the time
  22. ^ Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, "The Worlds of Herman Kahn; The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War", Harvard University Press, 2005.
  23. ^ Macmillan International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, vol. 1, p. 126
  24. ^ a b "An Interview with Stanley Kubrick (1969)", published in Joseph Gelmis, The Film Director as Superstar, 1970, Doubleday and Company: Garden City, New York.
  25. ^ "A Kubrick Masterclass", interview with Sir Ken Adam by Sir Christopher Frayling, 2005; excerpts from the interview were published online at Berlinale talent capus and the Script Factory website
  26. ^ Interview with Ken Adam by Michel Ciment, published in Michel Ciment, "Kubrick", Holt, Rinehart, and Winston; 1st American ed edition (1983), ISBN 0-03-061687-5
  27. ^ The camera ship, a former USAAF B-17G-100-VE, serial 44-85643, registered F-BEEA, had been one of four Flying Fortresses purchased from salvage at Altus, Oklahoma in December 1947 by the French Institut Geographique National and converted for survey and photo-mapping duty. It was the last active B-17 of a total of fourteen once operated by the IGN, but it was destroyed in a take-off accident at RAF Binbrook in 1989 during filming of the movie Memphis Belle. "1944 USAAF Serial Numbers (44-83886 to 44-92098)" (html). USAAS-USAAC-USAAF-USAF Aircraft Serial Numbers--1908 to Present. Joseph F. Baugher. Retrieved 2007-05-04.
  28. ^ "Red Alert - Peter Bryant - Microsoft Reader eBook". eBookMall, Inc. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
  29. ^ This footage comes from actual nuclear tests, such as shot BAKER of Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll, the Trinity test, the bombing of Nagasaki, a test from Operation Sandstone, and one of the massive hydrogen bomb tests from Operation Redwing. In some shots old warships (such as the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen), which were used as targets, are plainly visible. In others the smoke trails of rockets used to create a calibration backdrop can be seen.
  30. ^ "No Fighting in the War Room Or: Dr. Strangelove and the Nuclear Threat", a documentary included with the 40th Anniversary Special Edition DVD of the film
  31. ^ Metacritic: DVD/Video: All-Time High Scores
  32. ^ Roger Ebert, "Dr. Strangelove (1964)", 11 July 1999

Bibliography

  • Dolan Edward F. Jr. Hollywood Goes to War. London: Bison Books, 1985. ISBN 0-86124-229-7.
  • Hardwick, Jack and Schnepf, Ed. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies". The Making of the Great Aviation Films, General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
  • Oriss, Bruce. When Hollywood Ruled the Skies: The Aviation Film Classics of World War II. Hawthorne, California: Aero Associates Inc., 1984. ISBN 0-9613088-0-X.
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Preceded by BAFTA Award for Best Film from any Source
1964 		Succeeded by
Preceded by BAFTA Award for Best British Film
1964 		Succeeded by


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