As a person who grew up during the 70s, this film is extremely important. In high school near Washington D.C. in the 80s, my friends and I would frequently talk about "What are you going to do if you hear the missile sirens?" The Cold War was a terrifying time. This film pointed out how insane it all was.
My mother told me about seeing this when it first came out. She had to repress a giggle when she realized what they were trying to convey with this first scene. She was the only one in the audience who got the joke, because, yeah, that's what they were trying to say. LOL But y'know what? People were absolutely terrified of the world ending back then. It hasn't happened yet. Yay!
@@matsv201 you have the right idea, but it's not fighters that are produced. When KC-135 Tankers are mated with B-52 Bombers the B-52 gives birth to bombs.
"I feel like I'm watchin' an intimate moment between two planes." Ashleigh, you are, no joke, the first reactor I've seen pick up on that. That is 100% the intent of the credits.
@@patrickflanagan3762 Yes... After reading the comments, I gathered that it might be a dispiriting experience watching her missing the point of it all, so I skipped it.
Most people miss the movie's depressing theme that the male instinct to dominate, both in sex and competition is what will eventually destroy us all -- thus the sexual innuendo of the planes refueling in the beginning and the huge phallic missile between Major Kong's legs in the end. Also the suggestion that General Ripper went off the deep was because he was impotent (loss of bodily fluids).
I love the subtlety in this movie. The Air Force General Buck Turgidson loved gum and was chewing it the entire time. Pair that with the fact that the Air Force survival pack includes 9 packs of chewing gum, you get a giggle.
The point behind this movie is how easily a perfect storm of the wrong people in the wrong places at the wrong time could have completely ended us all, and how you'll either fall into a bottomless hole of depression thinking about that, or learn to laugh at how we could wipe ourselves out for the most ludicrous reasons.
@@ravenwind1062 And it does not even have to be knowingly exploited. It is sufficient that some bloke with his own axe to grind feels aligned with the overall plan, and just rides it.
The same year, Fail Safe made the same point in a very serious way. Both are important films but I think Strange Love is more famous and much more quotable. I wonder if seeing fail safe would have prepped her mood for this film.
@@SiqueScarface I've had discussions with people that say Strangelove was the master puppeteer, recognizing those he could subtly manipulate and helped to move him into useful place, such as Ripper and Turgidson. This makes assumptions about things that we do not see on screen., however.
Stanley Kubrick is notorious for not letting actors improvise at all and being extremely extremely rigid with sticking to his vision, sometimes doing 100 takes on a single scene until he's satisfied. For him to allow Peter Sellers to go off the rails with adlibs for entire scenes at a time just shows how incredible Sellers really was.
he did allow Malcolm McDowell some free rein in A Clockwork Orange, for instance 'Singing in the Rain' during the rape scene was improvised. Also Kubrick let Lee Ermey go nuts as the Drill Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.
Kubrick had just cast Sellers four years earlier as James Mason's sardonic buddy in "Lolita", which was almost ENTIRELY Sellers' improvisation, so giving him most of Strangelove to play with was another handpicked showpiece.
You actually did a pretty good description about the movie and you definitely followed the plot pretty well too. It's a dark satire about the Cold War, which was still happening at the time this movie was made. If you go back and look closely you can definitely see Peter Sellers playing the three roles of Dr. Strangelove, Mandrake and The President - he was also originally gonna play Major Kong, the southern cowboy pilot who rides the bomb, but Sellers had trouble doing the southern accent so Slim Pickens got to do the role instead. Pickens you have seen in Blazing Saddles as Taggert, the right hand and henceman to the villain Hedley "Hedy" Lamarr. Peter Sellers was an amazing character actor, but in real life he had this erratic behaviour that made it hard to work with him and he wasn't a good husband and a father to be honest. You should check Sellers out in the Pink Panther movies.
@@ACriticalGeek It's more of a Pink Panther movie than the Inspector Closeau movie starring Alan Arkin, THAT ONE is a non Pink Panther movie! A Shot In The Dark has Peter Sellers in the role & it's Blake Edwards directing so it still counts! It doesn't have the Pink Panther character in it, I don't care, it still counts!
I read that when Peter Sellers chose not to do Major Kong, James Earl Jones said he knew someone who would be a great person for the role. Apparently when Slim Pickins arrived, Peter Sellers said why did he show up in costume.
You are not wrong for not understanding how this movie is set up entirely. For those of us who lived around and during the Cold War it has greater significance and this is truly a product of its time. Good job getting through it!
Fun Fact: Stanley Kubrick was investigated by the Pentagon because the B-52 set was so accurate. The B-52 Stratofortress was highly classified at the time.
Ashleigh: We were deep a real Cold War. Stanley Kubrick was a lens Master. Next more Kubrick - Barry Lyndon? B-52 are still up there. Slim Pickens - a real character
This movie is a bizarre mix of the extremely realistic and the absurd and I think that was on purpose. The attack on the air base is extremely realistic while the office machine gun was ridiculous, The interior of the B-52 was remarkable, and the exterior was well behind 1960s contemporary special effects.
@@huosb1768 Slim Pickens doesn't get the accolades as an actor he deserves in my opinion. He has been in many great films but barely gets acknowledged most of the time.
I just love watching Slim Pickens, of Blazing Saddles fame, as the bomber pilot. Nobody told him he was in a comedy, so he played it completely straight and was still hilarious, because Slim Pickens just was. They don't make actors like him any more.
A few things I loved about your reaction. Leaving the original disclaimer in was great. "Peace is Our Profession" is the real-life motto of the Strategic Air Command. Finally, the last song was from England's WWII sweetheart Vera Lynn, "We Will Meet Again." Edit: As far as the emotional impact of this movie, I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis.
And it was very controversial when introduced. Many people thought it was the beginning of a slippery slope of the government taking over what we put in our bodies.
Worth noting that about 75% of modern Americans are drinking fluoridated water. It's done purely to limit tooth decay, especially important since so many Americans processed foods have high sugar content.
For more context, adding it to municipal water systems was relatively new, and raised a fair bit of controversy. It really is medicating the entire population. While fighting dental disease is good, the effects of fluoride being introduced into every bit of water you take was not known at the time. It enters the bones and teeth, certainly, and that is how it fights tooth decay, but what else might it do? In many ways the dispute is similar to the objections to the forced COVID vaccinations of the past few years: the mRNA vaccines' effectiveness and long-term effects have not been established, and even now they have not even received full FDA certification (only emergency certification thus far), so many people did not want to be guinea pigs. And in fact, for some populations (many people of descent from Japanese and southwest Indians) the fluoridation is too much and is known to cause problems, including tooth breakdown. There are a few U.S. water systems that do not have fluoridation, and of course, most well water is not, as well as some bottled water (but much bottled water simply comes from the local municipal systems).
My mother met James Earl Jones around the time he was in this movie. He wasn't hugely famous movie star yet, but he was getting pretty big as a Broadway Star and my mother was an actress. She met him at a restaurant and she and her friends invited him to a party. She met him again at a restaurant 50 years later. She introduced herself and told him the story. His response: "Did I behave?" For the record, she said he did.
As a SAC trained killer myself, this movie and Failsafe are two of my favorite films. Yes, you probably needed to live in the era to fully understand and appreciate the humor. And as to your question if an aircraft loaded with bombs were to crash would they detonate, the answer is no. We as an Air Force have had multiple crashes with bombs on board. Usually the explosive device used to make the big boom happen will explode, but if the weapon isn't fused it will not go off. As of this moment, an atomic weapon is still lost in a North Carolina swamp. So there's that.
I think you spot on about living in the time to understand the humor. I also think it’s interesting how younger people today freak out about Cold War type incident that happened the time when we were young (lost atomic bonds, Russian bombers probing Alaska airspace, tensions over arms treaties and concerns about “the bomber gap”. It’s like all these things never happened before…..but they did!
For a bit more detail, a hydrogen fusion bomb requires a uranium or plutonium fission warhead to reach sufficient temperature and pressure for the fusion to occur. To make the fission explosion happen, you have to slam the pieces of fissible materials together really quickly (or they will melt before reaching critical, explosive mass - it requires a certain amount in a lump), and a conventional explosive like TNT to do that. When there is a crash or other mishap, the conventional explosive may go off, but the arming process requires the proper alignment, etc. of the fissile material, so even when the conventional explosive goes off, the uranium/plutonium bomb cannot, and therefore the fusion part of the weapon cannot go off. (That's not for you, Paul, but for those who confuse the nuclear steps with the initial explosion of the conventional explosives).
Yes, this. Nukes require very specific thing to happen in a very specific order within a very specific time if they are going to produce a nuclear detonation.
And just to keep up that healthy rivalry between North Carolina and South Carolina, I'd like to point out that when the Air Force dropped a bomb on us by accident in 1958, just outside of Florence in Mars Bluff, we didn't lose it in a swamp, the explosives went off and made an impressive crater. But don't feel bad, North Carolina, you're not the only ones to lose the bomb that got dropped on you, Georgia's got one somewhere off the coast of Tybee Island that's never been found.
A couple of obscure points - the President's name, Merkin Muffley - a "merkin" is a pubic wig [I'm serious - such things actually exist]; he said "precious bodily fluids" because in the early 1960's you couldn't say "sperm" in movies; and fluoridation was the adding of fluoride to drinking water to prevent teeth decay; and "Batguano" means bat manure
Peter Sellers was fantastic in every movie he was in. These are three of his best roles - Sellers plays Mandrake, Strangelove and the President - and he is surrounded by a supremely talented cast. Slim Pickens plays the pilot who rides the bomb. Hilarious names for the parts: "Jack D. Ripper", "General Buck Turigidson", "President Melvin Murkley". There's so much fun going on, I can't remember it all.
The voice you think sounds familiar is Slim Pickens, who played Taggart in "Blazing Saddles." Dr. Strangelove is a total classic! Peter Sellers was phenomenal. Also, if you haven't seen the Pink Panther movies, with Sellers playing the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, you need to add them to your watch list. Some of the funniest movies ever made!
I always love the behind-the-scenes tidbit of when George C Scott genuinely tripped and fell, and how he stayed in character and kept delivering his lines as he somersaulted himself back on his feet. And how it fits the absurdist tone of the film so well that Kubrick decided to leave it in the film.
The story goes that Kubrick wanted Scott to play his role as we see it in the film, but Scott wanted to play his general straight, not as a comic foil. So, Kubrick pretended to acquiesce to Scott and filmed each of his scenes twice, once as Kubrick wanted it as a warm up and once as Scott envisioned it after in a more dramatic tone. Kubrick kept his own vision in the final product and they never worked together again.
"I feel like I'm watching an intimate moment between two airplanes." Oh, you're getting it. Everything about this movie is about sex. Ripper can't get it up. Characters obsessed with getting the biggest weapon. This whole thing is about sex and violence and the absurdity of it all on the world stage.
@@michaelturner2806 Interestingly enough, the 'other' items in the survival packs - lipstick, nylons, etc - are legit; they were meant to be used for bartering. That said, they indeed add to the subtextual humor.
Don't worry Ashleigh, you're actually pretty spot on as to what its about. And while it is a comedy, its DEFINITELY supposed to make people feel uncomfortable.
How nice of Beans for allowing you sharing seats with her ;) You know... Kubrick LOVED Sellers and he did let him improvise to no end. When Sellers calls the Russian president basically everything after "Hello Dimitri?" was completely improvised on the spot. Each take Sellers gave Kubrick something else and Stanley was often rolling on the floor laughing because of Peter. Even the actors had a hard time not cracking up. You can see how much the guy, who plays the Russian ambassador, has a hard to contain his laughter when Sellers goes full Doctor Strangelove in his wheelchair.
We were stationed at K.I. Sawyer AFB (Air Force Base) during the Cuban missile crisis. The base was a combination SAC (Strategic Air Command) with B-52 bombers like the ones sent to bomb Russia in this movie, as well as interceptors to shoot down incoming Russian bombers. My father was on a 15 minute alert and there were Air Raid drills every day. We would go down to the makeshift bomb shelter in the basement and wait for the all clear. I was 5 years old at the time and I still remember it. While in the Navy, we had Soviet Bear Bombers fly overhead in the Pacific. So yeah, I lived most of my life in the Cold War, waiting for things to go badly.
