Talk:Dr. Strangelove/Archive 1

I had put Kissinger in as a model for Strangelove, but a couple of Strangelove web sites said both Sellers and Kubrick had denied it, saying that von Braun's persona was the only one, although Herman Kahn's ideas were all through it. The web site cited for the Weegee story is the only one that I could find that even mentioned that Weegee had an accident, so it could be so. Left it in. Ortolan88

Kissinger wasn't well known at the time, so it seems unlikely that he would be a model. I have heard that John v. Neumann was, though.

Disputed sentence:

The only person who can save the world is Dr. Strangelove, the former Nazi who heads the U.S. weapons research program.

I watched the film over Labor Day weekend and again last week. I don't recall anything about Stangelove having the ability to save the world. However, Captain Mandrake is focussed on little other than transmitting the recall code that will stop the US bombers from attacking Russia.

Is it possible that with the multiple roles Sellers played, we have confused which incarnation of Sellers was which? --Ed Poor

Great catch! I didn't write that, but I read it so many times without noticing. In a sense, Mandrake is the person who can save the world in terms of the plot of the movie, while Dr. Strangelove is put forward, ironically, as the only person who can save the world politically. Ortolan88

If I recall correctly, Strangelove suggests that with ten women for each men, it would be the, um, pleasant duty of men who survived Armageddon to repopulate the world -- thus saving the human race from extinction. --Ed Poor

Hence the word "ironically". Recall Sen. Richard B. Russell's assertion: "If only one boy and girl are left alive after an atomic war, I want that boy and girl to be Americans."Ortolan88

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General Ripper's plan is foiled--at first--but one B-52 ("The Leper Colony") can't be called back and is heading in to drop the one nuclear bomb that will set off the doomsday machine. The only person who can save the world is Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the British exchange officer who discovers the recall code.

Now, wait a second. I admit I haven't seen the movie in a while, but this summary seems chronologically backwards. As I remember it, the sequence of events is: a) the General's death, b) discovery and broadcasting of the recall code, which stops most of the bombers, then c) realization that the last bomber isn't responding to the code. Once it's discovered that the last B-52 won't respond to the code, there's nothing Mandrake can do about it anymore. To point out that the last bomber can't be stopped, and subsequently imply that Mandrake can do something about it seems bass ackwards. Am I incorrect? Dachshund

No that's it.

Sounds right, but Mandrake not only discovered the code, but also discovered the radio and figured out that the general was lying. Maybe it should say "Mandrake only could have saved the world". Ortolan88

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Surely 'Dmitri' is spelt Demetrius? (with the us silent) -Adrian

Unfortunately, we don't hear Kissoff himself, so he's not credited on the IMDb. But if you google '"dr. strangelove" kissoff' you'll see that in the first 3 pages it's all "Dmitri." --KQ

For what it matters, the DVD English subtitle spells it "Dimitri" Ash Lux 4 July 2005 05:17 (UTC)

The novelization which came out at the same time as the movie also spells it "Dimitri". Wahkeenah 4 July 2005 10:22 (UTC)

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Obviously in the movie the only one who could have saved the world by he's own choice is the pilot of the b-52 that droped the bomb :-)

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The one thing that comes to mind when thinking about this movie is a man riding a falling atom bomb, but no notion of this is made here. Am I mistaken or is this powerful image indeed connected to this movie?

yes, it's one of the final scenes of the film. -- Tarquin

Well, the final scene. Added explicitly to article.

I'm going to move this to the IMDB Title "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"

Damn I made a mistake and moved the talk page, can someone please fix Mintguy

Surely, in the name of common sense, the move ought to be to just plain "Dr Strangelove"? Tannin

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I've always thought Dr Strangelove wasn't nearly as funny or clever as it thinks it is. Most of the jokes appear to have been crudely tacked onto the original thriller plot, the British, Germans and Russians - and the Americans, I guess - are all crudely stereotyped, and all of the characters have stupid "funny" names. Maybe these points should be discussed in the article. Lee M

Done --Lee M

Shouldn't there be more sources than just Lee M's feelings about this reaction to the movie before his paragraph becomes etched in stone. I have read many articles and books about this film and have never encountered the term crude applied to it by anyone else. It seems to be pushing the edge of wiki NPOV to have it in the article when it is better suited to these discussion pages. Just a thought, I could be wrong. MarnetteD | Talk 22:08, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think the converse is true - this film was a lot more serious than some might now realise. I saw it in 1965 with two others in their late teens - it was less than 3 years since the Cuban missile crisis. We all saw it as a very black and bitter anti-war film leavened with a little pointed clowning by Sellers. Revisiting it a couple of times in the last ten years the things that live on are the beauty of the B52 winging through the mountains, and the real tension that's still stirred by the final bomb run. You're right, it isn't at root that funny - but that's because it wasn't meant to be. Linuxlad 09:19, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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The plot summary doesn't explain the part which the character Dr Strangelove plays in the story. Could someone put that in? Marnanel 01:53, Apr 24, 2004 (UTC)

