Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, commonly known as
Dr. Strangelove, is a 1964
black comedy filmA black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
which satirizes the nuclear scare. It was directed, produced, and co-written by
Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, starring
Peter SellersRichard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
and
George C. ScottGeorge Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
, and featuring
Sterling HaydenSterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr...
,
Keenan WynnKeenan Wynn was an American character actor. His bristling mustache and expressive face were his stock in trade, and though he rarely had a lead role, he got prominent billing in most of his film and TV parts....
, and
Slim PickensLouis Burton Lindley, Jr. , better known by the stage name Slim Pickens, was an American rodeo performer and film and television actor who epitomized the profane, tough, sardonic cowboy, but who is best remembered for his comic roles, notably in Dr...
. The film is loosely based on Peter George's
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
thriller novel
Red Alert, also known as
Two Hours to Doom.
The story concerns an unhinged
United States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
general who orders a
first strikeIn nuclear strategy, a first strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing...
nuclear attackNuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
on the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. It follows the
President of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, his advisors, the
Joint Chiefs of StaffThe Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...
, and a
Royal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
(RAF) officer as they try to recall the bombers to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. It separately follows the crew of one
B-52The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, who have continued to provide maintainence and upgrades to the aircraft in service...
as they try to deliver their payload.
In 1989, the United States
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the
National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
. It was listed as number three on
AFI's 100 Years... 100 LaughsPart of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Laughs is a list of the top 100 funniest movies in American cinema. A wide variety of comedies were nominated for the distinction that included slapstick comedy, screwball comedy, romantic comedy, satire, black comedy, musical comedy, comedy of...
.
Plot
United States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
Brigadier GeneralBrigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
Jack D. Ripper (
Sterling HaydenSterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr...
), commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, initiates a plan to attack the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
with
nuclear weaponA nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s in the paranoid belief that there is a Communist conspiracy involving
water fluoridationWater fluoridation is the controlled addition of fluoride to a public water supply to reduce tooth decay. Fluoridated water has fluoride at a level that is effective for preventing cavities; this can occur naturally or by adding fluoride...
and contamination of everyone's "precious bodily fluids". Ripper orders his nuclear-armed
B-52The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, who have continued to provide maintainence and upgrades to the aircraft in service...
s, which were holding at their fail-safe points, to move into Soviet airspace.
Group CaptainGroup captain is a senior commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many other Commonwealth countries. It ranks above wing commander and immediately below air commodore...
Lionel Mandrake (
Peter SellersRichard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
), a
Royal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
exchange officerAn exchange officer is a commissioned officer in a country's armed forces who is temporarily attached to a unit of the armed forces of another country....
serving as General Ripper's executive officer, issues the command on Ripper's order but later realizes it was not issued in retaliation to a Soviet attack on America. However Ripper refuses to disclose the three-letter recall code and locks the two of them in his office.
In the "War Room" at
The PentagonThe Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
, General Buck Turgidson (
George C. ScottGeorge Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
) briefs President Merkin Muffley (Sellers). He reports that Ripper apparently took advantage of "Wing Attack Plan R," a wartime contingency plan which is intended to give Field Commanders authority to retaliate with nuclear weapons in the event that a Soviet first strike obliterates Washington, D.C. and incapacitates U.S. leadership. When President Muffley angrily begins to question the merits of this, the General responds that he does not "think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up". When Muffley proposes that troops be sent to the Air Force Base to seize Ripper (and hopefully force the recall code from him), Turgidson warns that General Ripper will have put the security forces there on high alert—ready to repel any outside force.
Turgidson tries to persuade Muffley to seize the moment and eliminate the Soviet Union by launching a full-scale attack on the Soviet Union. The General believes the United States is in a superior strategic position and a first strike would destroy the majority of the Soviets' missiles before they could retaliate. Without such a response, the US would be annihilated. Muffley refuses to have any part of such a scheme, and instead summons the Soviet ambassador, Alexei de Sadeski (
Peter BullPeter Cecil Bull, DSC was a British character actor.- Biography :He was the fourth and youngest son of Hammersmith MP Sir William James Bull, 1st Bt..Bull was educated at Winchester College...
). The Ambassador calls
Soviet PremierThe office of Premier of the Soviet Union was synonymous with head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . Twelve individuals have been premier...
Dimitri Kisov on the "Hot Line" and gives the Soviets information to help them shoot down the American planes, should they cross into Soviet airspace.
The Ambassador reveals that his side has installed a
doomsday deviceA doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon, or collection of weapons — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly the Earth, or destroy the planet itself, bringing "doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth...
that will automatically destroy life on Earth if there is a nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. The American President expresses amazement that anyone would build such a device. But Dr. Strangelove (Sellers), a former Nazi and weapons expert, admits that it would be "an effective deterrent... credible and convincing." However, a recent study by an American
think tankA think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
had dismissed it as being too dangerous to be practical.