I was attending Dutch high school in the 1980s. Started picking up books at the library about surviving nuclear war, how to set booby traps, and how to recognize camouflaged nukes. Turns out the last one was fake... Anyway, I still remember from how to survive: The hiding place must have steel reinforced concrete walls and roof, preferably lead lined. If no lead or concrete available, one meter of dirt would have to make do. At the time our family home had a spacious underground garage plus some more underground space. The previous owner's wife used to have a hair salon next to the underground garage. So I was thinking, as any optimistic, energetic 14-year old. Aaah... So all we gotta do is get a shovel and heap some dirt onto that garage door, as that was the only part in contact with the outside world. And the stairs inside leading up to the house of course.
“Stanley Kubrick…. He likes to emphasize silence”. YES!!!! Thanks Ashleigh. I’ve been thinking the same thing for many years but couldn’t put my finger on it. 😅
Love how Beans at the end was really hard trying to explain the movie to her, Beans got it and loved it, plus you just gotta love a man with the name Slim Pickens
Ashleigh I think you struggled with this because you weren’t alive during the cold war. We lived daily with the thought that one day the world would end due to some mistake. This film attempted to ease our fears by emphasizing how silly things would have get in order for that to happen. I remember seeing this movie as a child and asking my dad if this could happen, and he pointed to the ridiculousness of the movie. In truth, I’m not sure back then there were enough safeguards in place. The concept of a failsafe doomsday machine was often discussed after this movie came out.
Weirdly I find it less funny than when I first stumbled across it twenty years ago, mainly because America seems much, much closer to this lunacy these days...
I agree with most of what you said, but this film was definitely **not** attempting to "ease our fears". It was attempting to show how terrible and absurd of a situation nuclear weapons had created, and to show how stupid many of the people in charge of the system were/are. It was showing a mostly realistic scenario of what might happen, but the situation itself was so absurd that Kubrick couldn't help but turn it into a comedy.
Not sure why it should matter whether or not one lived during those times. The total seriousness and simultaneous complete idiocy of nuclear war is quite easy to grasp and understand if you think on it for just a minute or two. It was (and still is) ludicrous to fight a battle over principles (or anything else for that matter) that will be destroyed along with most of humanity if the battle is actually conducted.
@@smiddlehurst1 We've ALWAYS been this close (pinching my thumb and index finger very close together) to killing others and ourselves over idiotic reasons. It ain't a new concept.
Don't feel bad Ashleigh. This film is a masterpiece, but simpler than you may think. Though there are layers, the main idea to laugh in the face of our biggest fears and to point out the absurdity of MAD (mutually assured destrution) policies. You have to understand the spirit of the age it was made in. This was the height of the cold war with the Cuban missile crisis not long in the rear view mirror. The only way to comment on the subject in such a big way is to make it comedic because it is so heavy. Remember during this time school kids even did atom bomb 'duck and cover' drills at school.
I think maybe the movie is less effective if you are unfamiliar with the cold war milieu, as indeed most young people are now. Also, while technically a comedy, it's definitely the "wry smile" kind of comedy more than the "laugh out loud" kind. (I think someone once said that when comedy isn't funny it's called satire.)
I'm not entirely convinced the Mutually Assured Destruction (deterrence really) is completely absurd, it certainly seems to play a significant part of human and animal lives. Think of poisonous animals and predator behavior (going after the weakest not the strongest), mating rituals etc. In general animals and indeed people don't want to mess with others that can really mess you up.
Dr Strangelove is loosly based on Warner Von Braun the creater of the V2 rockets used by the natizes in WW2. Who caputered by the allies to work on the space program to get to the moon. The joke here is he in a wheelchair symbolizes natize germany beaten Down by the US and USSR. but gets up when the superpowers Destroy each other. This the natizes get the last laugh.
thank you freshman year film intro class, first one we watch & I loved it. “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!” 😂 hilarious irony
3:45 " I feel like I'm watching an intimate moment between two airplanes". Ashleigh, you're spot on! Kubrick intentionally put this music on to hint at the innuendo of in-flight refueling.
In the early 1960s there was a political debate about adding fluoride to public drinking water so kids would grow up with strong teeth. The debate was about the lawfulness of the government making a decision about fluoride for kids when their parents could take them to the dentist and get a fluoride treatment for them. In general Ripper's crazy brain, fluoride, sex, ejaculation, fatigue were all conflated in an insane mess.
My father was a dentist that graduated in 1959. He grew up with people with few, discolored, or rotten teeth all over society. He himself lost most of his (replaced with crowns, bridges, etc.) by the time I was born in 1969 when he was 35.
I actually love this movie, all of the irony, dark humor, and absurd situation. The crazy general's name being Jack D. Ripper, the other general's name being "Buck" Turdison , the off screen Russian leader (Premier Kissof), the Colonel who captured Mandrake was named "Bat" Guano, which is another name for bat poo, which his name can be rendered Bat s-h-i-t. And the crown jewel, Dr Strangelove's name in German roughly translates to strange love. Fluoridation of water was controversial back then, other than strengthen teeth, and killing germs, there's no need to add chemicals to our water supply. Overall, it's a deep movie that needs several watchings to get all the jokes.
i am from germany and don´t know what you mean with "Dr Strangelove's name in German roughly translates to strange love". "strangelove" is not a german name. its the combination of the 2 english words you mentioned. The movie is called "Dr Seltsam...." here - translated to english it would just be "Dr Strange" without the "love". but even that isn´t a name that anyone here really would have. But the other stuff you mentioned is interesting information :)
@@Zireael83 thank you for clarifying, I reckon that's what I should have said. it's a combination of the two words. I stumbled across that tidbit in one of my German dictionaries after watching the movie one day. I can read German acceptably, but can't speak it too well.
That’s Turgidson. Turgid means swollen or distended, like oh, say, a boner. The President is Merkin Muffley. A merkin is basically a wig for female pubic hair, while a muff is an older term for female genitalia. Another way of saying the president is a pussy (and not Beans)
You are adorable. It was meant for people to talk about and to question all that we are doing. The first time I saw this I couldn't stop laughing one of my friends was almost crying and my other friend said he was scared that something like would happen and seeing it on TV made him see others thought like him. Each person reactions to this movie are theirs alone. Thanks for the blast from my pass.
You shoulda been there in real time, Ricardo. Same reactions! But the scared and crying had good reason then. The threat, however illogical, was genuine and we actually did the Duck & Cover practice in our school classrooms! I... being of moderate intelligence (at least back then)... started calculating how far from major cities we were. Since both LA and SF were over 200 mi. distant... I breathed a sigh of relief! No Bomb was gonna kill Me !!!
I was just thinking the other day "I wish there was another movie reaction to Dr.Strangelove" and this is perfect because Ashleigh is my favorite movie reactor.
Ay! An Ashleigh Reacts! Good times! So, for this one I think you have to remember just how terrified everyone was pretty much all the time as to nuclear war breaking out when the film was made. Phrases like 'megadeaths', 'mutual assured destruction', 'core of inner refuge', 'DEFCON 1' were known by pretty much everybody and there was always the fear that a misunderstanding could cause a nuclear missile exchange where everything moved so fast (within half an hour missiles could hit) that you couldn't avoid the end of everything. Kubrick set out to make a serious movie on this possibility, but everything was so hysterically appalling that his mind rebelled and it turned into a comedy. There's another movie called Fail Safe which is filmed like a live play, and is also really good, but is a serious version of this. Dr Strangelove represents those Nazi scientists both Russia and America took on after the war to help their own missile programs. A bonkers Nazi scientist working under an American flag is still a bonkers Nazi scientist. The movie was a big hit and a lot of people were crying and laughing at the same time at the end. The situation was so absurdly horrible that it could be a comedy and a horror at the same time.
What do you mean was? Nuclear annihilation is still a possibility and with morons like the people leading our nation right now, the needle is closer to midnight than it has been in 30 years.
You're right on Peter. It was the mood of the nation at that time. School kids had drills where they ducked under their desks or gathered in hallways. The joke was "If it's a nuke, bend over as far as you can and kiss your ass goodbye!"
While nuclear war still remains a real threat to humanity (especially given current events,) I guess anyone who grew up after the fall of the Soviet Union doesn't feel the weight of it. I grew up in the 1980s, and I remember it well. I think Ashley probably does understand what this film is satirizing, but I agree that it just doesn't hit home. Sadly, Doctor Strangelove is still relevant. It might help to watch a movie like The Day After to get more context.
@@JonathanChereckI was a kid in the 80s and remember hearing all the drama of the cold war stuff on the world news. I always thought they needed to shut up about it because is was a majority of the news broadcast. It all seemed so much petty BS to my grade school brain.
That's how brilliant Peter Sellers was as an actor. He was also supposed to play the part of the airplane pilot, but broke his leg early in the filming of that story line, so they recast Slim Pickens in that role. You may have recognized him from "Blazing Saddles", but he was in many films.
Fell off the bomb bay set. They had to hold up production because they recast it to Slim Pickens but then realised he had never been out of the country and didn’t have a passport….so another couple weeks to get that processed. When he got to England one of the studio secretaries allegedly remarked, “He came in costume”
Interesting fact: When Slim Pickens is reading off the list of gear the men are issued and says, "Shoot, a fella could have a good time in Vegas with all that stuff." It's clearly been dubbed. There was no time to re-shoot the scene and recut the film before it premiered so it remained dubbed. The REASON for the dub was because the original line was, "a fella could have a good time in Texas..." Well, just at that time, JFK was assassinated in Texas. Producers didn't want it to seem like they were making light of the assassination, so they just went with the fast dub and it's stayed that way.
Dr. Strangelove is a movie that relies heavily upon the cultural and societal situations of the day. I was 7 years old when it was released and so was intimately familiar with those situations. Many of the characters names are directly related to their personalities or "in-jokes" at the time (i.e. Gen. Jack T Ripper, Gen. Turgidson and President Merkin). A great deal of the comedy is lost if these situations aren't familiar. The fear of the "Red Menace" was, at the time, very real. The reference you found to a movie called Fail-Safe which released at approximately the same time was anything but a comedy. It was a wonderful example of the very real fears that were prevalent during the cold war. It might not make a good reaction film but I would recommend watching it if you have the chance. It is a wonderful film. Anyway... Another wonderful reaction. Keep up the good work
You might notice that Kong's lips don't match his line "A fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff." That's because the city in the line was originally Dallas, but then the JFK assassination occurred there and Slim Pickens had to quickly dub over it before release. Even worse, the original ending included the line "Our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime" after Muffley got a pie in the face.
Peter Bull, who played Russian Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky finally cracks up due to the off-script antics of Sellers and breaks character during the final scene when Peter Sellers is pounding on his ratcheted arm! What a truly thought-provoking movie this is. May I suggest "Little Big Man" with Dustin Hofman and "The Court Jester" with Danny Kaye at some point in your long list of movie-viewing.
Thanks for your reaction. I have to say, when i first saw the film, i was very confused for the first half hour until i understood that this film is a satire! Saw it a second and a third time and only then, i could really appreciate the wild and very fine humor!!! Its a masterpice, it tells you, how stupid everyone and everything is, especially when it comes to war! Love this movie
I had a very similar reaction when I first saw it as a teen in the '70s. I knew it was satire, though (It was listed as such in TV Guide), and I was already into political satire, but the subtle elements left my reaction subdued. Seeing it more as an adult, I appreciated it far more.
Yes, a lot of this being careless about what to be afraid of, and being preoccupied with nonsense. It isn't necessarily turning around on what Strangelove's planning, though he's definitely not upset with the way things have turned out. Ripper (yes, like the serial killer - all of the main characters have names that play off of their personalities) is the one who sets things off. The politicians in the war room are ineffective and guided by their own priorities. Kubrick did start off trying to make a serious movie, but as he says in your quote, he couldn't do it: the whole concept of what we'd gotten ourselves into was too absurd and to scary. The first time we watched this, on broadcast tv, when I was under 11 years old, my mother observed that one of the scariest things was how the determined the pilots were to get their job done. She described it as American ingenuity gone haywire. In my mind I always equate this movie with "The Russians Are Coming", another comedy with fewer dark edges, about the Cold War. The events in the movie more or less are in real time, which always struck me as a nice touch. It's a tough one to wrap your mind around the first time around. I do recommend giving it at least another one. Sellers is Mandrake, the President and Strangelove. Turigdson (sp) is George C. Scott, one of the great stage and screen actors of his generation. The Russian Ambassador is British actor Peter Bull, a familiar actor in movies of that time. I always loved his voice and what he could do with it. If you watch this again, at the end, watch him trying to hold it together while Sellers' Strangelove battles with his hand. It makes me smile to watch Bull trying not to spoil the take. Thanks for this one!