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"Pickens was unaware the film was to be a comedy and played the role straight, thereby becoming all the more funny" -- is there an authoritative source for this statement? A quote from Pickens himself would be best. Lefty 02:03, 2004 Apr 24 (UTC)

I claim responsibility for this edit, and I've been looking round for a reputable cite. Many other sources mention it but only as a long-rumoured story. The best I've found is from Roger Ebert in 1999:

Major Kong was intended to be Sellers' fourth role, but he was uncertain about the cowboy accent. Pickens, a character actor from westerns, was brought in by Kubrick, who reportedly didn't tell him the film was a comedy. Pickens' patriotic speeches to his crew (and his promises of promotion and medals) are counterpoint to the desperate American efforts to recall the flight.[1]

Unless someone can find an unpublished autobiography by Slim Pickens himself it's unlikely that we will know for sure but his acting does seem to have an earnestness not present in the other characters. Perhaps the phrase should be softened to indicate uncertainty. Meanwhile, why is 170.140.79.13 removing the perfectly justified remark about characters as metaphors? Dbiv 21:48, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Or one could ask James Earl Jones who appeared in the bomber with Slim Pickens to see if he knew they were in a comedy or if he knew Pickens knew. Jones, as one of the few actors in the bomber scenes with Pickens might have the best recollection. --SeanO 00:10, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

I did read in a book about war movies that Slim Pickens didn't know they were in a comedy and so he played the role straight forward. I'll let you know what book it is just as soon as I can.

I think that on the DVD they said Sellers was pulled from the bomber pilot character simply because he had an on-set accident that made working in the close-quarters of the bomber set uncomfortable. Someone might want to check on that. Wahkeenah 21:15, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't buy into the idea that Pickens didn't know it was a comedy of some sort. Even if he didn't know initially, riding the bomb and screaming "YA-HOOO" is not exactly a normal dramatic device. Wahkeenah 4 July 2005 10:22 (UTC)

just a few notes:

merkwuerdigliebe for strangelove is an inaccurate translation. more correct would be merkwuerdige liebe. the german version is btw just called dr seltsam(seltsam is nearly the same as merkwuerdig) and misses the love:-/

Dr. Strangelove who ?

There is no mention of the Dr. Strangelove character in the Plot or the Theme sections. Who's he, what does he do and what makes him the title character ? Jay 10:07, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Strangelove is an eccentric former Nazi who appears to be in charge of designing weapons and such for the United States. I have no idea why he's the title character considering he's only in two scenes.

Because no one would be interested in seeing a movie entitled Group Captain Lionel Mandrake. Tverbeek 13:21, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

hi Ortolan88, about otis redding...

I like Redding's version a lot better but he doesn't sing in the movie either. His famous rendition of it is a souped-up version from around 1966, after strangelove was made. The music at the beginning of the movie sounds to me like an orchestrated version of the original, generally attributed to Woods, Campbell, and Connelly.

Monk127 03:13, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, Ibedamned, you're right, of course, Otis's version would have overpowered the scene. The credit for "Try a little tenderness" on the soundtrack album is "Studio Orchestra". The thought that Otis probably learned the song from the movie is mind-blowing, isn't it? I just changed it to this:

• "Try a Little Tenderness", a sentimental pop song from the 1930s later recorded by Otis Redding is played under the titles . . .

Thanks. Ortolan88 04:06, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

new edits

I made a few changes to themes, partly based on my recent viewing of The Making of Dr. Strangelove, available on the special edition DVD, just released, partly based on my own research (Ph.D. student in history, post-1945 Am history).

I corrected an assertion made about the doomsday machine. It was a concept created by Herman Kahn, check On Thermonuclear War, and was meant to mock MAD, but was taken seriously as an idea. Kahn was a curious figure, as he felt his was the morally superior position, but talked in numbers and graphs and so gained a reputation as a monster. Also, MAD worked remarkably well as you can see...we didn't blow ourselves up. So, that's the origin of the doomsday machine--any other said origin is a myth, though the idea itself certainly took off. I've done a lot of research on Kahn, and the DVD Making of mentioned the importance of On Thermonuclear War in the early writing. Kubrick emphasized to his original writing partner (I think it was James B. Harris) Kahn's work.

Until I watched the Making of, I did not know how much Sellers improvised--for instance, the Nazi salute. However, the Nazi scientist critique has been out there for a while and is worth mentioning, which is why I added a paragraph.