From his wheelchair, Strangelove explains the technology behind the Doomsday Machine and why it is essential that not only should it destroy the world in the event of a nuclear attack but also be fully automated and incapable of being
deactivated. He further points out that the "whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret". When asked why the Soviets did not publicize this, Ambassador de Sadeski sheepishly answers it was supposed to be announced the following Monday at the (Communist) Party Congress because "the Premier loves surprises."
U.S. ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
forces 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. A pitched battle ensues, which the Army forces finally win and Ripper, fearing torture to extract the recall code shoots himself. Colonel "Bat" Guano (
Keenan WynnKeenan Wynn was an American character actor. His bristling mustache and expressive face were his stock in trade, and though he rarely had a lead role, he got prominent billing in most of his film and TV parts....
) forces his way into Ripper's office and immediately suspects that Mandrake, whose
uniformThe Royal Air Force uniform is the standardised military dress worn by members of the Royal Air Force. The predominant colours of Royal Air Force uniforms are blue-grey and Wedgewood blue. Many Commonwealth air forces' uniforms are also based on the RAF pattern, but with nationality shoulder...
he does not recognize, is leading a mutiny and arrests him. Mandrake convinces Guano he must call the President with the recall code (OPE) which he has deduced from Ripper's desk blotter
doodleA doodle is an unfocused drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes....
s but has to use a pay phone to do so. Guano has to shoot open a
Coca-ColaCoca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
machine to obtain coins for the phone, which he does reluctantly. Off camera, Mandrake finally contacts the Pentagon and is able to get the code combinations to the President and
Strategic Air CommandThe Strategic Air Command was both a Major Command of the United States Air Force and a "specified command" of the United States Department of Defense. SAC was the operational establishment in charge of America's land-based strategic bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic...
.
The correct recall code is issued to the planes and all those that have not been shot down by the Soviet military turn back toward base, except one. Its radio and fuel tanks were damaged by an anti-aircraft missile, leaving the plane unable either to receive the recall message or reach its primary or secondary targets, where the Soviets have concentrated all available defences at the urging of President Muffley. The pilot heads for the nearest target of opportunity, an ICBM complex. Aircraft commander Major T. J. "King" Kong (
Slim PickensLouis Burton Lindley, Jr. , better known by the stage name Slim Pickens, was an American rodeo performer and film and television actor who epitomized the profane, tough, sardonic cowboy, but who is best remembered for his comic roles, notably in Dr...
) goes to the bomb bay to open the damaged doors manually, straddling a nuclear bomb as he repairs arcing wires overhead. When he effects his electrical patches, the bomb bay doors suddenly open, the bomb releases and Kong rides it to detonation like a
rodeoRodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...
cowboy, whooping and waving his cowboy hat. The H-bomb explodes and the Doomsday Device's detonation is inevitable.
In the War Room, Ambassador de Sadeski says life on Earth's surface will be extinct in ten months. Dr. Strangelove recommends the President gather several hundred thousand people to be relocated into deep mine shafts, where the radioactivity would never penetrate so the United States can be repopulated. Strangelove suggests a sex ratio of "ten females to each male," with the women selected for their stimulating sexual characteristics and the men selected for youth, health, intellectual capabilities and importance in business and government. He points out that with proper breeding techniques, the survivors could work themselves up to the present Gross National Product in 20 years and emerge after the radioactivity has ceased in about 100 years. At one point, Strangelove's errant right arm tries to give the
Nazi saluteThe Nazi salute, or Hitler salute , was a gesture of greeting in Nazi Germany usually accompanied by saying, Heil Hitler! ["Hail Hitler!"], Heil, mein Führer ["Hail, my leader!"], or Sieg Heil! ["Hail victory!"]...
and then strangle him.
General Turgidson warns of a possible "Mineshaft Gap" that might be a factor when the survivors emerge. De Sadeski walks away from the group and begins taking pictures of the war room's Big Board with a spy camera disguised as a pocketwatch. Just as Dr. Strangelove miraculously gets up from his wheelchair, takes a couple of steps and shouts,
"Mein Führer! I can walk!," the Doomsday Machine activates. The film then cuts to a montage of nuclear detonations across the world, accompanied by
Vera LynnDame Vera Lynn, DBE is an English singer-songwriter and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during World War II. During the war she toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops...
's recording of "
We'll Meet Again"We'll Meet Again" is a 1939 song made famous by British singer Vera Lynn, and it also may refer to:* We'll Meet Again , a musical starring Lynn that includes the song...
."
Cast
- Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
as:
- Group Captain
Group captain is a senior commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many other Commonwealth countries. It ranks above wing commander and immediately below air commodore...
Lionel Mandrake, a BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
exchange officer.
- President Merkin Muffley, the American Commander-in-Chief
A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...
.
- Dr. Strangelove, the wheelchair-bound nuclear war expert and former Nazi whose uncontrollable hand apparently has a Nazi mind of its own.