That wicked arm that involuntarily gives the Nazi salute and the hand on the end tries to kill its owner is hilarious. As the world careens to destruction, Strangelove regains his strength. Still kills me to this day.
One of, if not the greatest film satires ever made. Peter Sellers was incredible and got to improvise many of his lines, including the phone conversations and the final moment when he accidentally stands up. And it's such a wonderfully quotable movie. "Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff!" "You can't fight in here, this is The War Room!" "You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company." So good. Also, Kubrick tricked George C. Scott, the actor who played General Turgidson. Scott wanted to play the role more seriously, but Kubrick advised him to do crazy, goofy outtakes for practice. Kubrick said that the outtakes obviously wouldn't be used in the film... and then used _all_ of them. For example, General Turgidson falls over in one scene, then quickly recovers. That was not planned. Scott later admitted that Kubrick was pretty clever for doing that, but vowed never to work with him again.
The original line was ‘…pretty good weekend in Dallas’ but as Kennedy had just been killed there 2 months before film came out they edited out Dallas & replaced it with Vegas in post-production
This is considered one of the greatest comedies ever made and Peter Sellers was nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars (he did 3 roles in the film: The British Official, Mr. President, and Dr. Strangelove) unfortunately he lost to Rex Harrison for My Fair Lady. George C. Scott in between shoots would play chess with director Kubrick. The film had an alternate ending where the world still blows up, but before it does everyone in the War Room Breaks out in a pie fight and one line was after the President was hit by a pie “Oh the President brought down in his prime” and the whole ending was scrapped because 1) it was deemed to silly and 2) that line would correlate to much to real events as while the film was made Kennedy was killed. The man who rides the bomb down you thought sounded familiar was the big bigot idiot Taggert in Blazing Saddles. If you want another topical film look for THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING (1966).
🤠👍 Fun Fact: Although he speaks with a thick southern drawl, Slim Pickens is actually from Central California which believe it or not, contains a lot of areas where people speak in that manner. It's where Buck Owens (among others) made a name for himself.
I've noticed that my teenage kids can't quickly alphabetize things. They don't teach it anymore! I guess when you don't use phone books and card catalogs it's not such a critical skill.
OMG I'm sooooo happy you decided to watch this one. Such a great performance(s) by Peter Sellers (he plays the President, the assistant to the General and Dr Strangelove). Slim Pickens is the one you thought sounded familiar (he was Taggert in Blazing Saddles) A lot of the humour in this movie is in the ridiculousness of the conversations and focus of the different characters in the midst of such an event, and how the people making decisions shouldn't because they're not qualified or sane enough to actually make those decisions. Oh btw, fluoridation is when they add fluoride like in toothpastes to the tap water in a town/city (been happening for many years and was originally to help prevent tooth decay) I can only suggest that, because there was so much going on, that you watch it again and you'll probably pick up on a lot of things you didn't catch the first time.
My dad and I quote this movie at each other all the time. And then I can't tell you how many times I've used "You're gonna have to answer to the Coca Cola Company" as a reply to something, but the person never gets it.
I have a cool story to share. My Dad got to meet Slim Pickens (Major Kong), and spent a whole day with him at the Rodeo back in the 1970s. He was a mutual friend of a family friend. My dad said he was a really cool guy.
It's one of my dad's favourite films and he introduced it to me. In the 60s he was an apprentice in my local Royal Navy Dockyard and he once told me that at the height of the crisis they all went outside for a last cigarette and wait for the flash of light as the Dockyard would be a primary target for the USSR.
"Why is he always chewing gum?" Well, yeah, that's part of it, it's oral fixation. I'll help you, seeing how you danced around the subject every chance you had. It's all about sex, from start to finish. ALL OF IT. Remember how Major Kong dropped down from the bomber with the world's most dangerous phallic symbol between his legs? It wasn't a metaphor for anything, it was exactly what it looked like. General Jack D Ripper went offbase because he became impotent, and he wondered if the country's plan of putting fluoride in water to prevent tooth decay made him flaccid... so he destroyed the world with the help of Major Kong's Big D energy.
Great review as always Ashleigh! Just a few notes: "Leaned to love the bomb": Just a few years earlier, Kruschev had promised to "bury" the US. Between that, air raid drills, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, people grew up in the early '60s genuinely expecting to be vaporised at any second. I think this is part of the reason for the late '60s counterculture explosion. The young people felt they had nothing to lose. In fact, some of them called themselves "bomb babies" because they grew up under the shadow of nuclear war. "Not based on any persons living or dead": this is an outright lie, lol. Kubrick is covering his arse. George C. Scott as the crazy general is based on General Westmoreland who later would escalate the conflict in Vietnam; Dr. Strangelove is Henry Kissinger; Russian President Dmitri is Nikita Kruschev; and there are probably quite a few more. The caricatures don't mean much to young audiences today, sadly. Fun fact: Peter Sellers plays Dr. Strangelove AND the British ambassador! Yes, it was before tanning beds! Those cancer-causers would not come along until the 1980s. You're smart enough to understand it, Ashleigh. You're just too young, lol. You didn't grow up with this reality.
A good comment, but I would suggest that the character, Dr. Strangelove, is more closely based on "de-Nazified" rocket engineer Dr. Werner von Braun, who was the lead behind the deadly V2 rockets that the Third Reich launched on the UK, and became a high ranking person at NASA until his death in 1977. Btw, most of the character names in the movie have a point, usually historical or sexual or both, again making fun of the figures being satirised...
Another outright lie: "It is the stated position of the U.S. Air Force that their safeguards would prevent the occurence of such events as are depicted in this film." This was proven false decades later. Any General could launch a nuclear strike on his own recognizance.
Ripper was an exaggerated (Though only slightly) version of a member of the John Birch Society. Among other things, they saw a communist plot in almost everything. Including fluoridation of the water. Side note, tanning bulbs with high UV concentrations were a thing back then. But you had to move either it or you around. Not as intense as the later ones, but if you left it on one place too long it would tan or burn you very unevenly.
Some trivia: - James Earl Jones was a Broadway actor for years before he got his first film role in this movie. - George C Scott (General Turgidson) was a serious actor and wanted to play his role seriously. Kubrick told him to do his scenes over the top for practice, then they would shoot the "real" scenes. Only when the film was edited, Kubrick of course used the over the top scenes instead. - The names are hilarious. Merkin Muffley (A merkin is fake pubic hair), Bat Guano, Buck Turgidson (Turgid means engorged), Jack Ripper (possibly a reference to a serial killer), Premier Kissov etc.
"Already, because it's a Kubrick film, VERY excited." I'm just SO. DAMN. PROUDA YOU, Ashleigh. You kinda got the story right. Basically, it's about how paranoia drives people to self-destruction and they fail to learn even in the face of failure. The movie might not seem funny nowadays because the blatant idiocy of the characters is now common behavior found in real world politicians and it's too on-the-nose; but back in 1964 this kind of thing was considered over-the-top ridiculous. Also, General Ripper was based on Curtis LeMay, whom most of his subordinates claimed was psychotic in real life and actively sought to goad the USSR into an actual nuclear conflict. So that disclaimer at the beginning was unintentionally false.
And then Thirteen Days showed LeMay was trying very, very hard to push JFK into just pressing the button. Thankfully, JFK had a cooler head on his shoulders.
@@Stray7 Yeah. Nobody outside of the military knew that LeMay was actually insane and attempting to actually provoke war. That was something that turned out to be true later.
Don't worry Ashleigh it took me a couple of watches to get my head round it. You just need to know your history and be in the right frame of mind (it's a black comedy/satire) when you watch it. Do a bit of reading of the comments and then give it another go and I can guarantee you'll laugh your arse off. Sellers performances in this are unmatched!❤️
This is the greatest satire movie ever made about nuclear war, Stanley Kubrick was absolutely genius when he made this movie. You have to remember this was at the height of the cold war. The general is George c Scott who plays Patton in movie and won the academy award for that role. Peter Sellers became more famous with his Pink panther movies as inspector Clouseau which are hilarious
Fail Safe was the serious movie response to this movie and came out a year later, well worth watching. We actually lost a few nukes over the US, one before this movie was made crashed through the bomb bay door and landed in a field killing a cow. Luckily only the conventional explosives exploded as the nuke part wasn't armed at the time.
Beans is a most perceptive and loquacious cat! I appreciated her feline input. Ashleigh, don't feel bad about not immediately "getting" this film. It's from a time before you were born, the most intense years of the Cold War, in the 1960s. I grew up in the Sixties and it was a different world back then. Now that you know it's supposed to be a satire, come back to the film in a few days or weeks and watch it again. It may grow on you.
This is a great movie, and Peter Sellers is a great actor. He played 3 charactors in this, the president, the british group captain, and of course Dr. Strangelove. Peter Sellers was also great in the pink panther movie from 1964 called a shot in the dark, that is also a must watch. The B-52 bomber pilot is Slim Pickens, he was the guy working for Hedley Lamar in the Blazing Saddles movie. A nuclear bomb on a plane would never explode in a crash, that would be crazy. It can only explode after it is programmed to explode, and the bomb is made active. They do the same thing with missiles on fighter jets, in case of a crash, they can only explode after they are programmed to be active.
You're a millennial Ashley. Those of us that lived through the cold war this was hilarious. We were familiar with the shadow of nuclear war hanging over us so we knew about fallout shelters, civil defense instructions and duck and cover drills in grade school. The old civil defense films on UA-cam would be a great way to get some context for this period of history. Love your reactions!
Kinda funny how the only thing that really changed when the Berlin wall fell was we didn't feel like keeping our finger on the button as hard. Can still hit it at anytime so this never really went away.
This was the movie Kubrick did before jumping into pre-production of "2001" because he was universally criticized for how bleak and dark "Dr. Strangelove was" so he wanted to do something that gives the audience something more positive. In fact "Dr. Strangelove" has an interesting history of unused scenes. They had shot a huuuuge pie fight (hence all the pies on the table of the war room) and there was even a scene of the President getting hit by one pie in the face, resulting in the General to yell "The president has been shot!". However shortly after, John F. Kennedy was assassinated and Kubrick felt like it was tasteless to include that to the movie. This is why the movie then suddenly ends with nukes right after Doktor Strangelove says "MEIN FÜHRER!!! I CAN WALK!!" because right after that scene the Pie fight would have started.
He played 4, The entire conversation with the Soviet leader was Sellers talking to himself. So he in theory he played the Soviet Premier as well as the President.
If you're accustomed to hearing the most powerful and credible and dignified members of your society tell the most absurd and dangerous lies, and no one, especially not the media, ever pushes back, and then you see a movie that portrays, in a deadpan and convincingly accurate way the probable results of their insane policy, and which also includes constant subtle mockery of them and their dumb ideas, well , you can't help but be filled with glee. This movie is savage! A comedy about nuclear war - now that's going out on a limb.
Ashleigh, I grew up in the 50's and all we did in the classroom was "duck and cover" in the case of a nuclear blast. In today's world, the kids continually do their "active shooter" drills. Now that's progress!
Peter Sellers portrayed 3 roles in the film. He was the British officer, the President, and Dr. Strangelove. Originally, he was also going to portray Major Kong, the main pilot. But he was having trouble with the Texas accent, and was also concerned about the heavy work load. Finally, after he had sprained his ankle, he could no longer work in the cramped set of the aircraft. That ended up being the deciding factor to cast Slim Pickens, who was truly a Texan, in his place. By the way, Peter Sellers is probably best remembered for his appearances as Inspector Clouseau in most of the 60's and 70's Pink Panther films.
