Kubrick does it again!! Want to vote on what I should watch next? Click here! www.patreon.com/jamesvscinema "Lethal Weapon" dropping Friday! Enjoy the day :)
If your looking for another Kubrick film, I suggest Barry Lyndon. Totally different genre. Some people complained that plot was a bit slow, but I liked it. The cinematography is absolutely top tier and among the best ever produced in the history of movies. Film critics described the scenes as resembling paintings from the 18th century.
@@Dystopia1111 Lol yes yes. Talking to an apparently very drunk russian head of state and reassuring him that he likes to/would like to call to just talk, trying not to hurt his feelings; while they're trying to work out a fluke nuclear emergency.
You have no idea how scared we were as kids in the 50's and 60's that the Russians were going to drop the bomb. It's no joke that we had drills at school to hide under our desks or in a center hallway to avoid getting vaporized. It was absolutely terrifying and that fact that Kubrick had the vision to put our fears into a comedy in 1964 was incredibly groundbreaking.
I'll add that there were scares all the way through the 80s, though the drills were out of favor. By that point it was obvious it wouldn't do anyone any good anyhow lol But yeah... Red Dawn. War Games. A dozen TV movies about fallout.
@@arisucheddar3097 I would even add Spies Like Us into that mix as well. Late 80s comedy, but Dan Aykroyd's fun little talk about how fast a US-Soviet nuclear war could start and how long they would have to live afterward stuck with me forever. Doctor...
as a kid in the 80s, we were more afraid of Reagan than Gorbachov, who seemed the Cool Kid on the Block. Still think him underrated as having ended the Cold War
@@richardrobbins8067 I was a kid in the UK. They showed that film, then a British one, Threads. The Day After was Disney-esque by comparison. Threads was terrifying.
Peter Sellars got his ambition to play multiple characters from his admiration of Alec Guiness, who plays 9 characters in the British comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. If you want to watch a film that has no connection with Strangelove, except that it is a surprisingly dark comedy with a great actor giving a virtuoso performance in multiple roles then I recommend that. And Guiness and Sellers acted together in another wonderful dark comedy, from the same studio (Ealing Studios) called The Ladykillers. (And there, with all due respect to the Coens, you have to go for the original, definitely not the Coen Brothers remake).
A strange choice by the Coens, I've always thought. They have made some wonderful films, The Big Lebowski being my all time favourite, followed by maybe Blood Simple. What possessed them to re-make The Lady Killers is a complete mystery to me. It was always going to be be doomed when compared to the original. They are better than that, in my opinion.
You need to watch this movie like 5 times to get everything. It really is just such a good movie. The next Kubrick movie you should watch is "Paths of Glory." Not everyone has seen it, but it is quite good and I think you will like it.
@16:22 - reminded of this quote from Blackadder on the reason WWI started. In the words of Ron Perlman, war never changes. Captain Blackadder : You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war. Private Baldrick : But, this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir? Captain Blackadder : Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan. Lt George : What was that, sir? Captain Blackadder : It was bollocks.
The scene goes by very quick but if you guys pause at 6:32 you'll see a young James Earl Jones as Lt. Zogg in the pilot crew! This was his acting debut.
This is my favorite Kubrick movie. I know a lot of people say 2001 Space Odyssey is their favorite, but this is my favorite from him. This has the best showcase of one of Kubrick's strongest characteristics, one of cinema's most unique, his BITTER HUMOR. It's like Kubrick was indicting and condemning humanity's propensity to do stupid things with humor. He's making fun of humanity's stupid nuclear weapons race and war in general but instead of portraying the misery of only a handful of charaters as most "human stupidity" films do, in this film, he humorously showed how the entire civilization can be obliterated by human stupidity at a very grand scale. This is probably his most misanthropic attack against humanity's idiocy, even more so than what's narrated in A Clockwork Orange.
I was under the impression that originally Kubrick was going to make something along the lines of "Fail Safe" ; but his people kept coming up with funny ideas and in the end used very little of the novel "Red Alert" and just winged it.
I'm glad you mentionned how misanthropic he can be. I'm always pissed off when he is called a mysoginist, since I feel he is a misanthrope who portrays women in his movies being in bad situations having been put there by the actions of men. Ironically, this movie is the rare one where no woman is involved in the story...men alone are our doom.
"Peace is our Profession" was the official motto of SAC (Strategic Air Command. The unofficial motto was "Nuke 'em 'till the glow, then shoot 'em in the dark".
Fun fact: Major T.J. "King" Kong (the pilot who rides the bomb) was originally going to be played by Peter Sellers (in addition to his three other roles!), but a sprained ankle made it too difficult for Sellers to walk around the cramped set of the bomber plane, so the role went instead to the veteran character actor (and former Texas rodeo clown) Slim Pickens.
Love this film. One of the funniest dark comedies of all time. Peter Sellers is absolute genius in this. And George C. Scott's comedy chops are on spot on. Not sure I've ever seen Scott do any other comedies.
I found out recently he was tricked into it by Kubrick & even threatened to sue after he saw the premiere. Kubrick had him “overdo” it, then bring it down but filmed & used the “warm up” takes. What a genius, and a jerk.
Did you catch Peter Bull (The Russian Ambassador) breaking character when Dr, Strangelove was trying to make his "phantom" hand let go of the wheelchair? It was approx. @ 1:30:35 . From IMDb : Sterling Hayden, who plays a paranoiac who fears communists, was himself an American Communist Party member at one time.
@@JamesVSCinema Well, Kubrik is known for doing his research. And this movie was very close for getting him in serious trouble. If I remember correctly, it were the panels on the airplane that were a bit too realistic.
@@JamesVSCinema Its true. Something about the DoD or Airforce or whatever denying Kubrik access to a real B-52 cockpit, so they had to just kinda figure it out, and they came way too close to reality for the Pentagon folks to be comfortable with.
4:22 He totally misses the suggestive opening imagery of the tanker plane inserting the probe of the fueling line into the B-52 while the song "I'm in the Mood for Love" is playing.
Yes, it's a surprisingly good film, even post-Dr Strangelove. It was held back after Kubrick claimed it plagiarised Red Alert and so didn't do well at the box office. But very well worth a look.