- George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
as General Buck Turgidson, an over-the-top and jingoistJingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests...
General who does not trust the Soviet ambassador.
- Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr...
as Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, a paranoid ultra-nationalist. Jack the Ripper"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
was a serial murderer in 19th century London.
- Keenan Wynn
Keenan Wynn was an American character actor. His bristling mustache and expressive face were his stock in trade, and though he rarely had a lead role, he got prominent billing in most of his film and TV parts....
as Colonel Bat Guano, the Army officer who finds Mandrake and the dead Ripper. Bat guano is bat excrement, prized as an agricultural fertilizer.
- Slim Pickens
Louis Burton Lindley, Jr. , better known by the stage name Slim Pickens, was an American rodeo performer and film and television actor who epitomized the profane, tough, sardonic cowboy, but who is best remembered for his comic roles, notably in Dr...
as Major T. J. Kong, the B-52 StratofortressThe Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, who have continued to provide maintainence and upgrades to the aircraft in service...
bomber's commander and pilot.
- Peter Bull
Peter Cecil Bull, DSC was a British character actor.- Biography :He was the fourth and youngest son of Hammersmith MP Sir William James Bull, 1st Bt..Bull was educated at Winchester College...
as Soviet Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski.
- James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
as Lieutenant Lothar Zogg, the B-52's bombardierA bombardier , in the United States Army Air Forces and United States Air Force, or a bomb aimer, in the Royal Air Force and other Commonwealth air forces, was the crewman of a bomber responsible for assisting the navigator in guiding the plane to a bombing target and releasing the aircraft's bomb...
.
- Tracy Reed as Miss Scott, General Turgidson's secretary and mistress
A mistress is a long-term female lover and companion who is not married to her partner; the term is used especially when her partner is married. The relationship generally is stable and at least semi-permanent; however, the couple does not live together openly. Also the relationship is usually,...
, the film's only female character. Reed also appears as "Miss Foreign Affairs," the centerfold in the June 1962 issue of PlayboyPlayboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine that Major Kong is shown reading in the cockpit.
- Shane Rimmer
Shane Rimmer is a Canadian actor and voice actor, probably best known as the voice of Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds.He has mostly performed in supporting roles, frequently in films and television series filmed in the United Kingdom, having relocated to England in the late 1950s, initially performing...
as Capt. "Ace" Owens, the B-52 co-pilot.
Peter Sellers's multiple roles
Columbia PicturesColumbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
agreed to finance the film on condition that
Peter SellersRichard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
play at least four major roles. This condition stemmed from the studio's impression that much of the success of
LolitaLolita is a 1962 comedy-drama film by Stanley Kubrick based on the classic novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov. The film stars James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Sue Lyon as Dolores Haze and Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze with Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty.Due to the MPAA's restrictions at...
(1962), Kubrick's previous film, was based on Sellers's performance in which his single character assumes a number of identities. Sellers had also played three roles in 1959's
The Mouse That RoaredThe Mouse That Roared is a 1955 Cold War satirical novel by Irish-American writer Leonard Wibberley, which launched a series of satirical books about an imaginary country in Europe called the Duchy of Grand Fenwick...
. Kubrick accepted the demand, considering that "such crass and grotesque stipulations are the
sine qua nonSine qua non or condicio sine qua non refers to an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient...
of the motion-picture business."
Sellers ended up playing just three of the four roles written for him. He was expected to play Air Force Major T. J. "King" Kong, the
B-52 StratofortressThe Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, who have continued to provide maintainence and upgrades to the aircraft in service...
aircraft commander, but from the beginning Sellers was reluctant. He felt his workload was too heavy and he worried he would not properly portray the character's Texas accent. Kubrick pleaded with him and asked screenwriter
Terry SouthernTerry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...
(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. But then Sellers sprained an ankle and could not work in the cramped cockpit set.
Sellers is said to have improvised much of his dialogue, with Kubrick incorporating the ad-libs into the written screenplay so that the improvised lines became part of the canonical screenplay, a technique known as
retroscriptingRetroscripting is a term for two techniques used in movie and television programs.-Plot outline:A retroscripted script contains a plot outline and leaves dialogue deliberately vague for interpretation by the actors through improvisation...
.
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake
According to film critic
Alexander WalkerAlexander Walker was a film critic, born in Portadown, Northern Ireland. He worked for the Birmingham Post in the 1950s, before becoming film critic of the London Evening Standard in 1960, a role he held until his death in 2003...
, 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 serving in the RAF during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. There is also a heavy resemblance to Sellers's friend and occasional co-star
Terry-ThomasThomas Terry Hoar Stevens was a distinctive English comic actor, known as Terry-Thomas. He was famous for his portrayal of disreputable members of the upper classes, especially cads and toffs, with the trademark gap in his front teeth, cigarette holder, smoking jacket, and catch-phrases such as...
and the prosthetic-limbed RAF ace
Douglas BaderGroup Captain Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader CBE, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, FRAeS, DL was a Royal Air Force fighter ace during the Second World War. He was credited with 20 aerial victories, four shared victories, six probables, one shared probable and 11 enemy aircraft damaged.Bader joined the...