I've always loved this movie. It uses humour to show how paranoia leads to ridiculously irrational behaviour and ultimately war. Peter Sellers is something of British comedy institution, and really should have won an Oscar for playing all three roles so well. It is said he improvised most of his dialogue, and more than half of the movie's budget went to his salary. Kubric famously stated he got three for the price of six.
Dr. Strangelove is absoluetely brilliant, so many brilliant scenes, my favourite is the doomsday device scene, with the US guy saying they should have one too... Also, Kubrick and his team got the air craft so realistic, without help from the military or government, that they questioned them on suspicion of espionage, cause it was just too close to life.
Haven’t seen this one in a while… I forgot about the opening disclaimer! That whole “any similarity to actual persons, living or dead” thing has become ubiquitous. But here, Kubrick clearly meant it as a joke. Because Dr. Strangelove is very obviously Werner Von Braun (or any other of the Paperclip scientists you can name).
No. Von Braun wasn't like Dr Strangelove. Kubrick himself said, that Strangelove was mainly modeled after Dr Edward Tellar, the father of the hydrogen bomb. It is true, that Strangelove's apparent Nazi connections alluded to the hundreds of Operation Paperclip German scientists, but Strangelove's personality was Teller. Ironically, Teller was a Hungarian who hated the Nazis, but he hated the Soviets just as much if not more. Although a Nazi SS officer, albeit a reluctant one supposedly, Von Braun came across as even tempered, not some obsessed nerd flying off the handle to start a nuclear war. He was obsessed with rockets & space exploration, but to meet him, you'd never know it. Dad knew him.
And President Merkin was based on Adlai Stevenson! Good old Adlai saw it, and said "I didn't know whether to sue, or laugh. I decided to laugh. It's now my favourite film!"
Yes, indeed, he sounds familiar! Kong on the plane was Taggart from "Blazing Saddles"! That is Slim Pickens, and he was, indeed, legit country. He raised and trained horses, too, and I believe trained a beauty of an animal in a favorite Western of mine, "The Big Country"
Kong was supposed to be the fourth character played by Sellers. But between Sellers not being confident in his cowboy voice and breaking a leg Fallon out of the bomb bay set Pickens was brought in to replace him. The production had to be held up because Pickens had never been out of the country and to get to the studio in England he had to get a passport.
Thematically, it's about the absurdism of cold war hysteria and paranoia (something we still see today) and also the M.A.D (mutual assured destruction) doctrine which is a core idea behind maintaining a nuclear arsenal. I'd recommend Barry Lyndon as one of Kubrick's masterpieces and one of the most beautiful movies ever made, but it's super long and I know how much you hate that haha
This movie was made during the Hight of the cold war. Nuclear Armageddon was considered a certainty. Paranoia was the norm. Stanley Kubrick's brilliance lies in his ability to laugh in in the face of the fear
This is one of the best satires ever made. Lolita and this were really his first films where he found his voice. It was here where his view of humanity as being truly absurd started.
YES!!! ONE OF MY FAVORITE STANLEY KUBRICK MOVIES! Peter Sellers plays 3 different characters in the movie: Dr. Strangelove, the one in the wheelchair. President Merkin Muffley Captain Lionel Mandrake. Sellers was going to play Captain TJ "King" Kong, but Sellers couldn't fake a good southern drawl do the part went to Slim Pickens. The ending wasa lot different as it involved a pie fight scene and one of the pies hits the President on his face as George C. Scott's character shouts, "OUR PRESIDENT, CUT DOWN IN HIS PRIME!," The ending was so controversial due to JFK's assassination in 1963, it was scrapped.
There's another Cold War era comedy in which Peter Sellers plays multiple roles (including the queen) called The Mouse That Roared. It isn't the masterpiece Dr. Strangelove is, but it's still a classic.
Three things are needed to understand this movie. First, there's a serious bug in the system - a bug that allows General Ripper to deploy his nukes without any higher-level authorization. The second thing going on is with the men, and their constant preoccupation with sex. The opening shot of the two planes joined together with romantic music playing, the B-52 pilot perusing a _Playboy_ magazine. General Ripper's paranoia triggered by his strange epiphany following a bout of impotence. General Turgidson's affair with his secretary - and then later fantasizing about having sexual experiences while living in a mine shaft. And Dr. Strangelove suggesting there should be 10 females to each male in the survivor group - and that the women should possess a "highly stimulating nature." The third thing is, after the Doomsday Machine is triggered, the people in the War Room are already planning for the next conflict with the Soviets - which will happen in 100 years - when the survivors first emerge from the mine shafts. So we have the earth-shattering shock of a Doomsday Machine exploding - and the people responsible for this global catastrophe have not even slightly changed how they think about war. Now that's a wrap.
With the fluoridation he kept talking about.. It's about Fluoride added to drinking water that started around that time. Fluoride is the medication that helps prevent tooth decay. There were a lot of concerns and conspiracy theories surrounding it. One of them being that it caused impotence. Basically, General Ripper there is impotent and is blaming the fluoride because of it. So pretty much, he ended the world because he couldn't get it up.
"Mandrake, c'mere and help me with this gun. The Redcoats are comin'!" An American saying this to a British officer. I don't think I've ever picked out that line before. LOL!
Fail-Safe is one of the most intense movies! This movie was done as a parody of Fail-Safe. Highly recommend Edit: dr. Strangelove looks to have come out first but Fail-Safe is one of my favorite movies due to such a tremendous cast and acting. Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, and a brief showing of Dom DeLuise.
This was one of those rare occasions where two films tackling the same subject were in production at the same time (although, admittedly, both from different viewpoints: Fail Safe through a sober and terrifying eye; Strangelove looking at the absurdity of the arms race). Both are great, though and contain scenes that are iconic in the history of cinema (the still images at the end of Fail Safe still have the power to terrify me forty years on since the first time I watched it).
@FlimFlam totally agree, the build up and ending of FailSafe is so intense and it's a credit to great writing and how the actors executed their craft. Brilliant 👏🏼
Failsafe is worth a watch. Even thought the stories are almost identical, it's a more serious look at the situation and theres a lot more tension in the movie.
"Gentle you can't fight in here this is the WAR room." Wait till you find out Birdman's full name. James Earl Jones I don't remember him this movie. Wait did I see this movie or did I just see the movie that this movie is spoffying. I think I saw that one with Walter Matheu Fail Safe. Ashley is you want a good nuclear war movie you need to see Wargames with Mathew Brodrick. This is a comedy.
In real life in the early 1980s, a Soviet officer who was in charge of actually launching a nuclear counterstrike against the United States that had been ordered by the Kremlin, refused to follow orders, and thereby saved the world from a nuclear apocalypse. The Soviet leaders falsely believed that the US had launched an all-out nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, due to a computer bug or glitch in the warning system. The computers were in a wargame simulation mode ("Shall we play a game?" 😉) when they weren't supposed to be, but falsely indicated that this was really happening. Fortunately, the officer could not believe the US would attack the USSR for no reason, since this would result in the destruction of civilization, so he didn't launch. He was dishonorably discharged and imprisoned (in the Gulag?) for insubordination and treason against the USSR, and later was honored as the hero who saved all of humanity. But he was still labeled a traitor, as well.
You got me with the "temperature dropped like it saw a State Trooper". Not even a minute in and I'm already laughing. Dr. Strangelove was made with shocking accuracy on how nuclear launches could happen at the time, so much so that policy was changed to prevent this kind of scenario. It had a huge impact when it released in '64, only a couple years after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The character himself of Dr. Strangelove is a satirical element based off Operation Paperclip in which for 15 years after WWII the American government recruited former members and leaders of the Nazi party who were scientists, engineers, and technicians to further our military technology. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip but the conclusion you reached about the movie is pretty accurate.
As a person who grew up during the 70s, this film is extremely important. In high school near Washington D.C. in the 80s, my friends and I would frequently talk about "What are you going to do if you hear the missile sirens?" The Cold War was a terrifying time. This film pointed out how insane it all was.
The pilot’s voice was familiar because it’s the actor from Blazing Saddles. He played Taggart, the guy that was hit by the shovel.
Yup. Slim Pickens. :)
Who had a brother named, Easy Pickins...
and @ashleigh Missed (unless she looked later) of James Ear JOnes as one of the pilots who I think she said was kind of Chilled lol
Also Sterling Hayden as Gen Ripper. He was Capt. McCluskey in The Godfather.
"Send wire to main office and tell them I said (clang!)...owwwwwww!"
"I feel like I'm watching an intimate moment between two airplanes".
Congratulations, you've already clued to one of the key themes of the film.
And that is where fighters come from... well.. parasite fighters anyway
My mother told me about seeing this when it first came out. She had to repress a giggle when she realized what they were trying to convey with this first scene. She was the only one in the audience who got the joke, because, yeah, that's what they were trying to say. LOL
But y'know what? People were absolutely terrified of the world ending back then. It hasn't happened yet. Yay!
Immediately picked up on that.
@@matsv201 you have the right idea, but it's not fighters that are produced. When KC-135 Tankers are mated with B-52 Bombers the B-52 gives birth to bombs.
@@jamestaylor2920 Well there where two goblins made... they didn´t preform that good, and they would be pretty much useless against sams anyway.
"I feel like I'm watchin' an intimate moment between two planes."
Ashleigh, you are, no joke, the first reactor I've seen pick up on that. That is 100% the intent of the credits.
Yep, that’s why there’s the romantic music.
She missed the rest of the movie though.
@@patrickflanagan3762 Yes... After reading the comments, I gathered that it might be a dispiriting experience watching her missing the point of it all, so I skipped it.
Most people miss the movie's depressing theme that the male instinct to dominate, both in sex and competition is what will eventually destroy us all -- thus the sexual innuendo of the planes refueling in the beginning and the huge phallic missile between Major Kong's legs in the end. Also the suggestion that General Ripper went off the deep was because he was impotent (loss of bodily fluids).
I love the subtlety in this movie. The Air Force General Buck Turgidson loved gum and was chewing it the entire time. Pair that with the fact that the Air Force survival pack includes 9 packs of chewing gum, you get a giggle.
The gum and the nylons were included as materials to trade with the locals for escape help.
Chewing gum is to help quit smoking also. Buck was most likely a heavy smoker
The point behind this movie is how easily a perfect storm of the wrong people in the wrong places at the wrong time could have completely ended us all, and how you'll either fall into a bottomless hole of depression thinking about that, or learn to laugh at how we could wipe ourselves out for the most ludicrous reasons.
Perfect Storm or Perfect plan. Every system has holes that can be exploited and manipulated by the right people.
@@ravenwind1062 And it does not even have to be knowingly exploited. It is sufficient that some bloke with his own axe to grind feels aligned with the overall plan, and just rides it.
The same year, Fail Safe made the same point in a very serious way.
Both are important films but I think Strange Love is more famous and much more quotable.
I wonder if seeing fail safe would have prepped her mood for this film.
A lot like how Trump tried to overturn the election.
@@SiqueScarface I've had discussions with people that say Strangelove was the master puppeteer, recognizing those he could subtly manipulate and helped to move him into useful place, such as Ripper and Turgidson. This makes assumptions about things that we do not see on screen., however.
Stanley Kubrick is notorious for not letting actors improvise at all and being extremely extremely rigid with sticking to his vision, sometimes doing 100 takes on a single scene until he's satisfied. For him to allow Peter Sellers to go off the rails with adlibs for entire scenes at a time just shows how incredible Sellers really was.
He was a control freak, but he knew genius when he saw it, and he let Sellers, sell it.
he did allow Malcolm McDowell some free rein in A Clockwork Orange, for instance 'Singing in the Rain' during the rape scene was improvised. Also Kubrick let Lee Ermey go nuts as the Drill Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.
He tricked George C. Scott into doing over-the-top takes, saying he wouldn't use them, and then used them all.
Kubrick had just cast Sellers four years earlier as James Mason's sardonic buddy in "Lolita", which was almost ENTIRELY Sellers' improvisation, so giving him most of Strangelove to play with was another handpicked showpiece.
@@ericjanssen394 Sellers' voice in _Lolita_ was basically an imitation of Kubrick.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room"
Best line ever
@punklover99, you can't just say anything you want here, this is the comment section!
