Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove, as it is commonly known, is a 1964 satirical film directed by Stanley Kubrick. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb tells the story of an insane renegade general's attempt to start a nuclear war and the attempts of others to avert it.

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Plot

US Air Force General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) plans to start a nuclear war with the Soviet Union to stop what he believes to be a fearful Communist conspiracy to put fluoride in the water supply, thereby threatening our "precious bodily fluids". He orders -- without Presidential authorization -- the planes under his command to attack the Soviet Union, under radio silence which cannot be broken save by a recall code that Ripper alone knows. He then seals himself inside his base and hopes that the President will order a full-scale attack to prevent an otherwise inevitable retaliation from the Soviet Union.

General Ripper is unaware that the Soviets have constructed a doomsday machine which automatically detects any nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, whereupon it destroys all life on earth by fallout.

The American Government cooperates with the Soviets to shoot their own planes down until they can be recalled, and General Ripper's plan is finally (apparently) foiled by Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers), the British exchange officer who discovers the recall code. Unfortunately, one B-52 ("The Leper Colony") can't be called back and continues its mission to drop the one nuclear bomb that will set off the doomsday machine. In trying to release the jammed bomb from its bay, the pilot of the B-52 rides it down to global destruction.

Themes

Although it is a comedy, Dr. Strangelove is also suspenseful and engrossing and not the least "madcap". Two major scenes of action are the immense War Room dominated by the Big Board showing the location of every bomber in the world, and the meticulously recreated B-52 interior. The remainder is set in General Ripper's headquarters at Burpleson Air Force Base. The Pentagon did not cooperate in making the film, as it did in making Strategic Air Command (1955).

Dr. Strangelove takes passing shots at all sorts of Cold War attitudes, but focuses its satire on the theory of mutual assured destruction, in which each side is supposed to take comfort in the fact that a nuclear war would be a cataclysmic disaster. Commentators have claimed that the doomsday machine was really a metaphor for mutually assured destruction — that, in effect, both sides already had a sort of doomsday machine. (The doomsday machine concept may have also been influenced by concerns about 'salted' nuclear weapons that could be designed to deliberately propagate lethal, long-lasting nuclear fallout over a large area.)

It satirizes the conventions of Hollywood war movies, in which the ignorance and over-sexed nature of soldiers are not discussed. It satirizes the curious "red telephone" relationship between heads of state, in which a first-name intimacy competes with a culturally conditioned dislike for the other and for the entire political system which he heads:

"I'm sorry, too, Dmitri. ... I'm very sorry. ... All right, you're sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well. ... I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri! Don't say that you're more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are. ... So we're both sorry, all right?! ... All right."

Finally, the film can also be seen as a sex comedy, even though only one woman ("Miss Foreign Affairs", played by Tracy Reed, stepdaughter of film director Sir Carol Reed, dressed in a bikini) briefly graces the screen. Excepting perhaps the stiff-upper-lip Captain Mandrake, all the characters seem to be driven by sexual motives. General Ripper's psychotic delusions are triggered by his sexual impotence. Even President Muffley's eyes light up when Dr. Strangelove describes the situation in the mine shaft shelters. Sex drives the movie, from the opening titles with two copulating airplanes to the ending sequence in which the world is destroyed in a globe-spanning moment of sexual ecstasy.

The movie is based upon a Cold War thriller entitled Red Alert. Stanley Kubrick had originally wanted to film the story as a serious drama. However, he explained during interviews that 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." — Macmillan International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, vol. 1, p. 126

Cast

The film stars Peter Sellers, who improvised the dialog above during filming. Sellers plays multiple parts:

Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, a sane, well-meaning British liaison officer;
Adlai Stevenson-esque U.S. President Merkin Muffley, decent, flustered and weak; the doomsday machine is a shock to him.
Dr. Strangelove, from Merkwürdigliebe, his German name, based on aspects of Herman Kahn, Wernher von Braun and Edward Teller. Dr. Strangelove's voice is supposedly based on that of Weegee. His speeches are distracted by a constant struggle to gain control over his affliction of Alien Hand Syndrome (his hand at one point attempts to strangle him, at another it thrusts itself out in a Nazi salute).

Sellers was also to have played the B-52 bomber captain, but an injury (specifically, a foot fracture) during filming prevented him from doing so. The part of Major T. J. "King" Kong was played by Slim Pickens, who gives it the performance of a lifetime. Pickens was unaware the film was to be a comedy and played the role straight, thereby adding to the humor. Also appearing in the film are George C. Scott in his breakout part as General "Buck" Turgidson, a strategic bombing enthusiast (Turgidson was a thinly-disguised avatar of General Curtis LeMay); the debut of James Earl Jones as the bombardier, Lt. Lothar Zogg; and Keenan Wynn, as Col. Bat Guano.

Critical views

Dr. Strangelove is consistently in the top 20 on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films, and was also listed as #26 on the American Film Institute's on its 100 Years, 100 Movies and #3 on its 100 Years, 100 Laughs. The film has also been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Despite its undeniable classic status, the film is not without its detractors. It has been claimed that the dialogue is often not as funny as its supporters think it is, that the use of silly character names is an infantile touch, and that the satire often looks as if it has been crudely pasted onto the original thriller plot.