.
President Merkin Muffley
For his performance as President Merkin Muffley, Sellers flattened his natural English accent to resemble an American
MidwesternerThe Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
. Sellers drew inspiration for the role from Adlai Stevenson, a former
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
governor who was the Democratic candidate for the
1952The United States presidential election of 1952 took place in an era when Cold War tension between the United States and the Soviet Union was escalating rapidly. In the United States Senate, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin had become a national figure after chairing congressional...
and
1956 presidential electionThe United States presidential election of 1956 saw a popular Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully run for re-election. The 1956 election was a rematch of 1952, as Eisenhower's opponent in 1956 was Democrat Adlai Stevenson, whom Eisenhower had defeated four years earlier.Incumbent President Eisenhower...
s and the U.N. ambassador during the
Cuban Missile CrisisThe Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
.
In early takes, Sellers faked
coldThe common cold is a viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory system, caused primarily by rhinoviruses and coronaviruses. Common symptoms include a cough, sore throat, runny nose, and fever...
symptoms to emphasize the character's apparent weakness. This caused frequent laughter among the film crew, ruining several takes. Kubrick ultimately found this comic portrayal inappropriate, feeling that Muffley should be a serious character. In later takes Sellers played the role straight, though the President's cold is still evident in several scenes.
In keeping with Kubrick's satirical character names, a "
merkinA merkin is a pubic wig. Merkins were originally worn by prostitutes after shaving their genitalia, and are now used as decorative items, erotic devices, or in films, by both men and women.-Origin of term:...
" is a pubic hair wig. The president is bald, and his last name is "Muffley"; both are additional homages to a merkin.
Dr. Strangelove
The title character, Dr. Strangelove, who was not in the original book, serves as President Muffley's scientific advisor in the War Room, presumably making use of prior expertise as a Nazi physicist. When General Turgidson wonders aloud what kind of name "Strangelove" is, saying to Mr. Staines (Jack Creley) that it is not a
KrautKraut is a German word recorded in English from 1918 onwards as a derogatory term for a German, particularly a German soldier during World War I and World War II. Its earlier meaning in English was as a synonym for sauerkraut, a traditional German and central European food.- Etymological...
name, Staines responds that Strangelove's original German surname was "Merkwürdigliebe," without mentioning that "Merkwürdigliebe" translates to "Strangelove" in English. Twice in the film, Strangelove 'accidentally' addresses the President as "Mein Führer."
The character is an amalgamation of RAND Corporation strategist
Herman KahnHerman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
, mathematician and
Manhattan ProjectThe Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
principal
John von NeumannJohn von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
, German rocket scientist
Wernher von BraunWernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
and
Edward TellerEdward Teller was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb," even though he did not care for the title. Teller made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy , and surface physics...
, the "father of the hydrogen bomb." There is a common misconception that the character was based on
Henry KissingerHeinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
, but Kubrick and Sellers denied this. Kissinger was not a presidential adviser until 1969. The wheelchair-using Strangelove furthers a Kubrick trope of the menacing, seated antagonist, first depicted in
LolitaLolita is a 1962 comedy-drama film by Stanley Kubrick based on the classic novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov. The film stars James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Sue Lyon as Dolores Haze and Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze with Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty.Due to the MPAA's restrictions at...
through the character "Dr. Zaempf." Strangelove's accent was influenced by that of Austrian-American photographer
WeegeeWeegee was the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig , a photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography....
, who worked for Kubrick as a special photographic effects consultant. Strangelove's appearance echoes the mad scientist archetype as seen in the character
RotwangC. A. Rotwang is a fictional character in Fritz Lang's 1927 science fiction film Metropolis. Rotwang was played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge.- Character overview :...
in
Fritz LangFriedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's 1927 film
MetropolisMetropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
. Sellers's Strangelove takes from Rotwang the single black gloved hand (which in Rotwang's case is mechanical because of a lab accident), the wild hair and, most importantly, his inability to be completely controlled by political power. According to film critic
Alexander WalkerAlexander Walker was the son of John ‘Johnnie’ Walker of the whiskey brand. He inherited the company in 1857 and expanded its business, exporting whisky throughout the British Empire....
, Sellers improvised Dr. Strangelove's lapse into the
Nazi saluteThe Nazi salute, or Hitler salute , was a gesture of greeting in Nazi Germany usually accompanied by saying, Heil Hitler! ["Hail Hitler!"], Heil, mein Führer ["Hail, my leader!"], or Sieg Heil! ["Hail victory!"]...
