Well we're into April now (how did that happen???) and the Easter weekend is just about here so I thought I would do another post to kick off this month and this time I have gone for another Stanley Kubrick film and this one will be on Dr. Strangelove: Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. So without further ados let's jump on that bomb and ride it down and look at this un......
So the film begins with General Ripper (Sterling Hayden) who is the commander at Burpleson Air Force base, who orders his executive officer, Group Captain Mandrake (Peter Sellers) to put the base on alert. Ripper also issues an order for "Wing Attack Plan R" to any patrolling aircraft from the base, which is picked up by one of the B-52 bomber's commanded by Major "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) who then follows the orders and sets on attack plan against Russia. Mandrake then checks with the Pentagon and discovers that no such order has been issued and then tries to stop Ripper who locks the doors of his office. Ripper then tells Mandrake that he believes the Soviets have been using flouridation of the United States water supply to pollute the precious "bodily fluids" of Americans, leaving Mandrake to deduce that Ripper has gone insane.
Meanwhile at the Pentagon, General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) briefs President Merkin Muffley (also played by Sellers) about the attack. President Muffley is shocked that such an attack could be launched with his authorisation but Turgidson reminds him that the plan enables a superior officer to order the attack in the possible event that the president would also be killed in the strike. Turgidson also tells Muffley that his men are trying every possibly three letter combination of the recall code to stand down the order, but this could take days and the bombers are set to reach their target within an hour, so Muffley then decides to have the army storm Ripper's base and arrest him. Turgidson then suggests that they allow the strike to go ahead and use the element of surprise to destroy the Soviet military before they can strike back, which Muffley rejects outright and instead he calls in the Soviet ambassador, Alexei de Sadeski (Peter Bull) to telephone the Soviet Premier Dimitrov Kissov and offer to reveal the planes positions to protect themselves. Sadeski after speaking with Kissov tells Muffley and the others about the doomsday machine, which was built by the Soviets to protect against a nuclear strike and such an attack would result in generating a giant radioactive cloud, which would wipe out all human and animal life and render the planet uninhabitable for 93 years. Muffley's scientific advisor, the wheelchair bound, Dr. Strangelove (Sellers again) reveals that such a device would only be an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it, but Sadeski reveals that Kissov was going to announced the following week. So from here (I always this to sum up!) the President, the Soviet Ambassador, Turgidson and Mandrake must try and find a way to prevent Ripper from carrying out these attacks, which would ultimately lead to the Doomsday machine activating.....
Dr. Strangelove without a doubt remains one of the great comic satires in modern cinema and its pretty typical of Stanley Kubrick to make a film on such a dark subject matter and do it in such an effective way that its both telling and funny. Kubrick satirises the themes of cold war effectively in the film although the film itself did have another similar one in production at the same time with the film, Fail Safe, which was directed by Sidney Lumet starring Peter Fonda, which was an altogether more serious look at the cold war. Kubrick also had concerns at the time of the film's production that the two films would be too similar in theme to actually do well at the box office and he ended up filing a lawsuit against the makers of Fail Safe as Kubrick owned the rights to the book Dr. Strangelove was based on, Red Alert by Peter George who collaborated with Kubrick on the film's screenplay.
Getting onto the film's performances they are all top notch with Peter Sellers for starters showing off his comedic skills effortlessly in his three roles as Mandrake, President Muffley and Dr. Strangelove. Sellers as Muffley get's the film's most memorable line when Turgidson fights with Sadeski while they are at the Pentagon "war room" and Muffley interrupts that saying "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!". And then as Mandrake, Sellers has some funny moments such as the scene where Mandrake is arrested by Colonel Guano (played by Keenan Wynn) and he orders the Colonel to shoot the lock off the vending machine so he can get some quarters to call the Whitehouse. And as Guano is reluctant to shoot the vending machine, Mandrake complains "Colonel! Can you possibly imagine what is going to happen to you, your frame, outlook, way of life, and everything, when they learn that you have obstructed a telephone call to the President of the United States? Can you imagine? Shoot it off! Shoot! With a gun! That's what the bullets are for, you twit!". And as Dr Strangelove Sellers has some great moments such as his last scene where his right arm starts to fight him and even attempts to choke him as well as make the Hitlerian salute! And as Strangelove, Sellers get's the film's last line as Strangelove miraculously rises from his wheelchair he exclaims "Mein Fuhrer! I CAN WALK!!!".