I audited a film appreciate class in college and this was one of the films we studied. There are *TONS* of sexual allusions in this film, which relate to the idea of war as a reaction to men's insecurity of their masculinity/sexual performance. For example, the idea of precious bodily fluids being the impetus for starting nuclear war. The names of most of the main characters have sexual connotations (Buck Turgidson, an erect penis is "turgid" -- the ineffectual (impotent) president is named Merkin Muffley, a "merkin" is a female pubic wig -- Dr. "Strangelove", etc). The "serious" discussion of the male sexual fantasy plot of ensuring a huge female to male ratio (with only the most attractive females) being used to repopulate mankind. Even the opening shots of the planes being refueled are symbolic of sexual intercourse. One of the greatest film satires ever--really demonstrates the insanity of war.
‘Strangelove’ was a reference to the strange love between the former nazi rocket and military research scientists and US military who later recruited and employed them.
James I gotta say, thank you man. The whole community that you’ve built with this channel is amazing. It gives hope to those who don’t have it. I don’t have many friends to discuss films or really anything with, and doing it by proxy with you through the comments has been very helpful. Keep it up man, and I hope you have a good holiday season.
I came to adulthood during the height of the Cold War. Absolute blinding existential dread was the sea we all swam in. Everyone, even kids, knew that there were a million ways the equilibrium of terror that kept nukes from flying could be disrupted. Every time the evening news talked about rising tensions between the US and the USSR, the whole thing overwhelmed you (or at least it overwhelmed me) with a feeling of certain, unavoidable, and imminent doom. I have no idea how many nights I went to bed positive that the world would be dead before I woke up. On the playground at recess we split our time between playing Six Million Dollar Man and discussing whether it would be better to be vaporized in the first blast or try to live through the aftermath (most little kids came down on the side of instant death). And as horrible as all that was, we got used to it because human beings can get used to anything. The insanity depicted in this film was just a slice of life. Young people today have their own reasons for existential dread so I'm not trying to say we had it worse because I don't think we did; there's no comforting way to contemplate the end of human life. I guess the simple fact is that we were always going to commit suicide somehow. Christ I'm glad I never had kids.
Our family medical book was American, and so had a section (orange?) for what to do in case of a nuclear strike. It had a diagram showing the effects of a nuclear bomb over distance from the aiming point and mentioned that capital cities and army bases were likely targets. I knew at about age 6 or 7 that Melbourne was too far away but there was an army base in Korumburra, 10 miles away from where I lived, and so was secretly terrified. It took me years to realise that an Army Reserve Recovery platoon would not deserve a nuclear missile.
"If it's accurate." Fun fact: The inside layout of B-52s was secret at the time, and Kubrick did a good enough job replicating it that the DoD investigated how he did it. Some of the stuff Kubrick did is just mindblowing when you think about it. Nothing moreso than 2001 pre-dating the actual moon landing.
I wrote an entire paper about the cinematography in the war room scenes when I was in college because I love this film so much. I'm loving the recent movie choices so much for your reactions!
On the wall of the Strategic Air Command and every SAC emblem everywhere was the phrase, "Peace . . . Is Our Profession". The official ellipses fill-in was "and the destruction of all who threaten it". Unofficially, the self-proclaimed logo was "Peace is Our Profession; War is Just a Hobby". I know from where I speak. I began my first tour in Bldg 500, SAC HQ, was working as the TSCO for the Command Historian. I worked at HQ SAC from December 1979 to August 1995 when I was not assigned overseas (from 1982-1983 working in the Headquarters, Royal Saudi Air Force in Riyadh, SA and 1987-1990 in Headquarters United States European Command in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, West Germany -- now just Germany).
”Mein Führer, I can walk!” I experienced massive chills when the bombs went off and ”we’ll meet again” started playing. I’m kind of proud of humanity that we haven’t blown ourselves up (yet)
As other responders have noted, the movie "Fail Safe" is definitely one you should see, showing the darker side of nuclear conflict. Starring Henry Fonda...("12 Angry Men")...I have to say that seeing it when I was a youngster really scared the sh#t out of me.
Sterling Hayden. What a perfect delivery of an absolutely insane line with a totally straight face. And Slim Pickens delivery on the quintessential scene - epic. He stored the cowboy hat in a special safe, not just the code safe, but it's own safe (also lined with nudey pics). Peter Sellers plays three roles: RAF officer, The President and, of course, Dr. Strangelove - brilliant. Peter used to be in a radio group "The Goon Show" which pre-dates and heavily influenced Monty Python and his fingerprints are all over the script.
George C. Scott's performance is crazy brilliant in this. Unfortunately, it was obtained through rather manipulative means by the director. Scott was a bit too subtle in his performance, so Kubrick asked him to give him a few takes in every scene that were outlandish, ridiculous, or just plain silly. Kubrick assured him these were just explorative and wouldn't necessarily be used. Given Kubrick's propensity for MANY takes, Scott must have not noticed what Kubrick was doing. Kubrick edited most of the silly takes of Scott's scenes together to make the final film. Scott found out about it at the screening of the movie. He was FURIOUS. Having said that, it's fucking awesome.
Yes, in almost cases the acting choice to "don't play it so broadly, keep it real" is good advice. But this movie, and this performance, is the shining exception -- Scott's loony performance is exactly right, and an absolute classic.
Kubrick told George c Scott to just have fun with the first take of each of his parts, calling them "practice" takes, then having him do his lines very seriously, but Kubrick intentionally used the "practice" takes. Scott was livid when he saw the movie.
By the early 60s it was just becoming apparent to the general public that "duck and cover" was a bunch of BS. So Kubrick managed to encapsulate just how absurd it all was that our leaders would think war was a thing they'd be able to control, and they'd "procedure" us all right into extinction. My Dad worked at SAC on bombers for most of his career and this was a favorite of his. We'd ask him if this was they way the crews would act in that situation because it was hard to believe and he'd basically just look at us and say: Enjoy life, kiddos. If you REALLY want to make yourself nuts, go and research how many times it almost went down by accident.
The film is, among everything else that has been said, a masterpiece of sexual innuendos. The opening shot of the fuel plane in the air is made to look like two planes having sex. General Ripper can't accept that he can no longer perform in bedroom so instead he makes up a crazy idea of Russians poluting their fluids and starts a war. In the end the global genocide gets the nazi in the room so happy that his dead arm springs back to life and then he literally stands up. It's amazing.