, borrowing one of Kubrick's black leather gloves for the uncontrollable hand that makes the gesture. Dr. Strangelove apparently suffers from diagonistic apraxia, or
alien hand syndromeAlien hand syndrome is a neurological disorder in which the afflicted person's hand appears to take on a mind of its own...
. Kubrick wore the gloves on the set to avoid being burned when handling hot lights, and Sellers, recognizing the potential connection to Lang's work, found them to be menacing.
Slim Pickens as Major T. J. "King" Kong
Slim PickensLouis Burton Lindley, Jr. , better known by the stage name Slim Pickens, was an American rodeo performer and film and television actor who epitomized the profane, tough, sardonic cowboy, but who is best remembered for his comic roles, notably in Dr...
, an established
character actorA character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
and veteran of many Western films, was eventually chosen to replace Sellers as Major Kong after Sellers's injury. Terry Southern's biographer, Lee Hill, said the part was originally written with
John WayneMarion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
in mind, and that Wayne was offered the role after Sellers was injured but he immediately turned it down.
Dan BlockerDan Blocker was an American actor best remembered for his role as Eric "Hoss" Cartwright in the NBC western television series Bonanza.-Early life:...
of the
BonanzaBonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
western television series was approached to play the part, but according to
SouthernTerry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...
, Blocker's agent rejected the script as being "too pinko." Kubrick then recruited Pickens, whom he knew from working on
Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
's
One-Eyed JacksOne-Eyed Jacks, a 1961 Western, is the only film directed by actor Marlon Brando, who also played its lead character, Rio.The film was originally to be directed by Stanley Kubrick and Sam Peckinpah...
.
Fellow actor
James Earl JonesJames Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
recalls, "He was Major Kong on and off the set—he didn't change a thing—his temperament, his language, his behavior." Pickens was not told that the movie was a comedy and was only given the script for scenes he was in, to get him to play it "straight."
Kubrick biographer John Baxter explained 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, said his appearance as Maj. Kong greatly improved his career. He later commented, "After
Dr. Strangelove the roles, the dressing rooms and the checks all started getting bigger."
George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson
Kubrick tricked Scott into playing the role of Gen. Turgidson far more ridiculously than Scott was comfortable 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. Kubrick used these takes in the final film, causing Scott to swear never to work with Kubrick again.
During the filming, Kubrick and Scott had different opinions regarding certain scenes, but Kubrick got Scott to conform largely by repeatedly beating Scott at chess, which they played frequently on the set. Scott, a skilled player himself, later said that while he and Kubrick may not have always seen eye to eye, he respected Kubrick immensely for his skill at chess.
Novel and screenplay
Kubrick started with nothing but a vague idea to make a thriller about a nuclear accident, building on the widespread
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
fear for survival. While doing research, Kubrick gradually became aware of the subtle and unstable "
balance of terrorThe phrase "balance of terror" is usually used in reference to the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War....
" between nuclear powers. At Kubrick's request,
Alastair BuchanThe Hon. Alastair Francis Buchan CBE was a leading writer on defence studies in the 1970s.-Career:Born the son of John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir and educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford, Buchan joined the Canadian Army and saw active service in World War II...
(the head of the
Institute for Strategic StudiesThe International Institute for Strategic Studies is a British research institute in the area of international affairs. It describes itself as "the world’s leading authority on political-military conflict"...
), recommended the thriller novel
Red Alert by Peter George. Kubrick was impressed with the book, which had also been praised by
game theoristGame theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...
and future Nobel Prize in Economics winner
Thomas SchellingThomas Crombie Schelling is an American economist and professor of foreign affairs, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College Park. He is also co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute...
in an article written for the
Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsThe Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a nontechnical online magazine that covers global security and public policy issues, especially related to the dangers posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction...
and reprinted in
The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, and immediately bought the film rights.
In collaboration with George, Kubrick started writing a screenplay based on the book. While writing the screenplay, they benefited from some brief consultations with Schelling and, later,
Herman KahnHerman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
. In following the tone of the book, Stanley Kubrick originally intended to film the story as a serious drama. But, as he later explained during interviews, he began to see comedy inherent in the idea of
mutual assured destructionMutual Assured Destruction, or mutually assured destruction , is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of...
as he wrote the first draft. Kubrick said:
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.
After deciding to make the film a black comedy, Kubrick brought in
Terry SouthernTerry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...
as a co-writer. The choice was influenced by reading Southern's comic novel
The Magic ChristianThe Magic Christian is a 1959 comic novel by American author Terry Southern. In 1969 the novel was made into a film starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, by director Joseph McGrath, also titled The Magic Christian...
, which Kubrick had received as a gift from Peter Sellers (which, coincidentally, became a Sellers film in 1969).
