Dr. Strangelove

Dr Strangelove*January 29,1964*War Room Scene*How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

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In 1964, with the Cuban Missile Crisis fresh in viewers minds, the Cold War at its frostiest, and the hydrogen bomb relatively new and frightening, Stanley Kubrick dared to make a film about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button — and played the situation for laughs. Dr. Strangeloves jet-black satire (from a script by director Stanley Kubrick, Peter George, and Terry Southern) and a host of superb comic performances (including three from Peter Sellers) have kept the film fresh and entertaining, even as its issues have become (slightly) less timely. Loaded with thermonuclear weapons, a U.S. bomber piloted by Maj. T.J. King Kong (Slim Pickens) is on a routine flight pattern near the Soviet Union when they receive orders to commence Wing Attack Plan R, best summarized by Maj. Kong as Nuclear combat! Toe to toe with the Russkies! On the ground at Burpleson Air Force Base, Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) notices nothing on the news about America being at war. Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) calmly informs him that he gave the command to attack the Soviet Union because it was high time someone did something about fluoridation, which is sapping Americans bodily fluids (and apparently has something to do with Rippers sexual dysfunction). Meanwhile, President Merkin Muffley (Sellers again) meets with his top Pentagon advisors, including super-hawk Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), who sees this as an opportunity to do something about Communism in general and Russians in particular. However, the ante is upped considerably when Soviet ambassador de Sadesky (Peter Bull) informs Muffley and his staff of the latest innovation in Soviet weapons technology: a Doomsday Machine that will destroy the entire world if the Russians are attacked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuP6KbIsNK4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove#mediaviewer/File:Dr._Strangelove_-_Ripper_and_Mandrake.png After a heated discussion in Russian with the Premier, the ambassador informs President Muffley that the Soviet Union has created a doomsday device, which consists of many buried bombs jacketed with "Cobalt-Thorium G" connected to a computer network set to detonate them automatically should any nuclear attack strike the country. Within two months after detonation, the Cobalt-Thorium G would encircle the earth in a radioactive cloud, wiping out all human and animal life, rendering the surface of the earth uninhabitable for 93 years. When the President's wheelchair-bound scientific advisor, former Nazi Dr. Strangelove (again, Peter Sellers), points out that such a doomsday device would only be an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it, de Sadeski replies that the Russian Premier had planned to reveal its existence to the world the following week. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr._Strangelove.png Description English: Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove from Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove. Date - 29 January 1964 Source- Dr. Strangelove trailer from 40th Anniversary Special Edition DVD, 2004 Author -Directed by Stanley Kubrick, distributed by Columbia Pictures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Alert_(novel) Peter Sellers as: Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, a British RAF exchange officer President Merkin Muffley, the President of the United States Dr. Strangelove, the wheelchair-bound nuclear war expert and former Nazi. President Merkin Muffley For his performance as President Merkin Muffley, Sellers flattened his natural English accent to resemble an American Midwesterner. Sellers drew inspiration for the role from Adlai Stevenson, a former Illinois governor who was the Democratic candidate for the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections and the U.N. ambassador during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In early takes, Sellers faked cold symptoms to emphasize the character's apparent weakness. Lacking cooperation from the Pentagon in the making of the film, the set designers reconstructed the aircraft cockpit to the best of their ability by comparing the cockpit of a B-29 Superfortress and a single photograph of the cockpit of a B-52, and relating this to the geometry of the B-52's fuselage.When some United States Air Force personnel were invited to view the reconstructed B-52 cockpit, they said that "it was absolutely correct, even to the little black box which was the CRM." In several shots of the B-52 flying over the polar ice en route to Russia, the shadow of the actual camera plane, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, is visible on the snow below. The B-52 was a 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 B-17 with a cursive "Dr. Strangelove" painted over the rear entry hatch on the right side of the fuselage.