They only said the film had sexual references. Anyone who thinks a plane refueling means sex is insane. This movie was made in the 60s. The sexual references were just the playboy and the generals talking about physical love.
@@jkorshak That's all true except for the aircraft refueling. This is what happens when youngsters look for sexual innuendo in a 60s movie lol. Kids see everything as sex
Not to mention the fact that turgid (as in Turgedson) can mean swollen or distended, and a merkin (Merkin Muffley) is an artificial covering of hair for the pubic area. I shouldn’t have to even mention strange love.
@@jkorshak lol I'm glad I'm not a filmmaker. They just said bombers are in the air 24/7. Lets put in a pretty refueling scene to show the audience how. Then everyone over analyzes it says it must mean sex. Kubrick would facepalm over this.
There is a Kubrick movie which is often maligned by many fans of his more popular work that highlights his technical prowess, and that's Barry Lyndon. Every shot is frameable art, and he had to invent a whole new camera apparatus to capture the feeling of low light, candle lit interiors common to the era of the film.
Just so you know, that was Vera Lynn singing at the end. She's British and was loved by the British troops during WW2. Listen to the lyrics; "We'll meet again, some SUNNY day". Irony abounds...
James, have you seen Kubrick's 1957 movie, "Paths of Glory"? You might like it, "When Truffaut famously said that it was impossible to make an anti-war movie, because action argues in favor of itself, he could not have been thinking of "Paths of Glory," and no wonder: Because of its harsh portrait of the French army, the film was banned in France until 1975."
Strongly seconded! Not only for the story and performances, but for the technical achievements seen in the pre-Steadicam trench walk scenes and the use of light everywhere. Strong stuff; worth your time.
Peter Sellers was a comedic genius. The first time I watched this years ago I didn't pay attention to the opening or closing credits. I had no idea it was Sellers playing the president.
Funny you should mention Fallout. The original developers of the Fallout series credit Dr. Strangelove as a highly influential to the core concepts and world design of the game.
This is my favorite movie. When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s it was shown on TV every year on ABC. I always made sure to watch it. I love that you liked it! I enjoyed watching your reactions!
What you really need to compare and contrast is this film with the movie "Fail-Safe" both movies were scheduled to be released at the same time, and after a law suit, Kubrick won. Fail-Safe is an ultra-serious flick starring Henry Fonda. I own copies of both & I think I prefer Fail-Safe a bit more. It's deadly serious with no comic relief. I really think you should check it out.
Unfortunately the government would not cooperate with the Fail Safe producers. The special effects in that one are well below the level of Dr. Strangelove.
"YAAAAAAAAAA HOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" God dang this movie is A: Brilliant in it's self-awareness and B: just chock full of iconic scenes and quotes. Love love love this film.
I believe that this and another movie with similar themes got the US military quite worried, and they spent some time reviewing procedures to try to tighten things up and make sure this couldn't happen. Apparently, security around nuclear weapons often used to be pretty poor!
@@JamesVSCinema the United States currently has six missing nuclear weapons while Russia is known to have at least two missing but who knows how many they lost when the Soviet Union collapsed. Sleep safe at night my friend 🤣
@@chaost4544 Well, "missing" might not be the best term. Ours were lost in when the aircraft crashed and they've never been recovered. Mostly from the bottom of the sea. There is no way they'll "just go off", a nuke is as much a precision instrument as large telescope. But there are chunks of plutonium that are just sitting there, poisoning anything that gets to close. The Russians are missing about as many as we are, or more, in deep ocean or under literally tens of thousands of square miles of Siberian swamp land. Of course, officially, they have no loose nukes, but 20+ years, neutron damage would render the electronics useless and they thing won't fire. And anything with a tritium booster, you'd just be injecting dueterium after this much time and you'll get a fizzle. TLDR: yes, America and Russian have lost at sea nukes, but they'll never go off.
I heard that Strangelove wasn't supposed to stand up at the end, but Sellers quickly improvised and came up with "Mein Führer! I can walk!" on the spot.
It's interesting how Kubrick re-used virtually the same camera technique in Full Metal Jacket during the combat scenes as he did in this movie. FMJ was more than 20 years after this.
Saw a doc recently about Eddie Murphy... he cited this movie and Peter Sellers doing several roles so perfectly as his inspiration for playing multiple, completely different roles in his movies...
Also of note is the movie "Fail-Safe", directed by Sidney Lumet (the director behind 12 Angry Men). It's basically the serious version of this movie and the studio behind Dr. Strangelove actually sued so it would come out after Kubrick's movie. I'm simplifying a bit, but I always find it interesting how dirty film studios would behave.
I saw that in theatre when it first came out. I laughed like crazy but a young woman behind us said to her date “I thought this was supposed to be a comedy”. I don’t think she got it.
The moment of you discovering where a sample came from, is exactly why I love showing people movies and watching UA-cam reactions, to see people make those connections between the arts they already love, to this new piece that predates it, is just wonderful. The way art is as a whole, all connected, makes everything that much more impactful, to me. For example my good friend listens to alot of metal, and just like rap and hip hop, a good amount of metal artists will sample soundclips from movies, so when I'm showing him a movie or a clip from a show, he can see where those parts of the song came from, he doesn't watch to many movies or shows, so he wouldn't know where they came from otherwise, I showed him One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest, and he recognized a line from a metal song during out viewing, and that connection just pushed his interest in the film up just a good amount, it was like he discovered a missing piece to the puzzle of his appreciation.
I used to fly in B-52 bombers. The opening sequence shows a B-52 performing air refueling. You notice that the refueling boom pops out at the end, which is not standard. It is known as an emergency breakaway (which you can actually watch happening).
Actually, "Peace is our profession" was the motto of the Strategic Air Command. During the cold war, half of our fleet of B-52's was airborne 24/7, and yes, they were 2 hours from their targets in the Soviet Union. The other half of the B-52 fleet was on the ground, but also at varying states of alert. About the time this film was released, local governments began flouridation of drinking water, and, of course, that was a big controversy. Fun times.
The ending was most likely a suggestion of a friend and co star from a radio series called The Goons of Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan , as Kubrick did not know how to end the movie. Spike was known for his dark and weird humor.