Sets and filming
Dr. Strangelove was filmed at
Shepperton StudiosShepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
, in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, as Peter Sellers was in the middle of a divorce at the time, unable to leave England. The sets occupied three main
sound stageIn common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
s: 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. The studio's buildings were also used as the Air Force base exterior. The film's set design was done by
Ken AdamSir Kenneth Adam, OBE, born Klaus Hugo Adam , is a motion picture production designer most famous for his set designs for the James Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s.-Childhood in Germany:...
, the production designer of several
James BondJames Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
films (at the time he had already worked on
Dr. NoDr. No is a 1962 spy film, starring Sean Connery; it is the first James Bond film. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R...
). The black and white cinematography was by
Gilbert TaylorGilbert Taylor, B.S.C. , is a cinematographer.After six years service during World War II as an officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, he became an Operational Cameraman flying in Avro Lancaster bombers, documenting the damage after British bombing raids.He worked on a number of films...
, and the film was edited by
Anthony HarveyAnthony Harvey is a British filmmaker who started his career in the 1950s as a film editor, and moved into directing in the mid 1960s. Harvey has fifteen film credits as an editor, and he has directed thirteen films...
and
Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
(uncredited). The original musical score for the film was composed by
Laurie JohnsonLaurie Johnson is an English film and television composer, and bandleader.-Career:...
and the special effects were by Wally Veevers. The theme of the chorus from the bomb run scene is a modification of
When Johnny Comes Marching Home"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is a popular song of the American Civil War that expressed people's longing for the return of their friends and relatives who were fighting in the war.-Origins:...
.
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
expressionistExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
set that was compared with
The Cabinet of Dr. CaligariThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene from a screenplay by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. It is one of the most influential of German Expressionist films and is often considered one of the greatest horror movies of the silent era. This movie is cited as...
and
Fritz Lang'sFriedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
MetropolisMetropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
. It was an enormous concrete room (130 feet (39.6 m) long and 100 feet (30.5 m) wide, with a 35 feet (10.7 m)-high ceiling) 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 AstaireFred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
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
baizeBaize is a coarse woollen cloth, sometimes called felt in American English based on a similarity in appearance.-Usage:...
(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.' Kubrick asked Adam to build the set ceiling in
concreteConcrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
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.
Lacking cooperation from
The PentagonThe United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
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 SuperfortressThe B-29 Superfortress is a four-engine propeller-driven heavy bomber designed by Boeing that was flown primarily by the United States Air Forces in late-World War II and through the Korean War. The B-29 was one of the largest aircraft to see service during World War II...
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 ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
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." 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
FBIThe Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
.
In several shots of the B-52 flying over the polar ice en route to Russia, the shadow of the actual camera plane, a
BoeingThe Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
B-17 Flying Fortress, is visible on the snow below. The B-52 was a scale model composited into the arctic footage which was sped up to create a sense of jet speed. Home movie footage included in
Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove on the 2001 Special Edition DVD release of the film shows clips of the Fortress with a cursive "Dr. Strangelove" painted over the rear entry hatch on the right side of the fuselage.
Fail-Safe
Red Alert author Peter George collaborated on the screenplay with Kubrick and
satiristSatire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
Terry SouthernTerry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...
.
Red Alert was more solemn than its film version and it did not include the character of Dr. Strangelove, though the main plot and technical elements were quite similar. A
novelizationA novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
of the actual film, rather than a re-print of the original novel, was published by George, based on an early draft in which the film was meant to be bookended by aliens trying to understand what happened after arriving at a wrecked Earth.
During the filming of
Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick learned that
Fail-SafeFail-Safe is a 1964 film directed by Sidney Lumet, based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. It tells the story of a fictional Cold War nuclear crisis...
, a film with a similar theme, was being produced. Although
Fail-Safe was to be an ultra-realistic thriller, Kubrick feared that its plot resemblance would damage his film's box office potential, especially if it were 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. What worried Kubrick most was that
Fail-Safe boasted acclaimed director
Sidney LumetSidney Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men , Dog Day Afternoon , Network and The Verdict...
and first-rate dramatic actors
Henry FondaHenry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
as the American President and
Walter MatthauWalter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
as the advisor to the Pentagon, Professor Groeteschele. Kubrick decided to throw a legal wrench into
Fail-Safes production gears. Lumet recalled 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 argued that Fail Safes own 1960
source novel of the same nameFail-Safe is a novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, published in 1962.The popular and critically acclaimed novel was first adapted into a 1964 film of the same name directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, and Walter Matthau. In 2000, the novel was adapted again for...
had been plagiarized from Peter George's
Red Alert, to which Kubrick owned creative rights, and pointed out unmistakable similarities in intentions between the characters Groeteschele and Strangelove. The plan worked, and
Fail-Safe opened eight months behind
Dr. Strangelove, to critical acclaim but mediocre ticket sales.