You actually did a pretty good description about the movie and you definitely followed the plot pretty well too. It's a dark satire about the Cold War, which was still happening at the time this movie was made. If you go back and look closely you can definitely see Peter Sellers playing the three roles of Dr. Strangelove, Mandrake and The President - he was also originally gonna play Major Kong, the southern cowboy pilot who rides the bomb, but Sellers had trouble doing the southern accent so Slim Pickens got to do the role instead. Pickens you have seen in Blazing Saddles as Taggert, the right hand and henceman to the villain Hedley "Hedy" Lamarr. Peter Sellers was an amazing character actor, but in real life he had this erratic behaviour that made it hard to work with him and he wasn't a good husband and a father to be honest. You should check Sellers out in the Pink Panther movies.
Yes! Just SUMM Reactions has been reacting to the Pink Panther movies, and it's a ton of fun.
Starting with “a shot in the dark”, the non pink panther movie…
@@ACriticalGeek It's more of a Pink Panther movie than the Inspector Closeau movie starring Alan Arkin, THAT ONE is a non Pink Panther movie! A Shot In The Dark has Peter Sellers in the role & it's Blake Edwards directing so it still counts! It doesn't have the Pink Panther character in it, I don't care, it still counts!
I read that when Peter Sellers chose not to do Major Kong, James Earl Jones said he knew someone who would be a great person for the role. Apparently when Slim Pickins arrived, Peter Sellers said why did he show up in costume.
@@davidshepherd397 All the Brits in the film crew thought Pickens was just deep into character, but he actually talked like that.
You are not wrong for not understanding how this movie is set up entirely. For those of us who lived around and during the Cold War it has greater significance and this is truly a product of its time. Good job getting through it!
I remember had to hide under the table at school like a fire drill. IYKYK
Things got quite hot again, or felt like it, around the late 70s to early 80's, which is the time when I was in the first 15 years of my life.
Yeah, I'm a Boomer. I grew up in the 60's. I think it might be one of those, "You had to be there" things.
@@TG-fe7si elementary school......"duck and cover"
@@Kae6502 It’s not. I was born after the Cold War and I like it.
Peter sellers should have gotten an Oscar for any of the roles he played in this movie.
Absolutely!
They should have made it a 3 way split and give him 1/3 Oscar for every role
Kubrick should have gotten one too. Especially for spoofing the insanity of Operation Paperclip.
He was nominated
"Being There" was much better.
Fun Fact: Stanley Kubrick was investigated by the Pentagon because the B-52 set was so accurate. The B-52 Stratofortress was highly classified at the time.
Yeah they thought he got it a little TOO right ;D
Ashleigh: We were deep a real Cold War. Stanley Kubrick was a lens Master. Next more Kubrick - Barry Lyndon? B-52 are still up there. Slim Pickens - a real character
This movie is a bizarre mix of the extremely realistic and the absurd and I think that was on purpose. The attack on the air base is extremely realistic while the office machine gun was ridiculous, The interior of the B-52 was remarkable, and the exterior was well behind 1960s contemporary special effects.
Happens more often than you'd think. Tom Clancy got investigated for the same reason
@@huosb1768 Slim Pickens doesn't get the accolades as an actor he deserves in my opinion.
He has been in many great films but barely gets acknowledged most of the time.
I just love watching Slim Pickens, of Blazing Saddles fame, as the bomber pilot. Nobody told him he was in a comedy, so he played it completely straight and was still hilarious, because Slim Pickens just was. They don't make actors like him any more.
You are right. He played it straight in blazing saddles too (imho)
Hooray Slim Pickens
Somebody's gotta fly back to base & get a shitload of dimes!
He was so fucking good
@@USCFlash😂😂😂😂
A few things I loved about your reaction. Leaving the original disclaimer in was great. "Peace is Our Profession" is the real-life motto of the Strategic Air Command. Finally, the last song was from England's WWII sweetheart Vera Lynn, "We Will Meet Again."
Edit: As far as the emotional impact of this movie, I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Ripper: "The redcoats are coming"
But Mandrake is a redcoat...
Fluoridation is when tap water is treated with fluoride, which is the chemical in toothpaste, Ashleigh.
And a lot of controversy and conspiracy theory surrounding it.
And it was very controversial when introduced. Many people thought it was the beginning of a slippery slope of the government taking over what we put in our bodies.
Worth noting that about 75% of modern Americans are drinking fluoridated water. It's done purely to limit tooth decay, especially important since so many Americans processed foods have high sugar content.
For more context, adding it to municipal water systems was relatively new, and raised a fair bit of controversy. It really is medicating the entire population. While fighting dental disease is good, the effects of fluoride being introduced into every bit of water you take was not known at the time. It enters the bones and teeth, certainly, and that is how it fights tooth decay, but what else might it do? In many ways the dispute is similar to the objections to the forced COVID vaccinations of the past few years: the mRNA vaccines' effectiveness and long-term effects have not been established, and even now they have not even received full FDA certification (only emergency certification thus far), so many people did not want to be guinea pigs. And in fact, for some populations (many people of descent from Japanese and southwest Indians) the fluoridation is too much and is known to cause problems, including tooth breakdown. There are a few U.S. water systems that do not have fluoridation, and of course, most well water is not, as well as some bottled water (but much bottled water simply comes from the local municipal systems).
That's just what they want you to think
My mother met James Earl Jones around the time he was in this movie. He wasn't hugely famous movie star yet, but he was getting pretty big as a Broadway Star and my mother was an actress. She met him at a restaurant and she and her friends invited him to a party.
She met him again at a restaurant 50 years later. She introduced herself and told him the story. His response: "Did I behave?"
For the record, she said he did.
Good story ---and indeed this was his cinematic debut
are you telling us James Earl Jones is your father? And do you have the force?
@@johnnyskinwalker4095 Search your feelings, Sam! You know it to be true!
To meet the man once would be awesome enough. But twice, especially after 50 years? Glorious.
@@johnnyskinwalker4095 I was born about 15 years later and I'm not black, so... I doubt it.
As a SAC trained killer myself, this movie and Failsafe are two of my favorite films. Yes, you probably needed to live in the era to fully understand and appreciate the humor. And as to your question if an aircraft loaded with bombs were to crash would they detonate, the answer is no. We as an Air Force have had multiple crashes with bombs on board. Usually the explosive device used to make the big boom happen will explode, but if the weapon isn't fused it will not go off. As of this moment, an atomic weapon is still lost in a North Carolina swamp. So there's that.
I think you spot on about living in the time to understand the humor. I also think it’s interesting how younger people today freak out about Cold War type incident that happened the time when we were young (lost atomic bonds, Russian bombers probing Alaska airspace, tensions over arms treaties and concerns about “the bomber gap”. It’s like all these things never happened before…..but they did!
For a bit more detail, a hydrogen fusion bomb requires a uranium or plutonium fission warhead to reach sufficient temperature and pressure for the fusion to occur. To make the fission explosion happen, you have to slam the pieces of fissible materials together really quickly (or they will melt before reaching critical, explosive mass - it requires a certain amount in a lump), and a conventional explosive like TNT to do that. When there is a crash or other mishap, the conventional explosive may go off, but the arming process requires the proper alignment, etc. of the fissile material, so even when the conventional explosive goes off, the uranium/plutonium bomb cannot, and therefore the fusion part of the weapon cannot go off. (That's not for you, Paul, but for those who confuse the nuclear steps with the initial explosion of the conventional explosives).
What about 'By Dawn's Early Light' (1990)
Yes, this. Nukes require very specific thing to happen in a very specific order within a very specific time if they are going to produce a nuclear detonation.
And just to keep up that healthy rivalry between North Carolina and South Carolina, I'd like to point out that when the Air Force dropped a bomb on us by accident in 1958, just outside of Florence in Mars Bluff, we didn't lose it in a swamp, the explosives went off and made an impressive crater. But don't feel bad, North Carolina, you're not the only ones to lose the bomb that got dropped on you, Georgia's got one somewhere off the coast of Tybee Island that's never been found.
A couple of obscure points - the President's name, Merkin Muffley - a "merkin" is a pubic wig [I'm serious - such things actually exist]; he said "precious bodily fluids" because in the early 1960's you couldn't say "sperm" in movies; and fluoridation was the adding of fluoride to drinking water to prevent teeth decay; and "Batguano" means bat manure
Peter Sellers was fantastic in every movie he was in. These are three of his best roles - Sellers plays Mandrake, Strangelove and the President - and he is surrounded by a supremely talented cast. Slim Pickens plays the pilot who rides the bomb. Hilarious names for the parts: "Jack D. Ripper", "General Buck Turigidson", "President Melvin Murkley". There's so much fun going on, I can't remember it all.
Being There was the cherry on top of Seller's career.
That's Merkin Muffley, as in a crotch wig and a crotch.
Sellers was going to play the pilot too, but he had injured his foot at the time and couldn't move around in the small plane set
Col. 'Bat' Guano was played by Keenen Wynn
@@najhoant Instead, the pilot was played by Slim Pickens, who also played Mr. Taggert in Blazing Saddles.
The voice you think sounds familiar is Slim Pickens, who played Taggart in "Blazing Saddles." Dr. Strangelove is a total classic! Peter Sellers was phenomenal. Also, if you haven't seen the Pink Panther movies, with Sellers playing the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, you need to add them to your watch list. Some of the funniest movies ever made!
Don't forget George C Scot who played Gen Buck later played in his greatest role Patton.
I always love the behind-the-scenes tidbit of when George C Scott genuinely tripped and fell, and how he stayed in character and kept delivering his lines as he somersaulted himself back on his feet. And how it fits the absurdist tone of the film so well that Kubrick decided to leave it in the film.
The story goes that Kubrick wanted Scott to play his role as we see it in the film, but Scott wanted to play his general straight, not as a comic foil. So, Kubrick pretended to acquiesce to Scott and filmed each of his scenes twice, once as Kubrick wanted it as a warm up and once as Scott envisioned it after in a more dramatic tone. Kubrick kept his own vision in the final product and they never worked together again.
@@thomast8539 The film is great as is. I believe it would have been even better satire with Scott playing it straight.
@@gordonhaire9206 I kinda wish there were two cuts, honestly.
"I feel like I'm watching an intimate moment between two airplanes."
Oh, you're getting it. Everything about this movie is about sex. Ripper can't get it up. Characters obsessed with getting the biggest weapon. This whole thing is about sex and violence and the absurdity of it all on the world stage.
And the president's name. Lol.
@@macmcleod1188 Nothing beats Buck Turgidson though. Of course the name "Strangelove" is in 1960's terms, perversion. (Excuse me, "preversion.")
And the oral fixation of the chewing gum, cigar, etc; plus the contents of those emergency packets...
@@michaelturner2806 Interestingly enough, the 'other' items in the survival packs - lipstick, nylons, etc - are legit; they were meant to be used for bartering. That said, they indeed add to the subtextual humor.
And the romantic music playing during the planes "coupling", makes it even funnier.
17:20 There's something fundamentally funny about telling a British military officer "The redcoats are coming".
Don't worry Ashleigh, you're actually pretty spot on as to what its about. And while it is a comedy, its DEFINITELY supposed to make people feel uncomfortable.
How nice of Beans for allowing you sharing seats with her ;) You know... Kubrick LOVED Sellers and he did let him improvise to no end. When Sellers calls the Russian president basically everything after "Hello Dimitri?" was completely improvised on the spot. Each take Sellers gave Kubrick something else and Stanley was often rolling on the floor laughing because of Peter. Even the actors had a hard time not cracking up. You can see how much the guy, who plays the Russian ambassador, has a hard to contain his laughter when Sellers goes full Doctor Strangelove in his wheelchair.
The actor who played the country pilot is Slim Pickens and he was in Blazing Saddles
Also in '1941' one of my favorite Christmas movies
@@oaf-77 Hollis Wood!
We were stationed at K.I. Sawyer AFB (Air Force Base) during the Cuban missile crisis. The base was a combination SAC (Strategic Air Command) with B-52 bombers like the ones sent to bomb Russia in this movie, as well as interceptors to shoot down incoming Russian bombers. My father was on a 15 minute alert and there were Air Raid drills every day. We would go down to the makeshift bomb shelter in the basement and wait for the all clear. I was 5 years old at the time and I still remember it. While in the Navy, we had Soviet Bear Bombers fly overhead in the Pacific. So yeah, I lived most of my life in the Cold War, waiting for things to go badly.