So the thing with the cold war - my dad talks about being convinced he would die either in Vietnam or in a nuclear war, which could happen at any time. For any reason - or no reason at all. We came down to literally a single vote against starting a nuclear war during the cuban missile crisis - from a guy in a submarine who was being hit with depth charges at the time. And then there's our Paperclip Man. And I LOVE ('love') the relevance of the Precious Bodily Fluids conspiracy. Flourination and Vaccines and Soy Products... it's all the same conspiracy and swap out the words.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov he kept the Soviet sub from using nuclear torpedos against the US Navy, which most likely would have triggered a Globla Nuclear War, and we would not be here talking about this today. So anytime we think we’re on the darkest timeline, remember it could always be worse.
Kubrick actually got in trouble with the US government because he was able to so perfectly re-create the interior and operation of a B-52. The original title was "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb", but he also got in trouble about that; due to this coming out during the height of the Cold War intensity, right after the Bay of Pigs failure.
This came out only a year after The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, when for a period of 13 days, Americans were in mortal fear of total nuclear annhilation at any time, on any day.
Even with the very real possibility of a nuclear war on the horizon, you will still have to answer to the Coca Cola Company for breaking a vending machine.
I'll connect a couple dots for you since you mentioned Monty Python in this. I think Kubrick really absorbed British humor after he disowned Hollywood after making Spartacus, moved to England and spent the rest of his life there. The British really have a way of casually tossing off some truly dark witticisms that are brilliantly funny if they doesn't sucker-punch you too hard and I wouldn't doubt that Kubrick really responded to that. Peter Sellers (bad mustache guy, president and strangelove himself) is more internationally known for the Pink Panther movies and the film Being There, but he rose to prominence with the British radio comedy group the Goon Show, which was a direct influence on Monty Python. In fact, the guy in Life of Brian who was trying to pontificate to the group of Brian's followers, but just walked away when they left him is another Goon Show member, Spike Milligan, who principally wrote their material. Anyway, Kubrick really got along with Sellers when they first worked together on Lolita, the first film Kubrick did in England and the one before Dr. Strangelove. He liked Sellers' improvisational abilities as a comic, so he made his part in Lolita bigger and then particularly modeled Strangelove as a vehicle for Sellers to play four different parts, but it wound up being only three. I'd say why, but someone else probably already did and I'm rambling too much. F'in factoids!
Coming full circle, Spike Milligan, co-creator of the Goon Show with Sellers, wrote his own dark comedy post-nuclear apocalypse film: ua-cam.com/video/hzxKbPXjVGA/v-deo.html You might like to contrast it with this one; Dr Strangelove is a satirical farce filmed with typically Kubrickian realism; Milligan's "The Bed Sitting Room" is also a satirical farce but filmed with Milligan's typical *surrealism.*
@@tommcewan7936 Ahhh yeah The Bed-Sitting Room is ODD. Milligan had a sensibility that was so adjacent to reality, I love it. Pretty much the brainchild of The Goon Show.
For reasons of security the crew were not allowed inside an actual B-52 and Kubrick only had photos to figure things out. When US Air Force people saw the set they were shocked at it's accuracy so it must be pretty spot on.
In my opinion this is the peak of Kubrick's achievements. He started as a photographer for magazines. At the mid-60s juncture of his career, "Spartacus" was his only film in color, and there's something about black & white as a component of aesthetic that he *MASTERED*. There wasn't a more sumptuous visual feast that he could cook up after "Dr. Strangelove", so detailed, so atmospheric, so foreboding. In terms of storytelling he had also crafted his most mature examination of the world, but by paradox he did so through the most immature characters imaginable. This is what the end of Earth's civilization would look like. Not conjecture; just fact. Kubrick wisely didn't waste his remaining career trying to jump the bar he set for himself. Instead he switched to color and built his style from scratch. From "2001 A Space Odyssey" onward you see him explore ... you see him play with filmmaking, with the existence of art and story and commercial appeal mingling together. He did so with absolute confidence because (as "Dr. Strangelove" proved) he was already the best and didn't have to prove anything. I also hold a special place in my heart for anything that can make me laugh so hard I fart.
Check out Being There (1979) starring Peter Sellers in his second to last role. Absolutely spectacular film and as much as I'm a Kubrick fan, Hal Ashby's masterpiece is my personal favorite film. Thank you for your consideration and reactions - top notch!
Great video. My father joined Strategic Air Command in 1952 as a 2nd Lieutenant and retired as a full Colonel in 1969. His boss there until 1957 was General Curtis Lemay known as Bombs Away Lemay. Lemay spent many evenings at our dinner table and fishing with my father in a local stream. Peace is our Profession was indeed their motto. My father's and Lemay's favorite film of all time? Doctor Strangelove.
This movie pairs well with The Bed Sitting Room; a another dark absurd comedy about nuclear annihilation, my favorite description of it is people in post apocalyptic England deal with the end of the world in the most British way possible. If you loved dr strangelove & Monty python you need to see The Bed Sitting Room
I'm waiting for the musical to come out. Slim Pickens was in Blazing Saddles and in millions of Westerns. Peter Sellers best movie, played five roles. Sellers also played Chauncey Gardner in Being There... The drum playing as the B-52's heading toward Russia. Like maybe one of biggest anti-war statements ever and the MAD concept: Mutual Assured Destruction...
Something which I think is important: it's easy to say 'shit happens, we could die at any moment, and we have to find a way to live with that.' And it's true. We could and we do. BUT. This was not inevitable. The fact that we were in such a literally mad situation, with people saying in complete seriousness that a world with one American and no Soviets was a victory, the way people actively pushed for nuclear war... these were *decisions that were made* by people who *we* put in power. We need to somehow find acceptance of the reality without ignoring responsibility.
I was 7 when this film came out. I probably first saw it when I was 12 or 13. This was the reality of what we knew could happen at any time for my entire life up to about 1989, at which point things felt a little calmer. Now, instead of incinerating the planet directly, we are just going to let it burn up from too much CO2 in Earth's bodily fluids, but what can you do?
Kubrick does it again!!
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"Lethal Weapon" dropping Friday! Enjoy the day :)
He faked the moon landing
This film is in my all-time Top 10 classic movies. It still makes me laugh. Thanks for the review! 💜
What is the song that uses the sample?