Ending
The end of the film shows Dr. Strangelove exclaiming "
Mein Führer, I can walk!" before cutting to footage of nuclear explosions, with
Vera LynnDame Vera Lynn, DBE is an English singer-songwriter and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during World War II. During the war she toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops...
singing "
We'll Meet Again"We'll Meet Again" is a 1939 song made famous by British singer Vera Lynn, and it also may refer to:* We'll Meet Again , a musical starring Lynn that includes the song...
." This footage comes from nuclear tests such as shot BAKER of
Operation CrossroadsOperation Crossroads was a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. It was the first test of a nuclear weapon after the Trinity nuclear test in July 1945...
at
Bikini AtollBikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands....
, the
Trinity testTrinity was the code name of the first test of a nuclear weapon. This test was conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, at the new White Sands Proving Ground, which incorporated the Alamogordo Bombing...
, the
bombing of NagasakiDuring the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...
, a test from
Operation SandstoneOperation Sandstone was a series of nuclear weapon tests in 1948. It was the third series of American tests, following Crossroads and preceding Ranger...
and the great hydrogen bomb tests from
Operation RedwingOperation Redwing was a United States series of 17 nuclear test detonations from May to July 1956. They were conducted at Bikini and Enewetak atolls. The entire operation followed Operation Wigwam and preceded Operation Plumbbob. The primary intention was to test new, second-generation...
and
Operation IvyOperation Ivy was the eighth series of American nuclear tests, coming after Tumbler-Snapper and before Upshot-Knothole. Its purpose was to help upgrade the U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons in response to the Soviet nuclear weapons program...
. In some shots old warships (such as the German heavy cruiser
Prinz EugenPrinz Eugen was an Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser, the third member of the class of five vessels. She served with the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. The ship was laid down in April 1936 and launched August 1938; Prinz Eugen entered service after the outbreak of war, in August 1940...
), which were used as targets, are plainly visible. In others the smoke trails of rockets used to create a calibration backdrop can be seen.
Original ending: The Pie Fight
It was originally planned for the film to end with a scene that was filmed, with everyone in the war room involved in a pie fight.
Accounts vary as to why the pie fight was cut. In a 1969 interview, Kubrick said: "I decided it was
farceIn theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
and not consistent with the satiric tone of the rest of the film." Critic
Alexander WalkerAlexander Walker was a film critic, born in Portadown, Northern Ireland. He worked for the Birmingham Post in the 1950s, before becoming film critic of the London Evening Standard in 1960, a role he held until his death in 2003...
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." Nile Southern, son of screenwriter Terry Southern, suggested 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
HomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
ic proportions.'"
Former
Goon ShowThe Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
writer, and friend of Sellers,
Spike MilliganTerence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
, was credited with suggesting the Vera Lynn music for the ending.
The Kennedy assassination
A first test screening of the film was scheduled for November 22, 1963, the day of the
John F. Kennedy assassinationJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
. The film was just weeks from its scheduled premiere, but because 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.
One line by Slim Pickens – "a fella could have a pretty good weekend in
DallasDallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
with all that stuff" – was dubbed to change "Dallas" to "
VegasThe Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
," Dallas being the city where Kennedy was killed. The original reference to Dallas survives in some foreign language-dubbed versions of the film, including the French release.
The assassination also serves as another possible reason why the pie-fight scene was cut. In the scene General Turgidson exclaims, "Gentlemen! Our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime!" after Muffley takes a pie in the face. 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."
1994 Re-release
In 1994 the film was re-released. While the 1964 release used the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the new print was in the 1.66:1 ratio, as Kubrick had originally intended.
Satirizing the Cold War
Dr. Strangelove takes passing shots at numerous
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
attitudes, such as the "
missile gapThe missile gap was the term used in the United States for the perceived disparity between the number and power of the weapons in the U.S.S.R. and U.S. ballistic missile arsenals during the Cold War. The gap only existed in exaggerated estimates made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and United...
", but it primarily focuses its satire on the theory of
mutual assured destructionMutual Assured Destruction, or mutually assured destruction , is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of...
(MAD), in which each side is supposed to be deterred from a nuclear war by the prospect of a universal cataclysmic disaster regardless of who "won". Military strategist and former physicist
Herman KahnHerman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
, in his 1960
On Thermonuclear WarOn Thermonuclear War is a book by Herman Kahn, a military strategist at the RAND Corporation, although it was written only a year before he left RAND to form the Hudson Institute. It is a controversial treatise on the nature and theory of war in the thermonuclear age...
, used the theoretical example of a
doomsday machineA doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon, or collection of weapons — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly the Earth, or destroy the planet itself, bringing "doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth...
to illustrate the concept of
mutual assured destructionMutual Assured Destruction, or mutually assured destruction , is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of...
