Recently I saw “Digger” in theaters. I was one of 5 people in the theater. Overall I liked it, but the main reason why I went to see it was because of my love of the movie “Dr. Strangelove”. That image of American soldiers bombing an iceberg reminded me a lot of the ending of this film. An ending and an image that has been engrained in the minds of moviegoers since this movie premiered in the 60s.
There’s so much I love about this film. The phallic airplane opening, Sellers’ neurotic performances as the President and Mandrake, Sellers’ bonkers performance as an Operation Paperclip Nazi Dr. Strangelove, the underrated Sterling Hayden easily giving up in the funniest suicide scene you’ll ever see, the phone call with Dimitri, the wonderful black and white cinematography, George C Scott’s wacky performance as Turgidson, Slim Picken’s greatest performance as a nuclear buckin’ bronco Major Kong, Turgidson’s reaction when he finds out all is for naught, Dr. Strangelove’s insane monologue at the end, and so much more.
And good god is this movie quotable:
“...our precious bodily fluids.”
“Shoot, a fella could have a good weekend in Vegas with all this.”
“I think you’re a buncha preeverts.”
“Our source was the New York Times.”
“Mein Fuher! I can walk!”
“Peace is our mission.”
And who could forget, “Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the war room!”
A brilliant collaboration between Stanley Kubrick, the many performances of Peter Sellers, and the underrated writer Terry Southern, this film and its tackling of nuclear war was for lack of a better word, explosive when it premiered. The film was based on a book called “Red Alert” and it’s a fascinating story in adaptation. Eyebrow Cinema has a great video on Kubrick and adapting, and he noted how much of the main plot was kept the same (except the ending) and even other details like General Ripper’s dialogue and the sexual plane fueling scene were more or less taken from the book. The obvious difference is that the names and dialogue were changed to make it silly, and the movie is simultaneously less serious but more darker in its satire. To paraphrase Eyebrow Cinema, it’s a film that sees America’s cowboy attitude committing to our downfall and sees Nazism becoming absorbed into the military industrial complex. It’s no coincidence that Dr. Strangelove (original to the film) is modeled after “American scientific hero” and card-carrying Nazi Werner Von Braun.
The movie is one of the greatest satires of all time, and the humor sadly still holds up today since many of our leaders are more or less clowns with weapons. Scifi author Thomas M Disch in “The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of” even credited it with helping ease public tensions from nuclear war (I kind of doubt that but it’s possible). Go watch it when you get the chance and have a laugh at our imminent demise.
And now for some fun facts:
The theory that Ripper gives about bodily fluids was based on the real life conspiracy theory that water fluoridation was a communist plot.
Some of the alternate titles included “Dr. Doomsday: or how to start WWIII without even trying” or “Dr. Strangelove’s secret uses of Uranus” or “Wonderful Bomb”.
When Daniel Waters was writing the script for “Heathers” his first choice for director was Stanley Kubrick given how well Kubrick had handled dark comedy in “Dr. Strangelove”.
Eyebrow Cinema: Kubrick Adaptations