If your looking for another Kubrick film, I suggest Barry Lyndon. Totally different genre. Some people complained that plot was a bit slow, but I liked it. The cinematography is absolutely top tier and among the best ever produced in the history of movies. Film critics described the scenes as resembling paintings from the 18th century.
@@jec1ny That’s on my Watch List!
"Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is the War Room!" might be one of my favorite lines in any movie
Mine too. It’s such perfect irony.
"Mein Furrer! I can walk" That is my fave from this crazy movie!
I concur, But let's not downplay the significance of the "Precious bodily fluids."
Just saying. :-P
I can never get through the whole "Well, I'm sorry, Dimitri" conversation without laughing my ass off (no matter how many times I see it).
@@Dystopia1111 Lol yes yes. Talking to an apparently very drunk russian head of state and reassuring him that he likes to/would like to call to just talk, trying not to hurt his feelings; while they're trying to work out a fluke nuclear emergency.
“Peace is our Profession” wasn’t made up for this movie, that was the motto of The Strategic Air Command.
you can imagine British Air Command chanting the acronym (nearly) Pip, pip
"... War is just a hobby."
Just coming on to say this
There was a Peace is our Profession sign still up at Minot AFB 10 years ago when I was stationed there. Wonder if it’s still there…
Reality is self-parodying. All ya have to do is point is out. Pull it out of context and shine a light.
You have no idea how scared we were as kids in the 50's and 60's that the Russians were going to drop the bomb. It's no joke that we had drills at school to hide under our desks or in a center hallway to avoid getting vaporized. It was absolutely terrifying and that fact that Kubrick had the vision to put our fears into a comedy in 1964 was incredibly groundbreaking.
I'll add that there were scares all the way through the 80s, though the drills were out of favor. By that point it was obvious it wouldn't do anyone any good anyhow lol
But yeah... Red Dawn. War Games. A dozen TV movies about fallout.
@@arisucheddar3097
"The Day After" made for TV movie did it for me, no happy endings.
@@arisucheddar3097 I would even add Spies Like Us into that mix as well. Late 80s comedy, but Dan Aykroyd's fun little talk about how fast a US-Soviet nuclear war could start and how long they would have to live afterward stuck with me forever. Doctor...
as a kid in the 80s, we were more afraid of Reagan than Gorbachov, who seemed the Cool Kid on the Block. Still think him underrated as having ended the Cold War
@@richardrobbins8067 I was a kid in the UK. They showed that film, then a British one, Threads. The Day After was Disney-esque by comparison. Threads was terrifying.
Peter Sellars got his ambition to play multiple characters from his admiration of Alec Guiness, who plays 9 characters in the British comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. If you want to watch a film that has no connection with Strangelove, except that it is a surprisingly dark comedy with a great actor giving a virtuoso performance in multiple roles then I recommend that. And Guiness and Sellers acted together in another wonderful dark comedy, from the same studio (Ealing Studios) called The Ladykillers. (And there, with all due respect to the Coens, you have to go for the original, definitely not the Coen Brothers remake).
Great recommendation. Fantastic movie.
Yes! Such a good time.
To be honest I think The Ladykillers is actually the better film. It is just fabulous. I think it would make a great reaction.
Kind Hearts and Coronets is a comedic gem. Wish someone would react to it. (Hint).
A strange choice by the Coens, I've always thought. They have made some wonderful films, The Big Lebowski being my all time favourite, followed by maybe Blood Simple. What possessed them to re-make The Lady Killers is a complete mystery to me. It was always going to be be doomed when compared to the original. They are better than that, in my opinion.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!" 🤣 😂 This movie is hilarious.. a Kubrick gem.
Genius film xD
The fact that Peter Sellers played 3 characters in this film is amazing
He should’ve won an Oscar for each role instead of Rex Harrison for My Fair Lady.
If he hadn't broken his ankle he would have played four. He was also originally going to do Slim Pickens character as well.
@@88wildcat I find it hard to imagine Sellers playing the pilot; to me it’s one of Slim Pickens’ best roles!
@@88wildcat Slim Pickens was perfect for that role.
It’s crazy to see how young James Earl Jones is in this movie. This is such a great classic.
The first time Darth Vader blows up a planet.
@@k.sammokko4218 Oh shit.
@@k.sammokko4218 His fleet/crew, but yeah, same in both cases…
Rest in peace to a legend
"Gee, I wish WE had one of those Doomsday Machines, Janesy." George C. Scott is so great in this.
Everybody was great but Scott stands out to me, and that’s saying something in a movie where Peter Sellers plays three parts.
Seriously, he damn near stole the movie. I was like "why isn't he in more comedies?!?"
Kubrick's Cold War masterpiece! Peter Sellers' performances were absolutely BRILLIANT!
For someone who grew up under the ever-present shadow of nuclear annihilation, it has lost none of it's black humor, OR, it's power to terrify.
You need to watch this movie like 5 times to get everything. It really is just such a good movie.
The next Kubrick movie you should watch is "Paths of Glory." Not everyone has seen it, but it is quite good and I think you will like it.
The Killing (1955) is also definitely worth a look.
Paths of Glory is the greatest indictment of Military Command ever!
"Paths of Glory" is for sure the most powerful commentary on the futility of war - probably even more than "A Thin Red Line."
They’re both great films, and how could they not be? They’re Kubrick after all.
@@stevenkranowski5141 So good! A forgotten work...You know Tarantino saw it!
@16:22 - reminded of this quote from Blackadder on the reason WWI started. In the words of Ron Perlman, war never changes.
Captain Blackadder : You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
Private Baldrick : But, this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
Captain Blackadder : Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
Lt George : What was that, sir?
Captain Blackadder : It was bollocks.
The scene goes by very quick but if you guys pause at 6:32 you'll see a young James Earl Jones as Lt. Zogg in the pilot crew! This was his acting debut.
This is my favorite Kubrick movie. I know a lot of people say 2001 Space Odyssey is their favorite, but this is my favorite from him. This has the best showcase of one of Kubrick's strongest characteristics, one of cinema's most unique, his BITTER HUMOR. It's like Kubrick was indicting and condemning humanity's propensity to do stupid things with humor. He's making fun of humanity's stupid nuclear weapons race and war in general but instead of portraying the misery of only a handful of charaters as most "human stupidity" films do, in this film, he humorously showed how the entire civilization can be obliterated by human stupidity at a very grand scale. This is probably his most misanthropic attack against humanity's idiocy, even more so than what's narrated in A Clockwork Orange.