I was attending Dutch high school in the 1980s.
Started picking up books at the library about surviving nuclear war, how to set booby traps, and how to recognize camouflaged nukes.
Turns out the last one was fake...
Anyway, I still remember from how to survive:
The hiding place must have steel reinforced concrete walls and roof, preferably lead lined.
If no lead or concrete available, one meter of dirt would have to make do.
At the time our family home had a spacious underground garage plus some more underground space. The previous owner's wife used to have a hair salon next to the underground garage.
So I was thinking, as any optimistic, energetic 14-year old. Aaah... So all we gotta do is get a shovel and heap some dirt onto that garage door, as that was the only part in contact with the outside world.
And the stairs inside leading up to the house of course.
“Stanley Kubrick…. He likes to emphasize silence”. YES!!!! Thanks Ashleigh. I’ve been thinking the same thing for many years but couldn’t put my finger on it. 😅
Love how Beans at the end was really hard trying to explain the movie to her, Beans got it and loved it, plus you just gotta love a man with the name Slim Pickens
Ashleigh I think you struggled with this because you weren’t alive during the cold war. We lived daily with the thought that one day the world would end due to some mistake. This film attempted to ease our fears by emphasizing how silly things would have get in order for that to happen. I remember seeing this movie as a child and asking my dad if this could happen, and he pointed to the ridiculousness of the movie. In truth, I’m not sure back then there were enough safeguards in place. The concept of a failsafe doomsday machine was often discussed after this movie came out.
Weirdly I find it less funny than when I first stumbled across it twenty years ago, mainly because America seems much, much closer to this lunacy these days...
@@smiddlehurst1 Totally agree.
I agree with most of what you said, but this film was definitely **not** attempting to "ease our fears". It was attempting to show how terrible and absurd of a situation nuclear weapons had created, and to show how stupid many of the people in charge of the system were/are. It was showing a mostly realistic scenario of what might happen, but the situation itself was so absurd that Kubrick couldn't help but turn it into a comedy.
Not sure why it should matter whether or not one lived during those times. The total seriousness and simultaneous complete idiocy of nuclear war is quite easy to grasp and understand if you think on it for just a minute or two. It was (and still is) ludicrous to fight a battle over principles (or anything else for that matter) that will be destroyed along with most of humanity if the battle is actually conducted.
@@smiddlehurst1 We've ALWAYS been this close (pinching my thumb and index finger very close together) to killing others and ourselves over idiotic reasons. It ain't a new concept.
Don't feel bad Ashleigh. This film is a masterpiece, but simpler than you may think. Though there are layers, the main idea to laugh in the face of our biggest fears and to point out the absurdity of MAD (mutually assured destrution) policies. You have to understand the spirit of the age it was made in. This was the height of the cold war with the Cuban missile crisis not long in the rear view mirror. The only way to comment on the subject in such a big way is to make it comedic because it is so heavy. Remember during this time school kids even did atom bomb 'duck and cover' drills at school.
I think maybe the movie is less effective if you are unfamiliar with the cold war milieu, as indeed most young people are now. Also, while technically a comedy, it's definitely the "wry smile" kind of comedy more than the "laugh out loud" kind. (I think someone once said that when comedy isn't funny it's called satire.)
ua-cam.com/video/IKqXu-5jw60/v-deo.html
@@ThreadBomb Well, she might struggle with War Games too, then.
I'm not entirely convinced the Mutually Assured Destruction (deterrence really) is completely absurd, it certainly seems to play a significant part of human and animal lives.
Think of poisonous animals and predator behavior (going after the weakest not the strongest), mating rituals etc. In general animals and indeed people don't want to mess with others that can really mess you up.
Dr Strangelove is loosly based on
Warner Von Braun the creater of the V2 rockets used by the natizes in WW2.
Who caputered by the allies to work on the space program to get to the moon.
The joke here is he in a wheelchair symbolizes natize germany beaten
Down by the US and USSR.
but gets up when the superpowers
Destroy each other. This the natizes get the last laugh.
thank you freshman year film intro class, first one we watch & I loved it. “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!” 😂 hilarious irony
3:45 " I feel like I'm watching an intimate moment between two airplanes".
Ashleigh, you're spot on! Kubrick intentionally put this music on to hint at the innuendo of in-flight refueling.
In the early 1960s there was a political debate about adding fluoride to public drinking water so kids would grow up with strong teeth. The debate was about the lawfulness of the government making a decision about fluoride for kids when their parents could take them to the dentist and get a fluoride treatment for them. In general Ripper's crazy brain, fluoride, sex, ejaculation, fatigue were all conflated in an insane mess.
My father was a dentist that graduated in 1959. He grew up with people with few, discolored, or rotten teeth all over society. He himself lost most of his (replaced with crowns, bridges, etc.) by the time I was born in 1969 when he was 35.
I actually love this movie, all of the irony, dark humor, and absurd situation. The crazy general's name being Jack D. Ripper, the other general's name being "Buck" Turdison , the off screen Russian leader (Premier Kissof), the Colonel who captured Mandrake was named "Bat" Guano, which is another name for bat poo, which his name can be rendered Bat s-h-i-t. And the crown jewel, Dr Strangelove's name in German roughly translates to strange love. Fluoridation of water was controversial back then, other than strengthen teeth, and killing germs, there's no need to add chemicals to our water supply. Overall, it's a deep movie that needs several watchings to get all the jokes.
i am from germany and don´t know what you mean with "Dr Strangelove's name in German roughly translates to strange love". "strangelove" is not a german name. its the combination of the 2 english words you mentioned. The movie is called "Dr Seltsam...." here - translated to english it would just be "Dr Strange" without the "love". but even that isn´t a name that anyone here really would have. But the other stuff you mentioned is interesting information :)
@@Zireael83 thank you for clarifying, I reckon that's what I should have said. it's a combination of the two words. I stumbled across that tidbit in one of my German dictionaries after watching the movie one day. I can read German acceptably, but can't speak it too well.
That’s Turgidson. Turgid means swollen or distended, like oh, say, a boner. The President is Merkin Muffley. A merkin is basically a wig for female pubic hair, while a muff is an older term for female genitalia. Another way of saying the president is a pussy (and not Beans)
The general's name is Turgidson. Turgid as in swollen, like an erection; opposite of flaccid.
@@Zireael83 Dr. Strangelove changed his name when he became an American. Before that he was Herr Doktor Merkwürdigliebe.
You are adorable. It was meant for people to talk about and to question all that we are doing. The first time I saw this I couldn't stop laughing one of my friends was almost crying and my other friend said he was scared that something like would happen and seeing it on TV made him see others thought like him. Each person reactions to this movie are theirs alone. Thanks for the blast from my pass.
You shoulda been there in real time, Ricardo. Same reactions! But the scared and crying had good reason then. The threat, however illogical, was genuine and we actually did the Duck & Cover practice in our school classrooms! I... being of moderate intelligence (at least back then)... started calculating how far from major cities we were. Since both LA and SF were over 200 mi. distant... I breathed a sigh of relief! No Bomb was gonna kill Me !!!
The perfect 90 minute movie, absolutely no waste, every scene is perfect.
I was just thinking the other day "I wish there was another movie reaction to Dr.Strangelove" and this is perfect because Ashleigh is my favorite movie reactor.
George C. Scott is so wonderful in this film. One of our great 20th century actors! (See: Patton, The Hustler, A Christmas Carol among many)
Ay! An Ashleigh Reacts! Good times! So, for this one I think you have to remember just how terrified everyone was pretty much all the time as to nuclear war breaking out when the film was made. Phrases like 'megadeaths', 'mutual assured destruction', 'core of inner refuge', 'DEFCON 1' were known by pretty much everybody and there was always the fear that a misunderstanding could cause a nuclear missile exchange where everything moved so fast (within half an hour missiles could hit) that you couldn't avoid the end of everything. Kubrick set out to make a serious movie on this possibility, but everything was so hysterically appalling that his mind rebelled and it turned into a comedy. There's another movie called Fail Safe which is filmed like a live play, and is also really good, but is a serious version of this. Dr Strangelove represents those Nazi scientists both Russia and America took on after the war to help their own missile programs. A bonkers Nazi scientist working under an American flag is still a bonkers Nazi scientist. The movie was a big hit and a lot of people were crying and laughing at the same time at the end. The situation was so absurdly horrible that it could be a comedy and a horror at the same time.
What do you mean was? Nuclear annihilation is still a possibility and with morons like the people leading our nation right now, the needle is closer to midnight than it has been in 30 years.
You're right on Peter. It was the mood of the nation at that time. School kids had drills where they ducked under their desks or gathered in hallways. The joke was "If it's a nuke, bend over as far as you can and kiss your ass goodbye!"
You left out "Duck and cover"
While nuclear war still remains a real threat to humanity (especially given current events,) I guess anyone who grew up after the fall of the Soviet Union doesn't feel the weight of it. I grew up in the 1980s, and I remember it well. I think Ashley probably does understand what this film is satirizing, but I agree that it just doesn't hit home. Sadly, Doctor Strangelove is still relevant. It might help to watch a movie like The Day After to get more context.
@@JonathanChereckI was a kid in the 80s and remember hearing all the drama of the cold war stuff on the world news. I always thought they needed to shut up about it because is was a majority of the news broadcast. It all seemed so much petty BS to my grade school brain.
That's how brilliant Peter Sellers was as an actor. He was also supposed to play the part of the airplane pilot, but broke his leg early in the filming of that story line, so they recast Slim Pickens in that role. You may have recognized him from "Blazing Saddles", but he was in many films.
Fell off the bomb bay set.
They had to hold up production because they recast it to Slim Pickens but then realised he had never been out of the country and didn’t have a passport….so another couple weeks to get that processed.
When he got to England one of the studio secretaries allegedly remarked, “He came in costume”
@@shawnmiller4781 Yep. That hat was his costume! No vocal coaching required, either.🤠
I NEVER Dreamed I’d be able to see Ashleigh react to this Gem!!! 😊
Same!
Interesting fact:
When Slim Pickens is reading off the list of gear the men are issued and says, "Shoot, a fella could have a good time in Vegas with all that stuff." It's clearly been dubbed.
There was no time to re-shoot the scene and recut the film before it premiered so it remained dubbed. The REASON for the dub was because the original line was, "a fella could have a good time in Texas..."
Well, just at that time, JFK was assassinated in Texas. Producers didn't want it to seem like they were making light of the assassination, so they just went with the fast dub and it's stayed that way.
Can I just say, Beans' "You're welcome" meow when Ashley thanked her was just the best?
Glad I'm not the only one who thought it
Dr. Strangelove is a movie that relies heavily upon the cultural and societal situations of the day. I was 7 years old when it was released and so was intimately familiar with those situations. Many of the characters names are directly related to their personalities or "in-jokes" at the time (i.e. Gen. Jack T Ripper, Gen. Turgidson and President Merkin). A great deal of the comedy is lost if these situations aren't familiar. The fear of the "Red Menace" was, at the time, very real. The reference you found to a movie called Fail-Safe which released at approximately the same time was anything but a comedy. It was a wonderful example of the very real fears that were prevalent during the cold war. It might not make a good reaction film but I would recommend watching it if you have the chance. It is a wonderful film. Anyway... Another wonderful reaction. Keep up the good work
You might notice that Kong's lips don't match his line "A fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff." That's because the city in the line was originally Dallas, but then the JFK assassination occurred there and Slim Pickens had to quickly dub over it before release. Even worse, the original ending included the line "Our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime" after Muffley got a pie in the face.
Peter Bull, who played Russian Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky finally cracks up due to the off-script antics of Sellers and breaks character during the final scene when Peter Sellers is pounding on his ratcheted arm! What a truly thought-provoking movie this is. May I suggest "Little Big Man" with Dustin Hofman and "The Court Jester" with Danny Kaye at some point in your long list of movie-viewing.