Red Alert and Fail-Safe

Dr. Strangelove was based on the paperback novel Red Alert (1958) by Peter George. George collaborated on the screenplay with Kubrick and satirist Terry Southern. Red Alert was more solemn by far — Dr. Strangelove is not a character — but the plot and the technical elements were similar. In the same year, the same movie company (Columbia), also released Fail-Safe, a "serious" version of a similar plot directed by Sidney Lumet, based on the (1962) novel by Eugene Burdick.

Also reflecting the temper of the times, Warner Brothers released Seven Days in May the same year. The plot turned on a military coup d'etat that sought to prevent the president from signing a nuclear-disarmament treaty.

The Kennedy assassination

When President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963, the film was just weeks from its scheduled premiere. 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, and one joking reference to having a good time "in Dallas" was dubbed to become "in Vegas".

Songs

"Try a Little Tenderness" by Otis Redding, played under the titles during aerial refueling as probing tanker boom nestles into accommodating fuel opening. Thus the B-52s are kept aloft 24 hours a day.
"When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again", American Civil War song celebrating the return of the survivors. Instrumental version used to accompany the B-52 flight.
"We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn, optimistic, sentimental World War II song, played as the world is destroyed at the end of the film.

Quotations

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room." — Merkin Muffley
"It would not be difficult, Mein Führer! Nuclear reactors could, heh... I'm sorry, Mr. President." — Dr. Strangelove
"The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost...if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?!" — Dr. Strangelove
"I don't say we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops!" — Gen. Turgidson
"Aaaaaa hoooo! Waaaaa hooooo!" — Major T. J. "King" Kong, as he rides on top of the bomb as it falls on the target
"Mein Führer! I can walk!" — Dr. Strangelove, as he, in his enthusiasm describing the adventures lying before them, steps out of his wheelchair. (These are the last words of spoken dialogue in the movie, before the closing song.)
"Stay on the bomb run, boys. I'm going to get them doors open if it harelips everybody on Bear Creek." — Major T.J. "King" Kong, as he goes into the bomb bay to fix the mechanical problem down there
"Well, boys, I reckon this is it — new-key-leer combat toe to toe with the Russkies. Now look, boys, I ain't much of a hand at makin' speeches, but I got a pretty fair idea that something doggone important is goin' on back there. And I got a fair idea the kinda personal emotions that some of you fellas may be thinkin'. Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human bein's if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelin's about nuclear combat. I want you to remember one thing, the folks back home is a-countin' on you and by golly, we ain't about to let 'em down. I tell you something else, if this thing turns out to be half as important as I figure it just might be, I'd say that you're all in line for some important promotions and personal citations when this thing's over with. That goes for ever' last one of you regardless of your race, color or your creed. Now let's get this thing on the hump — we got some serious flyin' to do." — Major T.J. "King" Kong, to his men
"Well boys, we got three engines out, we got more holes in us than a horse trader's mule, the radio is gone and we're leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower why we'd need sleigh bells on this thing. But we got one little budge on those Russkies. At this height why they might harpoon us, but they dang sure ain't gonna spot us on no radar screen!" — Major T.J. "King" Kong, also to his men
"In them you'll find one .45-caliber automatic, two boxes ammunition, four days' concentrated emergency rations, one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizing pills, one miniature Russian phrase book and Bible, one hundred dollars in rubles, one hundred dollars in gold, five packs of chewing gum, one issue prophylactics, three tubes lipstick, three pair of nylon stockings ... Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff." — Major T.J. "King" Kong, describing the contents of the emergency survival kit to his men. (Pickens actually said "... have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff" but his line was looped in post-production because of sensitivity about the Kennedy assassination that had just occurred in Dallas.)
"It is not only possible, it is essential." — Dr. Strangelove on the necessity of a computer-controlled automatic trigger on the doomsday device.
"Mr. President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!" — General Turgidson on the plan to preserve humanity.
"I sure wish WE had one of those Doomsday Machines." — General Turgidson.
"Major Kong, is it possible this is some kind of loyalty test? You know: give the 'go code' and then recall to see who would actually go?" — James Earl Jones' film debut.

The Simpsons reference

Dr. Strangelove has been spoofed several times on the popular T.V. show The Simpsons.

- Couch Gag--One of the show's countless openings involved the Simpsons family jumping on the back of the couch holding ten-gallon cowboy hats and saddling on it like a horse. The couch is then dropped through the floor and the family hoots and hollers just like Slim Pickens.
- $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling--title is a spoof of the film's full name.
- Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming--Mayor Quimby's underground war room is just like the film's war room. Prof. Frink appears in the war room and looks just like Dr. Strangelove. Also, Krusty says that the "survivors may envy the dead", just like Merkin Muffley's line at the end of the film.
- Homer the Vigilante--Homer has a fantasy in which he rides a nuclear bomb.
- Treehouse of Horror XIII-Quimby's underground war room appears again. One of the generals looks and sounds just like Turgidson (he also apparently didn't want Lisa in the war room).

Novelization

A Novelization of the film was writen by Peter George in 1964.

ISBN Numbers

ISBN: 0839824750 ISBN: 0760709408 ISBN: 0192818406

External links