Yeah the bitter humor is why seals this one for me. Its so diabolically brilliant.
I was under the impression that originally Kubrick was going to make something along the lines of "Fail Safe" ; but his people kept coming up with funny ideas and in the end used very little of the novel "Red Alert" and just winged it.
I'm glad you mentionned how misanthropic he can be. I'm always pissed off when he is called a mysoginist, since I feel he is a misanthrope who portrays women in his movies being in bad situations having been put there by the actions of men.
Ironically, this movie is the rare one where no woman is involved in the story...men alone are our doom.
You've got to watch BEING THERE
"Peace is our Profession" was the official motto of SAC (Strategic Air Command. The unofficial motto was "Nuke 'em 'till the glow, then shoot 'em in the dark".
Fun fact: Major T.J. "King" Kong (the pilot who rides the bomb) was originally going to be played by Peter Sellers (in addition to his three other roles!), but a sprained ankle made it too difficult for Sellers to walk around the cramped set of the bomber plane, so the role went instead to the veteran character actor (and former Texas rodeo clown) Slim Pickens.
In my opinion, Slim Pickens knocked it out of the park.;)
Love this film. One of the funniest dark comedies of all time. Peter Sellers is absolute genius in this. And George C. Scott's comedy chops are on spot on. Not sure I've ever seen Scott do any other comedies.
I found out recently he was tricked into it by Kubrick & even threatened to sue after he saw the premiere. Kubrick had him “overdo” it, then bring it down but filmed & used the “warm up” takes. What a genius, and a jerk.
@@sarabrucker7847 Yeah, Kubrick would say or do almost anything to get what he wanted on set.
So, Slim Pickens as "Major T.J. 'King' Kong" wasn't memorable?
@@Otokichi786 I agree, Slim Pickens steals the movie for me.
Did you catch Peter Bull (The Russian Ambassador) breaking character when Dr, Strangelove was trying to make his "phantom" hand let go of the wheelchair? It was approx. @ 1:30:35 . From IMDb : Sterling Hayden, who plays a paranoiac who fears communists, was himself an American Communist Party member at one time.
The depiction of the procedure in the airplane was so accurate that the FBI questioned Kubrick on where he got that information from.
No way for real??
@@JamesVSCinema Well, Kubrik is known for doing his research. And this movie was very close for getting him in serious trouble. If I remember correctly, it were the panels on the airplane that were a bit too realistic.
@@JamesVSCinema Its true. Something about the DoD or Airforce or whatever denying Kubrik access to a real B-52 cockpit, so they had to just kinda figure it out, and they came way too close to reality for the Pentagon folks to be comfortable with.
@@JamesVSCinema Yep it's for real I was waiting for someone to make this comment about the the questioning of the plane haha,
@@JamesVSCinema Yeah. Production designer Ken Adam's work caught the FBI's attention.
James , "diabolically sharp" is the perfect two word description of this film.
4:22 He totally misses the suggestive opening imagery of the tanker plane inserting the probe of the fueling line into the B-52 while the song "I'm in the Mood for Love" is playing.
The movie Fail Safe with Henry Fonda came out the same year and is a tense drama that is the flip side of this and also worth a watch .
Definitely worth checking out. Directed by Sidney Lumet who was responsible for 12 Angry Men
Yes, it's a surprisingly good film, even post-Dr Strangelove. It was held back after Kubrick claimed it plagiarised Red Alert and so didn't do well at the box office. But very well worth a look.
I been waiting for this one for a long time. This is in my all time top ten!
Such a great experience!
I audited a film appreciate class in college and this was one of the films we studied. There are *TONS* of sexual allusions in this film, which relate to the idea of war as a reaction to men's insecurity of their masculinity/sexual performance. For example, the idea of precious bodily fluids being the impetus for starting nuclear war. The names of most of the main characters have sexual connotations (Buck Turgidson, an erect penis is "turgid" -- the ineffectual (impotent) president is named Merkin Muffley, a "merkin" is a female pubic wig -- Dr. "Strangelove", etc). The "serious" discussion of the male sexual fantasy plot of ensuring a huge female to male ratio (with only the most attractive females) being used to repopulate mankind. Even the opening shots of the planes being refueled are symbolic of sexual intercourse. One of the greatest film satires ever--really demonstrates the insanity of war.
Nutshell version: the Cold War, or WWIII, was a pissing for distance contest. Still is.
Also, the song used in the refueling intro is called, "Try a Little Tenderness", which is a cherry on top of the whole visual metaphor.
‘Strangelove’ was a reference to the strange love between the former nazi rocket and military research scientists and US military who later recruited and employed them.
@@lmfao5411 I didn't know that. Thank you!
James I gotta say, thank you man. The whole community that you’ve built with this channel is amazing. It gives hope to those who don’t have it. I don’t have many friends to discuss films or really anything with, and doing it by proxy with you through the comments has been very helpful. Keep it up man, and I hope you have a good holiday season.
I came to adulthood during the height of the Cold War. Absolute blinding existential dread was the sea we all swam in. Everyone, even kids, knew that there were a million ways the equilibrium of terror that kept nukes from flying could be disrupted. Every time the evening news talked about rising tensions between the US and the USSR, the whole thing overwhelmed you (or at least it overwhelmed me) with a feeling of certain, unavoidable, and imminent doom. I have no idea how many nights I went to bed positive that the world would be dead before I woke up. On the playground at recess we split our time between playing Six Million Dollar Man and discussing whether it would be better to be vaporized in the first blast or try to live through the aftermath (most little kids came down on the side of instant death). And as horrible as all that was, we got used to it because human beings can get used to anything. The insanity depicted in this film was just a slice of life. Young people today have their own reasons for existential dread so I'm not trying to say we had it worse because I don't think we did; there's no comforting way to contemplate the end of human life. I guess the simple fact is that we were always going to commit suicide somehow.
Christ I'm glad I never had kids.
Our family medical book was American, and so had a section (orange?) for what to do in case of a nuclear strike. It had a diagram showing the effects of a nuclear bomb over distance from the aiming point and mentioned that capital cities and army bases were likely targets. I knew at about age 6 or 7 that Melbourne was too far away but there was an army base in Korumburra, 10 miles away from where I lived, and so was secretly terrified. It took me years to realise that an Army Reserve Recovery platoon would not deserve a nuclear missile.