Thanks for your reaction. I have to say, when i first saw the film, i was very confused for the first half hour until i understood that this film is a satire! Saw it a second and a third time and only then, i could really appreciate the wild and very fine humor!!! Its a masterpice, it tells you, how stupid everyone and everything is, especially when it comes to war! Love this movie
I had a very similar reaction when I first saw it as a teen in the '70s. I knew it was satire, though (It was listed as such in TV Guide), and I was already into political satire, but the subtle elements left my reaction subdued. Seeing it more as an adult, I appreciated it far more.
Yes, a lot of this being careless about what to be afraid of, and being preoccupied with nonsense. It isn't necessarily turning around on what Strangelove's planning, though he's definitely not upset with the way things have turned out. Ripper (yes, like the serial killer - all of the main characters have names that play off of their personalities) is the one who sets things off. The politicians in the war room are ineffective and guided by their own priorities. Kubrick did start off trying to make a serious movie, but as he says in your quote, he couldn't do it: the whole concept of what we'd gotten ourselves into was too absurd and to scary.
The first time we watched this, on broadcast tv, when I was under 11 years old, my mother observed that one of the scariest things was how the determined the pilots were to get their job done. She described it as American ingenuity gone haywire.
In my mind I always equate this movie with "The Russians Are Coming", another comedy with fewer dark edges, about the Cold War.
The events in the movie more or less are in real time, which always struck me as a nice touch.
It's a tough one to wrap your mind around the first time around. I do recommend giving it at least another one. Sellers is Mandrake, the President and Strangelove. Turigdson (sp) is George C. Scott, one of the great stage and screen actors of his generation. The Russian Ambassador is British actor Peter Bull, a familiar actor in movies of that time. I always loved his voice and what he could do with it. If you watch this again, at the end, watch him trying to hold it together while Sellers' Strangelove battles with his hand. It makes me smile to watch Bull trying not to spoil the take.
Thanks for this one!
That wicked arm that involuntarily gives the Nazi salute and the hand on the end tries to kill its owner is hilarious. As the world careens to destruction, Strangelove regains his strength. Still kills me to this day.
One of, if not the greatest film satires ever made. Peter Sellers was incredible and got to improvise many of his lines, including the phone conversations and the final moment when he accidentally stands up. And it's such a wonderfully quotable movie. "Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff!" "You can't fight in here, this is The War Room!" "You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company." So good. Also, Kubrick tricked George C. Scott, the actor who played General Turgidson. Scott wanted to play the role more seriously, but Kubrick advised him to do crazy, goofy outtakes for practice. Kubrick said that the outtakes obviously wouldn't be used in the film... and then used _all_ of them. For example, General Turgidson falls over in one scene, then quickly recovers. That was not planned. Scott later admitted that Kubrick was pretty clever for doing that, but vowed never to work with him again.
Another equally excellent but more subtle Peter Sellers satire was his last movie, "Being There".
The original line was ‘…pretty good weekend in Dallas’ but as Kennedy had just been killed there 2 months before film came out they edited out Dallas & replaced it with Vegas in post-production
@@alanholck7995 You can clearly see Pickens says Dallas!
@@alanholck7995
Other than that how was your trip to Dallas, Mrs. Kennedy?
@@alanholck7995 Simple dubbing job
This is considered one of the greatest comedies ever made and Peter Sellers was nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars (he did 3 roles in the film: The British Official, Mr. President, and Dr. Strangelove) unfortunately he lost to Rex Harrison for My Fair Lady.
George C. Scott in between shoots would play chess with director Kubrick.
The film had an alternate ending where the world still blows up, but before it does everyone in the War Room Breaks out in a pie fight and one line was after the President was hit by a pie “Oh the President brought down in his prime” and the whole ending was scrapped because 1) it was deemed to silly and 2) that line would correlate to much to real events as while the film was made Kennedy was killed.
The man who rides the bomb down you thought sounded familiar was the big bigot idiot Taggert in Blazing Saddles.
If you want another topical film look for THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING (1966).
Yesssss, so glad you did this! One of my favourite movies. The President's call to the Russian President is pure comedy gold.
🤠👍 Fun Fact: Although he speaks with a thick southern drawl, Slim Pickens is actually from Central California which believe it or not, contains a lot of areas where people speak in that manner. It's where Buck Owens (among others) made a name for himself.
I laughed so hard when Ashleigh had to go through the alphabet to see what comes before R.
I've noticed that my teenage kids can't quickly alphabetize things. They don't teach it anymore! I guess when you don't use phone books and card catalogs it's not such a critical skill.
OMG I'm sooooo happy you decided to watch this one. Such a great performance(s) by Peter Sellers (he plays the President, the assistant to the General and Dr Strangelove).
Slim Pickens is the one you thought sounded familiar (he was Taggert in Blazing Saddles)
A lot of the humour in this movie is in the ridiculousness of the conversations and focus of the different characters in the midst of such an event, and how the people making decisions shouldn't because they're not qualified or sane enough to actually make those decisions.
Oh btw, fluoridation is when they add fluoride like in toothpastes to the tap water in a town/city (been happening for many years and was originally to help prevent tooth decay)
I can only suggest that, because there was so much going on, that you watch it again and you'll probably pick up on a lot of things you didn't catch the first time.
23:20 "That's private property!" My second favorite line of the movie, right after "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
My dad and I quote this movie at each other all the time. And then I can't tell you how many times I've used "You're gonna have to answer to the Coca Cola Company" as a reply to something, but the person never gets it.
I have a cool story to share. My Dad got to meet Slim Pickens (Major Kong), and spent a whole day with him at the Rodeo back in the 1970s. He was a mutual friend of a family friend. My dad said he was a really cool guy.
Love that you are always honest about your thoughts on a movie. Keep up the good work Ashleigh!
As someone who grew up in the 1980s, this film is hilarious. I can only imagine what it was like for people, right after the Cuban Crisis.
Second most popular film of 1964, right behind "Goldfinger."
It's one of my dad's favourite films and he introduced it to me. In the 60s he was an apprentice in my local Royal Navy Dockyard and he once told me that at the height of the crisis they all went outside for a last cigarette and wait for the flash of light as the Dockyard would be a primary target for the USSR.
@@chrism7395 Bad times, fond memories.
"Why is he always chewing gum?"
Well, yeah, that's part of it, it's oral fixation. I'll help you, seeing how you danced around the subject every chance you had.
It's all about sex, from start to finish. ALL OF IT. Remember how Major Kong dropped down from the bomber with the world's most dangerous phallic symbol between his legs?
It wasn't a metaphor for anything, it was exactly what it looked like. General Jack D Ripper went offbase because he became impotent, and he wondered if the country's plan of putting fluoride in water to prevent tooth decay made him flaccid... so he destroyed the world with the help of Major Kong's Big D energy.
Great review as always Ashleigh! Just a few notes:
"Leaned to love the bomb": Just a few years earlier, Kruschev had promised to "bury" the US. Between that, air raid drills, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, people grew up in the early '60s genuinely expecting to be vaporised at any second. I think this is part of the reason for the late '60s counterculture explosion. The young people felt they had nothing to lose. In fact, some of them called themselves "bomb babies" because they grew up under the shadow of nuclear war.
"Not based on any persons living or dead": this is an outright lie, lol. Kubrick is covering his arse. George C. Scott as the crazy general is based on General Westmoreland who later would escalate the conflict in Vietnam; Dr. Strangelove is Henry Kissinger; Russian President Dmitri is Nikita Kruschev; and there are probably quite a few more. The caricatures don't mean much to young audiences today, sadly. Fun fact: Peter Sellers plays Dr. Strangelove AND the British ambassador!
Yes, it was before tanning beds! Those cancer-causers would not come along until the 1980s.
You're smart enough to understand it, Ashleigh. You're just too young, lol. You didn't grow up with this reality.
A good comment, but I would suggest that the character, Dr. Strangelove, is more closely based on "de-Nazified" rocket engineer Dr. Werner von Braun, who was the lead behind the deadly V2 rockets that the Third Reich launched on the UK, and became a high ranking person at NASA until his death in 1977.
Btw, most of the character names in the movie have a point, usually historical or sexual or both, again making fun of the figures being satirised...
Yes, I think this is it. This movie has dated.
Another outright lie: "It is the stated position of the U.S. Air Force that their safeguards would prevent the occurence of such events as are depicted in this film." This was proven false decades later. Any General could launch a nuclear strike on his own recognizance.
Ripper was an exaggerated (Though only slightly) version of a member of the John Birch Society. Among other things, they saw a communist plot in almost everything. Including fluoridation of the water.
Side note, tanning bulbs with high UV concentrations were a thing back then. But you had to move either it or you around. Not as intense as the later ones, but if you left it on one place too long it would tan or burn you very unevenly.
@@christopherconard2831 thanks for the information!
Some trivia:
- James Earl Jones was a Broadway actor for years before he got his first film role in this movie.
- George C Scott (General Turgidson) was a serious actor and wanted to play his role seriously. Kubrick told him to do his scenes over the top for practice, then they would shoot the "real" scenes. Only when the film was edited, Kubrick of course used the over the top scenes instead.
- The names are hilarious. Merkin Muffley (A merkin is fake pubic hair), Bat Guano, Buck Turgidson (Turgid means engorged), Jack Ripper (possibly a reference to a serial killer), Premier Kissov etc.
James Earl Jones father Robert Earl Jones was a great actor too, similar booming lovable voice( The Sting)
"Already, because it's a Kubrick film, VERY excited."
I'm just SO. DAMN. PROUDA YOU, Ashleigh.
You kinda got the story right. Basically, it's about how paranoia drives people to self-destruction and they fail to learn even in the face of failure. The movie might not seem funny nowadays because the blatant idiocy of the characters is now common behavior found in real world politicians and it's too on-the-nose; but back in 1964 this kind of thing was considered over-the-top ridiculous.
Also, General Ripper was based on Curtis LeMay, whom most of his subordinates claimed was psychotic in real life and actively sought to goad the USSR into an actual nuclear conflict. So that disclaimer at the beginning was unintentionally false.
And then Thirteen Days showed LeMay was trying very, very hard to push JFK into just pressing the button. Thankfully, JFK had a cooler head on his shoulders.
@@virgilhodgesjr1524 They didn't call him "Bombs Away Le May" for nothing.
"unintentionally"?
@@Stray7 Yeah. Nobody outside of the military knew that LeMay was actually insane and attempting to actually provoke war. That was something that turned out to be true later.
Don't worry Ashleigh it took me a couple of watches to get my head round it. You just need to know your history and be in the right frame of mind (it's a black comedy/satire) when you watch it.
Do a bit of reading of the comments and then give it another go and I can guarantee you'll laugh your arse off. Sellers performances in this are unmatched!❤️
This is the greatest satire movie ever made about nuclear war, Stanley Kubrick was absolutely genius when he made this movie. You have to remember this was at the height of the cold war. The general is George c Scott who plays Patton in movie and won the academy award for that role. Peter Sellers became more famous with his Pink panther movies as inspector Clouseau which are hilarious
Fail Safe was the serious movie response to this movie and came out a year later, well worth watching. We actually lost a few nukes over the US, one before this movie was made crashed through the bomb bay door and landed in a field killing a cow. Luckily only the conventional explosives exploded as the nuke part wasn't armed at the time.
My favorite movie about a General who orchestrates a nuclear attack during the Cold War is Spies Like Us.
It was a awesome book as well
@@roberthughes2402 another great movie along the same lines only involving a Navy ship is The Bedford Incident
Beans is a most perceptive and loquacious cat! I appreciated her feline input. Ashleigh, don't feel bad about not immediately "getting" this film. It's from a time before you were born, the most intense years of the Cold War, in the 1960s. I grew up in the Sixties and it was a different world back then. Now that you know it's supposed to be a satire, come back to the film in a few days or weeks and watch it again. It may grow on you.
I think Ashleigh needs to look up the Cuban Missile Crisis. IIRC, that was around late 1962, less than 2 full years before this movie released.
This is a great movie, and Peter Sellers is a great actor. He played 3 charactors in this, the president, the british group captain, and of course Dr. Strangelove. Peter Sellers was also great in the pink panther movie from 1964 called a shot in the dark, that is also a must watch. The B-52 bomber pilot is Slim Pickens, he was the guy working for Hedley Lamar in the Blazing Saddles movie.