I think much more needs to be added to the sex paragraph. For instance, the names? Buck Turgidson? Muffley (female genitalia...see http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/merkin.htm) Jack D. Ripper? Ambassador de Sadesky (Marquis de Sade)? I mean they are just begging for it. The movie is suffused with sex. You only briefly mention Ripper's "impotence." But it's much more odd than that...he talks about withholding his essence. So many fluids are discussed in that little room. By the way fluoridation of the water really did scare people when cities started doing it. There's Turgidson talking to his mistress in the war room, the condom in the supply kit and so forth...and of course what does this lead up to? riding the phallic missile with atomic bomb? What is the critique here? This is a male directed war, a pissing match of sorts that has the highest stakes.

--Dounia 08:29, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I also disagree with the bit in the article about Ripper's "impotence." I interpreted his speech about this as meaning that he sleeps with many women but pulls out before ejaculating. Regarding sex in the film, names & more are also discussed at [2]. 70.17.202.12 01:35, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sex, sex, sex...

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. Dr. Strangelove is revived and able to leave his wheelchair at the end of the movie when he reflects upon the unequal number of women per men required to repopulate the earth. 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.

As enchanting an interpretation as this is, it does smack a little of original research. "Copulating airplanes" and describing a nuclear holocaust as "sexual ecstasy" is all very well, but is this an interpretation we are describing (and hence can reference) or are we making it up ourselves? Can this film be seen as a sex comedy or has it been seen as a sex comedy, and if the latter, by whom?

Mind you, I don't consider this very harmful (I mean, let's not pretend other encyclopedias don't do this), but still. I'm actually a bit surprised that the subtitle's "love the bomb" wasn't mentioned... Isn't that what Major Kong does? (You see how easy it is to do this... Be careful.) JRM 02:17, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

The prose style is a little off, but I think the observations are (mostly) spot-on. As the text now stands, however, it reads as just a list of scenes that may or may not open up to someone not familiar with the film.

Re: "Copulating airplanes": the background score is an instrumental version of "Try A Little Tenderness". Mentioning this would substantiate the claim to some degree... Kea 07:25, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I recall seeing specific mention of this. I think it's on one of the special features on the DVD. Someone mentioned to Kubrik how mid-air refueling looks quite sexual, and that's what made him decide to use it in the film. I'll see if I can find it. -R. fiend 14:57, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The "copulating aircraft" have been noticed since the film's release. Many reviews note this. I haven't checked this, but it seems that the Playboy centrefold from the bomber is actually the same woman as Buck Turgidson's bikini beauty.

Sex runs through Kubrick's films. I am reminded of the "docking sequence" in 2001:a space odyssey as well as other Freudian references throughout the film. Pete 20:16, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The sexual stuff is not "original research", contrary to what someone above said. Most of what the writer a few paragraphs above said, closely mirrors the analysis done by the author of an excellent book from a decade or two ago, called "Stanley Kubrick Directs". Wahkeenah 21:15, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Great. References is all I ask for. I hope I can be excused for not knowing all this stuff myself, and asking for it. (And I was careful enough not to say it was original research, I only said it "smacked of" original research. Without attribution, it most certainly does.) JRM · Talk 21:29, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Detractors

"Despite its undeniable classic status, the film is not without its detractors." Is this statement significant without some mention made of those detractors? I read that waiting to hear what specifically the criticisms are, but it just ends there. Without something more said I dont see this sentence as useful at all. I mean, no film has 100% approval rating; they all have some detractors. -R. fiend 05:24, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I removed the sentence. It basically said "not everyone likes the movie" (well duh!). If someone wants to add some specific widely held criticisms please do, but without them the sentence is useless. -R. fiend 17:58, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

picture

Get a picture of Kong riding the bomb.- B-101 18:02, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Done! Dr. Cash 03:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Chess anecdote

The item under "trivia", about Kubrick and Scott playing chess, is somewhat incoherent. I started to correct it, but realized I have no idea what it's really trying to say. My best guess was that Scott argued with Kubrick over certain aspects of the movie, but they usually played games of chess to decide whose ideas would prevail. And apparently, Kubrick regularly won. Does anyone have a source for this? It seems rather... weak of a director of Kubrick's reputation to leave it up to a chess game to settle a difference of opinion with an actor. -DynSkeet (talk) 15:22, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it would make more sense than the method we use here on Wikipedia: the revert war. At least in the Kubrick/Scott method, intelligence (of some kind) carries the day, whereas here, it's just perserverance.

Atlant 15:44, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I recall some mention of this on the DVD bonus material. If I recall, Kubrik used chess as a way to gain the respect of Scott, and sort of put him in his place. Scott, I guess, was known to be the sort of guy who liked to do things his way. I really don't think I was used to settle individual matters. I'll watch the thing again and try to get the specifics sometime soon. -R. fiend 17:08, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. That sounds a little more reasonable... my original impression was something along the lines of:

Scott: Hey, Stan, got an idea. Why don't I give Turgidson a funny Scottish accent?

Kubrick: Um, tell you what. Let's play chess, and if you win, you can do the Scottish thing.

Whatever the bonus material indicates, please update the trivia section fittingly. -DynSkeet (talk) 19:06, August 8, 2005 (UTC)