"If it's accurate." Fun fact: The inside layout of B-52s was secret at the time, and Kubrick did a good enough job replicating it that the DoD investigated how he did it. Some of the stuff Kubrick did is just mindblowing when you think about it. Nothing moreso than 2001 pre-dating the actual moon landing.
I wrote an entire paper about the cinematography in the war room scenes when I was in college because I love this film so much. I'm loving the recent movie choices so much for your reactions!
Ayyyy happy to hear you wrote about this film! Especially the cinematography.
@@JamesVSCinema the war room table was actually a green poker table. If you pay close attention to it you can tell.
I wrote an analysis on this film for media class in high school 😅
That ending with “We’ll Meet Again” and the footage of nukes gives me chills
How about John Themis' "Final Cruise"?: ua-cam.com/video/-mE55w80mNM/v-deo.html
Well, yes. It should. It was a popular song during the London blitz in 1940.
On the wall of the Strategic Air Command and every SAC emblem everywhere was the phrase, "Peace . . . Is Our Profession". The official ellipses fill-in was "and the destruction of all who threaten it".
Unofficially, the self-proclaimed logo was "Peace is Our Profession; War is Just a Hobby".
I know from where I speak. I began my first tour in Bldg 500, SAC HQ, was working as the TSCO for the Command Historian.
I worked at HQ SAC from December 1979 to August 1995 when I was not assigned overseas (from 1982-1983 working in the Headquarters, Royal Saudi Air Force in Riyadh, SA and 1987-1990 in Headquarters United States European Command in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, West Germany -- now just Germany).
"Peace is Our Profession" was the actual motto of Strategic Air Command.
Found someone that said it! Awesome.
”Mein Führer, I can walk!”
I experienced massive chills when the bombs went off and ”we’ll meet again” started playing. I’m kind of proud of humanity that we haven’t blown ourselves up (yet)
You're right on with the Monty Python reference. The Python troupe was highly influenced by Peter Sellers and the Goon Show.
Nice!!
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!"
As other responders have noted, the movie "Fail Safe" is definitely one you should see, showing the darker side of nuclear conflict. Starring Henry Fonda...("12 Angry Men")...I have to say that seeing it when I was a youngster really scared the sh#t out of me.
Fail-Safe is in my top 5 all time.
Sterling Hayden. What a perfect delivery of an absolutely insane line with a totally straight face. And Slim Pickens delivery on the quintessential scene - epic. He stored the cowboy hat in a special safe, not just the code safe, but it's own safe (also lined with nudey pics). Peter Sellers plays three roles: RAF officer, The President and, of course, Dr. Strangelove - brilliant. Peter used to be in a radio group "The Goon Show" which pre-dates and heavily influenced Monty Python and his fingerprints are all over the script.
George C. Scott's performance is crazy brilliant in this. Unfortunately, it was obtained through rather manipulative means by the director. Scott was a bit too subtle in his performance, so Kubrick asked him to give him a few takes in every scene that were outlandish, ridiculous, or just plain silly. Kubrick assured him these were just explorative and wouldn't necessarily be used. Given Kubrick's propensity for MANY takes, Scott must have not noticed what Kubrick was doing. Kubrick edited most of the silly takes of Scott's scenes together to make the final film. Scott found out about it at the screening of the movie. He was FURIOUS. Having said that, it's fucking awesome.
I think that Scott eventually came to realize how effective his performance was and came to appreciate it.
Damn that's crazy!
Yes, in almost cases the acting choice to "don't play it so broadly, keep it real" is good advice. But this movie, and this performance, is the shining exception -- Scott's loony performance is exactly right, and an absolute classic.
At the end he told everyone to stay hydrated. Was that a reference to our precious bodily fluids? 🙂
Kubrick told George c Scott to just have fun with the first take of each of his parts, calling them "practice" takes, then having him do his lines very seriously, but Kubrick intentionally used the "practice" takes. Scott was livid when he saw the movie.
“Stay healthy and stay hydrated.” Are you concerned about my bodily fluids?
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room!
Glad you're ticking off all the classiques James
All loves here
WE CANNOT HAVE A MINESHAFT GAP
Every youtuber who reviews this movie after I have asked for it gets my subscription. I'm a man of my word. +1 subscriber.
One of my favorite movies of all time. Still holds up amazingly well. Kubrick was a genius. You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Hahaha genius film indeed!
I’m sure somebody else already stated this but “Pease is our Profession” was the motto of the Strategic Air Command
One of the greatest lines in cinema history - "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War room!!"
By the early 60s it was just becoming apparent to the general public that "duck and cover" was a bunch of BS. So Kubrick managed to encapsulate just how absurd it all was that our leaders would think war was a thing they'd be able to control, and they'd "procedure" us all right into extinction.
My Dad worked at SAC on bombers for most of his career and this was a favorite of his. We'd ask him if this was they way the crews would act in that situation because it was hard to believe and he'd basically just look at us and say: Enjoy life, kiddos.
If you REALLY want to make yourself nuts, go and research how many times it almost went down by accident.
The film is, among everything else that has been said, a masterpiece of sexual innuendos. The opening shot of the fuel plane in the air is made to look like two planes having sex. General Ripper can't accept that he can no longer perform in bedroom so instead he makes up a crazy idea of Russians poluting their fluids and starts a war. In the end the global genocide gets the nazi in the room so happy that his dead arm springs back to life and then he literally stands up. It's amazing.
They only said the film had sexual references. Anyone who thinks a plane refueling means sex is insane. This movie was made in the 60s. The sexual references were just the playboy and the generals talking about physical love.
Not to mention Slim Picken's hardon for the climax of the movie.
@@jkorshak That's all true except for the aircraft refueling. This is what happens when youngsters look for sexual innuendo in a 60s movie lol. Kids see everything as sex
Not to mention the fact that turgid (as in Turgedson) can mean swollen or distended, and a merkin (Merkin Muffley) is an artificial covering of hair for the pubic area. I shouldn’t have to even mention strange love.
@@jkorshak lol I'm glad I'm not a filmmaker.
They just said bombers are in the air 24/7. Lets put in a pretty refueling scene to show the audience how.
Then everyone over analyzes it says it must mean sex. Kubrick would facepalm over this.