George C Scott is also great in his role as the somewhat slightly manic General Turgidson who is firmly opposed to the Soviets and even goes as far as to say they should allow Ripper's attack to go through. And Scott get's some great dialogue in the film particularly in the scene where he tries to convince the President to carry on with the attack against the Soviets " It is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless distinguishable, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed!". And as the President warns Turgidson that he is talking about murder and not war, Turgidson tries to reason with the President further by saying "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!".
Sterling Hayden also makes a strong impression as the crazed General Ripper who orders the attack on the Soviets having gone insane. Hayden has some excellent moments in the film as well such as the scene where he first reveals his theory to Mandrake about the Soviets "I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!". And later when Mandrake asks Ripper when he first came along the flouridation theory and Ripper says "Well I...I...I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love" and that "A profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. And I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women seek my power and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but... I do deny them my essence".
Slim Pickens is also really good in his role as the B-52 bomber commander Major Kong, who ends up with the film's most memorable visual moment with Kong riding the bomb as it drops out of the bomber, and he whoops and hollers, waving his cowboy hat wildly around as he plummets to the Earth. Pickens get's some good lines as well and the one that stands out is when he reads out the contents of a survival kit to his men and he says afterward "Shoot, a fella in Vegas could have good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff!". Peter Bull is also very good in his part as the Soviet ambassador, Sadeski who engages in the odd bit of slapstick comedy in the film during his fight with Turgidson. And Bull has a good line when Dr. Strangelove pushes Sadeski for an answer as to why the Doomsday machine wasn't revealed before now and Sadeski says "It was to be announced at the party congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises!".
And last of all Keenan Wynn has a funny role as the army Colonel Bat Guano (good name!) who arrests Mandrake when the army storm Ripper's base. And Keenan's funniest moment comes when Mandrake demands that he shoot the vending machine to get some quarters so he can call the president and Keenan says "Okay. I'm gonna get your money for ya. But if you don't get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what's gonna happen to you? You're gonna have to answer to the Coca Cola company!". And he shoots the lock off and leans over to get some quarters but instead he get's sprayed in the face by Coca Cola!
Finally moving onto Stanley Kubrick, who as the director did a superb job with Dr. Strangelove as he produced a film that is both dark in theme but also quite funny. Kubrick paces the film just about right as it runs at just 94 minutes it rarely ever lags and he manages to handle the film's comedy very well, showing that he really was one of the most versatile director's in modern cinema. The film's original ending in fact involved a pie fight in the war room but this was dropped as Kubrick later said it didn't fit in with the film's satirical tone. The film is also notable for its spectacular sets as Ken Adam, the production designer, produced a stunning set design for the war room at the Pentagon, which must rank as one of the most visually memorable film sets in history. The film also features a rather low key score by Laurie Johnson which is ok but nothing too special, but Kubrick does make good use of Vera Lynn's "We will meet again" at the very end of the film where Kubrick finishes the film with stock footage of nuclear explosions.
As for flaws..... well Dr Strangelove does have one or two snags, the main one that springs to mind is that if you think about it the whole reasoning behind Ripper's attack on the Soviets purely boiled down his own expeirnce of impotence during sex, as he described his theory of flouridation based on this. So basically Ripper is a nutter who couldn't handle his impotence and blamed it on the Russians by allegedly deviating the US water supply and as a result he decided to launch a nuclear war over it! If you think about it, its just a bit daft and silly and insane that a war could be started over something as miniscule as that (well perhaps that was also his other problem!) so in short the guy couldn't get it up and the Russkies were to blame. I also felt that the one thing that slowed the film down a bit were the scenes onboard Major Kong's B-52 as they feel a bit sluggish in comparison to the rest of the pacing of the film even though they are quite important to the story, they don't have the same energy to the Pentagon scenes or Ripper and Mandrake's for that matter either. But these are nothing too major overall.
So that's it for my look at Dr. Strangelove which remains one of the great classic comic satires of the 1960s and indeed in modern cinema, which if you haven't seen it I'd recommend you give it a go.
And with that I shall goodnight and wish you all a Happy Easter when it comes (although I might be back for another post over the weekend).
Until the next one bye the now!
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