A nuclear bomb on a plane would never explode in a crash, that would be crazy. It can only explode after it is programmed to explode, and the bomb is made active. They do the same thing with missiles on fighter jets, in case of a crash, they can only explode after they are programmed to be active.
You're a millennial Ashley. Those of us that lived through the cold war this was hilarious. We were familiar with the shadow of nuclear war hanging over us so we knew about fallout shelters, civil defense instructions and duck and cover drills in grade school. The old civil defense films on UA-cam would be a great way to get some context for this period of history. Love your reactions!
Kinda funny how the only thing that really changed when the Berlin wall fell was we didn't feel like keeping our finger on the button as hard. Can still hit it at anytime so this never really went away.
It's also funny to us intelligent millennials haha
Actually I'm gen Z I think
This was the movie Kubrick did before jumping into pre-production of "2001" because he was universally criticized for how bleak and dark "Dr. Strangelove was" so he wanted to do something that gives the audience something more positive. In fact "Dr. Strangelove" has an interesting history of unused scenes. They had shot a huuuuge pie fight (hence all the pies on the table of the war room) and there was even a scene of the President getting hit by one pie in the face, resulting in the General to yell "The president has been shot!". However shortly after, John F. Kennedy was assassinated and Kubrick felt like it was tasteless to include that to the movie. This is why the movie then suddenly ends with nukes right after Doktor Strangelove says "MEIN FÜHRER!!! I CAN WALK!!" because right after that scene the Pie fight would have started.
The same reason Slim Pickins "Dallas" was redubbed as "Vegas". If you read his lips he's clearly not saying Vegas.
@@OroborusFMA Indeed! Well spotted!
This movie came out at the exact right time in history, there's a lot of subtleties in this movie, Peter Sellers was awesome playing 3 parts
He played 4, The entire conversation with the Soviet leader was Sellers talking to himself. So he in theory he played the Soviet Premier as well as the President.
Sellers was originally going to play Slim Pickens' part as well, but he said 4 was too many so Kubrick got Slim.
If you're accustomed to hearing the most powerful and credible and dignified members of your society tell the most absurd and dangerous lies, and no one, especially not the media, ever pushes back, and then you see a movie that portrays, in a deadpan and convincingly accurate way the probable results of their insane policy, and which also includes constant subtle mockery of them and their dumb ideas, well , you can't help but be filled with glee. This movie is savage! A comedy about nuclear war - now that's going out on a limb.
Ashleigh, I grew up in the 50's and all we did in the classroom was "duck and cover" in the case of a nuclear blast. In today's world, the kids continually do their "active shooter" drills. Now that's progress!
Peter Sellers portrayed 3 roles in the film. He was the British officer, the President, and Dr. Strangelove. Originally, he was also going to portray Major Kong, the main pilot. But he was having trouble with the Texas accent, and was also concerned about the heavy work load. Finally, after he had sprained his ankle, he could no longer work in the cramped set of the aircraft. That ended up being the deciding factor to cast Slim Pickens, who was truly a Texan, in his place. By the way, Peter Sellers is probably best remembered for his appearances as Inspector Clouseau in most of the 60's and 70's Pink Panther films.
I've always loved this movie. It uses humour to show how paranoia leads to ridiculously irrational behaviour and ultimately war. Peter Sellers is something of British comedy institution, and really should have won an Oscar for playing all three roles so well. It is said he improvised most of his dialogue, and more than half of the movie's budget went to his salary. Kubric famously stated he got three for the price of six.
Dr. Strangelove is absoluetely brilliant, so many brilliant scenes, my favourite is the doomsday device scene, with the US guy saying they should have one too...
Also, Kubrick and his team got the air craft so realistic, without help from the military or government, that they questioned them on suspicion of espionage, cause it was just too close to life.
"I don't avoid women, Mandrake...but I...I do deny them my essence."
This was comedy/satire. Its cinematic counterpart “Fail Safe” with Henry Fonda was serious as a heart attack.
Oh yes, I am always so happy when someone does a reaction to this classical masterpiece. Great!
Haven’t seen this one in a while… I forgot about the opening disclaimer! That whole “any similarity to actual persons, living or dead” thing has become ubiquitous. But here, Kubrick clearly meant it as a joke. Because Dr. Strangelove is very obviously Werner Von Braun (or any other of the Paperclip scientists you can name).
No. Von Braun wasn't like Dr Strangelove. Kubrick himself said, that Strangelove was mainly modeled after Dr Edward Tellar, the father of the hydrogen bomb. It is true, that Strangelove's apparent Nazi connections alluded to the hundreds of Operation Paperclip German scientists, but Strangelove's personality was Teller. Ironically, Teller was a Hungarian who hated the Nazis, but he hated the Soviets just as much if not more.
Although a Nazi SS officer, albeit a reluctant one supposedly, Von Braun came across as even tempered, not some obsessed nerd flying off the handle to start a nuclear war. He was obsessed with rockets & space exploration, but to meet him, you'd never know it. Dad knew him.
Ripper was based on General LeMay I believe.
And President Merkin was based on Adlai Stevenson! Good old Adlai saw it, and said "I didn't know whether to sue, or laugh. I decided to laugh. It's now my favourite film!"
Yes, indeed, he sounds familiar! Kong on the plane was Taggart from "Blazing Saddles"! That is Slim Pickens, and he was, indeed, legit country. He raised and trained horses, too, and I believe trained a beauty of an animal in a favorite Western of mine, "The Big Country"
The legend is that nobody told Pickens that this was supposed to be a comedy. Pickens played Major Kong completely straight.
@@Rallarbusen I've read that too: probably one of the best ways to have directed him. It really feeds the dire situation as well as the comedy.
Kong was supposed to be the fourth character played by Sellers. But between Sellers not being confident in his cowboy voice and breaking a leg Fallon out of the bomb bay set Pickens was brought in to replace him.
The production had to be held up because Pickens had never been out of the country and to get to the studio in England he had to get a passport.
Thanks!
Thematically, it's about the absurdism of cold war hysteria and paranoia (something we still see today) and also the M.A.D (mutual assured destruction) doctrine which is a core idea behind maintaining a nuclear arsenal.
I'd recommend Barry Lyndon as one of Kubrick's masterpieces and one of the most beautiful movies ever made, but it's super long and I know how much you hate that haha
This movie was made during the
Hight of the cold war. Nuclear Armageddon was considered a certainty. Paranoia was the norm. Stanley Kubrick's brilliance lies in his ability to laugh in in the face of the fear
This is one of the best satires ever made. Lolita and this were really his first films where he found his voice. It was here where his view of humanity as being truly absurd started.
While I agree that it was here that he really found his voice… but I still love The Killing.
Can’t get enough Sterling Hayden, I guess.
And ended with "Being There".
@@RealTechZen Being There featured Peter Sellers, but it wasn’t Kubrick who directed it. It was Hal Ashby.
@@RealTechZen what are you talking about?
Kubrick has a... disturbing sense of humor. Clockwork Orange is a good example.
YES!!!
ONE OF MY FAVORITE STANLEY KUBRICK MOVIES!
Peter Sellers plays 3 different characters in the movie:
Dr. Strangelove, the one in the wheelchair.
President Merkin Muffley
Captain Lionel Mandrake.
Sellers was going to play Captain TJ "King" Kong, but Sellers couldn't fake a good southern drawl do the part went to Slim Pickens.
The ending wasa lot different as it involved a pie fight scene and one of the pies hits the President on his face as George C. Scott's character shouts, "OUR PRESIDENT, CUT DOWN IN HIS PRIME!," The ending was so controversial due to JFK's assassination in 1963, it was scrapped.
There's another Cold War era comedy in which Peter Sellers plays multiple roles (including the queen) called The Mouse That Roared. It isn't the masterpiece Dr. Strangelove is, but it's still a classic.
Three things are needed to understand this movie. First, there's a serious bug in the system - a bug that allows General Ripper to deploy his nukes without any higher-level authorization. The second thing going on is with the men, and their constant preoccupation with sex. The opening shot of the two planes joined together with romantic music playing, the B-52 pilot perusing a _Playboy_ magazine. General Ripper's paranoia triggered by his strange epiphany following a bout of impotence. General Turgidson's affair with his secretary - and then later fantasizing about having sexual experiences while living in a mine shaft. And Dr. Strangelove suggesting there should be 10 females to each male in the survivor group - and that the women should possess a "highly stimulating nature." The third thing is, after the Doomsday Machine is triggered, the people in the War Room are already planning for the next conflict with the Soviets - which will happen in 100 years - when the survivors first emerge from the mine shafts. So we have the earth-shattering shock of a Doomsday Machine exploding - and the people responsible for this global catastrophe have not even slightly changed how they think about war. Now that's a wrap.
I'm always happy when Ashleigh is watching something I like. It's the vibe.
With the fluoridation he kept talking about.. It's about Fluoride added to drinking water that started around that time. Fluoride is the medication that helps prevent tooth decay. There were a lot of concerns and conspiracy theories surrounding it. One of them being that it caused impotence. Basically, General Ripper there is impotent and is blaming the fluoride because of it. So pretty much, he ended the world because he couldn't get it up.
Kentucky has the highest concentration of fluoride in it's drinking water, yet the highest amount of tooth decay.
You had the perfect reaction to one of the best lines in the history of film, "You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
"Mandrake, c'mere and help me with this gun. The Redcoats are comin'!" An American saying this to a British officer. I don't think I've ever picked out that line before. LOL!
YOUR ARE THE BEST!!! So fast! Such good things to say!!! I loved it!!! (This is my favorite movie... and you got it!)
Fail-Safe is one of the most intense movies! This movie was done as a parody of Fail-Safe. Highly recommend
Edit: dr. Strangelove looks to have come out first but Fail-Safe is one of my favorite movies due to such a tremendous cast and acting. Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, and a brief showing of Dom DeLuise.
I believe they're both inspired by the same book.
This was one of those rare occasions where two films tackling the same subject were in production at the same time (although, admittedly, both from different viewpoints: Fail Safe through a sober and terrifying eye; Strangelove looking at the absurdity of the arms race). Both are great, though and contain scenes that are iconic in the history of cinema (the still images at the end of Fail Safe still have the power to terrify me forty years on since the first time I watched it).
@FlimFlam totally agree, the build up and ending of FailSafe is so intense and it's a credit to great writing and how the actors executed their craft. Brilliant 👏🏼
@@oaf-77 Yep, good book by the way: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Alert_(novel)
Failsafe is worth a watch. Even thought the stories are almost identical, it's a more serious look at the situation and theres a lot more tension in the movie.
I love this movie! It's one of my favorite Kubrick movies ever! Love your reactions, Ashleigh! Keep up the good work!
"Gentle you can't fight in here this is the WAR room." Wait till you find out Birdman's full name. James Earl Jones I don't remember him this movie. Wait did I see this movie or did I just see the movie that this movie is spoffying. I think I saw that one with Walter Matheu Fail Safe. Ashley is you want a good nuclear war movie you need to see Wargames with Mathew Brodrick. This is a comedy.
In real life in the early 1980s, a Soviet officer who was in charge of actually launching a nuclear counterstrike against the United States that had been ordered by the Kremlin, refused to follow orders, and thereby saved the world from a nuclear apocalypse. The Soviet leaders falsely believed that the US had launched an all-out nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, due to a computer bug or glitch in the warning system. The computers were in a wargame simulation mode ("Shall we play a game?" 😉) when they weren't supposed to be, but falsely indicated that this was really happening. Fortunately, the officer could not believe the US would attack the USSR for no reason, since this would result in the destruction of civilization, so he didn't launch. He was dishonorably discharged and imprisoned (in the Gulag?) for insubordination and treason against the USSR, and later was honored as the hero who saved all of humanity. But he was still labeled a traitor, as well.
You got me with the "temperature dropped like it saw a State Trooper". Not even a minute in and I'm already laughing.
Dr. Strangelove was made with shocking accuracy on how nuclear launches could happen at the time, so much so that policy was changed to prevent this kind of scenario. It had a huge impact when it released in '64, only a couple years after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The character himself of Dr. Strangelove is a satirical element based off Operation Paperclip in which for 15 years after WWII the American government recruited former members and leaders of the Nazi party who were scientists, engineers, and technicians to further our military technology. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip but the conclusion you reached about the movie is pretty accurate.