(MAD); in effect, Kahn argued, both sides already had a sort of doomsday machine, since their nuclear arsenals were large enough to destroy most life on Earth. Kahn, a leading 1950s critic of American strategy, urged America to plan for a limited nuclear war, and later in the 1960s became one of the architects of the MAD doctrine. Kahn held that a nuclear war was inherently suicidal (because it is unwinnable) thus neither side would be willing to engage in all-out nuclear war. Kahn came off as cold and calculating, for example in his willingness to estimate how many human lives the USA 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: "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops, uh, depending on the breaks." Turgidson has a binder that is labelled "World Targets in Megadeaths", a term coined in 1953 by Kahn and popularized in his 1960 book
On Thermonuclear War.
The plan to regenerate the human race from the people sheltered in mineshafts is a parody of
Nelson RockefellerNelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
's,
Edward TellerEdward Teller was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb," even though he did not care for the title. Teller made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy , and surface physics...
's,
Herman KahnHerman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
's, and Chet Holifield's 1961 plan to spend billions of dollars on a nationwide network of concrete-lined underground
fallout shelterA fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War....
s capable of holding millions of people.
This proposed fallout shelter network has similarities and contrasts to that of the very real and robust Swiss
Civil DefenseCivil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery...
network,
SwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
has an overcapacity of Nuclear fallout shelters for the countries population size, and By law, new homes must still be built with a fallout shelter.
To refute early 1960s novels and Hollywood films like
Fail-Safe and
Dr. Strangelove which raised questions about U.S. control over nuclear weapons, the Air Force produced a documentary film--
SAC Strategic Air CommandThe Strategic Air Command was both a Major Command of the United States Air Force and a "specified command" of the United States Department of Defense. SAC was the operational establishment in charge of America's land-based strategic bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic...
Command Post--to demonstrate its responsiveness to presidential command and its tight control over nuclear weapons
An entire book analyzing how the film reflected Cold War attitudes of the era is
Dr. Strangelove's America: society and culture in the atomic age by Margot A. Henriksen (University of California Press, 1997).
Reception
The film is often ranked by critics and directors amongst the greatest comedies of all time, and was selected for preservation in the United States
National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
. In 2000, readers of
Total FilmTotal Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
magazine voted it the 24th greatest comedy film of all time. It currently holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
based on 59 reviews. It is ranked number 21 in the All-Time High Scores chart of
MetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
's Video/DVD section with an average score of 96, and is currently ranked the 35th greatest film of all time at the
Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
. It is also listed as number 26 on
Empire's 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
has
Dr. Strangelove in his list of Great Movies, saying it is "arguably the best political satire of the century." It is also rated as the fifth greatest film in
Sight & Sound’s directors’ poll – the only comedy in the top ten.
Awards and honors
The film was nominated for four
Academy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
and also seven BAFTA Awards, of which it won four.
Academy Awards nominations
- Best Actor in a Leading Role
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
: Peter SellersRichard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
- Best Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
: Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Peter George, Terry Southern
- Best Director
The Academy Award for Achievement in Directing , usually known as the Best Director Oscar, is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to directors working in the motion picture industry...
: Stanley Kubrick
- Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
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 Adam
- 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 AmericaThe Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
and a
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic PresentationThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
.
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 AmericaDirectors Guild of America is an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...
.
American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
recognition
- 1998 – AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
The first of the AFI 100 Years… series of cinematic milestones, AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies is a list of the 100 best American movies, as determined by the American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry who chose from a list of 400 nominated movies...
– #26
- 2000 – AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Laughs is a list of the top 100 funniest movies in American cinema. A wide variety of comedies were nominated for the distinction that included slapstick comedy, screwball comedy, romantic comedy, satire, black comedy, musical comedy, comedy of...
– #3
- 2003 – AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains is a list of the 100 greatest screen characters chosen by American Film Institute in June 2003. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series. The series was first presented in a CBS special hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger...
:
- Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper – nominated villain
- Dr. Strangelove – nominated villain
- 2005 – AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes
Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes is a list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema. The American Film Institute revealed the list on June 21, 2005, in a three-hour television program on CBS...
:
- "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" – #64
- "Mein Führer! I can walk!" – nominated
- 2007 – AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #39
See also
- CRM 114
- Dead Hand
Dead Hand , known also as Perimeter, is a Cold-War-era nuclear-control system used by the Soviet Union and might still be in use in Russia. An example of fail-deadly deterrence, it can automatically trigger the launch of the Russian ICBMs if a nuclear strike is detected by seismic, light,...
- Films considered the greatest ever
- Politics in fiction
This is a list of fictional stories in which politics features as an important plot element. Passing mentions are omitted from this list.-Written works:*The Republic by Plato*Panchatantra This is a list of fictional stories in which politics features as an important plot element. Passing...
- Stanley Kubrick Archive
The Stanley Kubrick Archive is held by the University of the Arts London in their Archives and Special Collection Centre at the London College of Communication. The Archive opened in October 2007 and contains material collected and owned by the film director Stanley Kubrick . It was transferred...
- Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II...
OSS program used to recruit scientists from Nazi Germany
External links