There is a Kubrick movie which is often maligned by many fans of his more popular work that highlights his technical prowess, and that's Barry Lyndon. Every shot is frameable art, and he had to invent a whole new camera apparatus to capture the feeling of low light, candle lit interiors common to the era of the film.
I couldn't click on this video fast enough. So glad you're continuing your journey into Kubrick's filmography. Keep up the great work man!
Just so you know, that was Vera Lynn singing at the end. She's British and was loved by the British troops during WW2. Listen to the lyrics; "We'll meet again, some SUNNY day". Irony abounds...
James, have you seen Kubrick's 1957 movie, "Paths of Glory"? You might like it, "When Truffaut famously said that it was impossible to make an anti-war movie, because action argues in favor of itself, he could not have been thinking of "Paths of Glory," and no wonder: Because of its harsh portrait of the French army, the film was banned in France until 1975."
Strongly seconded!
Not only for the story and performances, but for the technical achievements seen in the pre-Steadicam trench walk scenes and the use of light everywhere. Strong stuff; worth your time.
Peter Sellers was a comedic genius. The first time I watched this years ago I didn't pay attention to the opening or closing credits. I had no idea it was Sellers playing the president.
Funny you should mention Fallout.
The original developers of the Fallout series credit Dr. Strangelove as a highly influential to the core concepts and world design of the game.
This is my favorite movie. When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s it was shown on TV every year on ABC. I always made sure to watch it. I love that you liked it! I enjoyed watching your reactions!
What you really need to compare and contrast is this film with the movie "Fail-Safe" both movies were scheduled to be released at the same time, and after a law suit, Kubrick won. Fail-Safe is an ultra-serious flick starring Henry Fonda. I own copies of both & I think I prefer Fail-Safe a bit more. It's deadly serious with no comic relief. I really think you should check it out.
Unfortunately the government would not cooperate with the Fail Safe producers. The special effects in that one are well below the level of Dr. Strangelove.
I enjoyed Failsafe but it’s really an apple and oranges comparison to my mind.
Which one, the one from 1964 or the one from 2000?
@@dantor2086 I wasn’t even aware that there was a remake, so 1964.
I wish I knew how to convey to younger folks how ...subversive... these films were.
"IT WOULD NOT BE DIFFICULT MEIN FUHRER! . . . I'm sorry, Mr. President."
"YAAAAAAAAAA HOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" God dang this movie is A: Brilliant in it's self-awareness and B: just chock full of iconic scenes and quotes. Love love love this film.
A MUST SEE ABSOLUTE CLASSIC,, "POCKET FULL OF MIRACLES" (1961)..A Great Story & True Feel Good Movie That Is Loaded With Legendary Stars.
I believe that this and another movie with similar themes got the US military quite worried, and they spent some time reviewing procedures to try to tighten things up and make sure this couldn't happen. Apparently, security around nuclear weapons often used to be pretty poor!
Welp that’s terrifying haha
@@JamesVSCinema the United States currently has six missing nuclear weapons while Russia is known to have at least two missing but who knows how many they lost when the Soviet Union collapsed. Sleep safe at night my friend 🤣
@@chaost4544 Well, "missing" might not be the best term. Ours were lost in when the aircraft crashed and they've never been recovered. Mostly from the bottom of the sea. There is no way they'll "just go off", a nuke is as much a precision instrument as large telescope. But there are chunks of plutonium that are just sitting there, poisoning anything that gets to close. The Russians are missing about as many as we are, or more, in deep ocean or under literally tens of thousands of square miles of Siberian swamp land. Of course, officially, they have no loose nukes, but 20+ years, neutron damage would render the electronics useless and they thing won't fire. And anything with a tritium booster, you'd just be injecting dueterium after this much time and you'll get a fizzle. TLDR: yes, America and Russian have lost at sea nukes, but they'll never go off.
George C Scott was apparently furious with Kubrick for putting that scene in at 20:46
That was meant as an out take done deliberately over the top.
“No fighting in the war room!” One of my all time favorite lines. This movie is just absolutely brilliant.
I heard that Strangelove wasn't supposed to stand up at the end, but Sellers quickly improvised and came up with "Mein Führer! I can walk!" on the spot.
"Mein Führer, I can walk" is the best last line delivered in any movie. And I'm ready to die on that hill.
😂😂😂
It was also adlibbed because Peter Sellers accidentally stood up out of the wheelchair. He saved it by adlibbing that line.
You’ll get no argument from me.
It's interesting how Kubrick re-used virtually the same camera technique in Full Metal Jacket during the combat scenes as he did in this movie. FMJ was more than 20 years after this.
Shout out to James Earl Jones being in the movie as a pilot. One of his earliest roles
And with so many of his lines delivered through an oxygen mask! Almost an early Vader!
Fail Safe released around the same time is the "serious" version of the same basic idea.
Saw a doc recently about Eddie Murphy... he cited this movie and Peter Sellers doing several roles so perfectly as his inspiration for playing multiple, completely different roles in his movies...
That’s awesome!
And Peter Sellers multiple roles schtick was inspired by Alec Guinness' multiple roles in Kind Hearts and Coronets
@@brettcoster4781 Sir Alec played 9 characters :)
This year is 13 years in the US Army and the commentary on the military mindset is still dead-on. Timeless.
Also of note is the movie "Fail-Safe", directed by Sidney Lumet (the director behind 12 Angry Men). It's basically the serious version of this movie and the studio behind Dr. Strangelove actually sued so it would come out after Kubrick's movie. I'm simplifying a bit, but I always find it interesting how dirty film studios would behave.
Was going to post the same thing. Fail Safe is a great movie, well worth watching.
Watching this reaction 2 months later and that doom clock seems to be ticking ever closer, doesn't it?
21:27 Gotta admit, that's a pretty badass way to go!
Lmfao right?
I love how you never see him, but indirectly, through the telephone conversation, you can exactly picture Dmitry in your mind!
Bob Newhart is/was the best at this kind of "one-sided telephone conversation." ua-cam.com/video/_XDxAzVEbN4/v-deo.html
Kubrick? Pressed play fast af boi.
😂😂😂
@@JamesVSCinema the part with the cowboy hat being worn by military leaders is no bs bro. My battalion commander literally was John Wayne.
“Being There” is another Peter Sellers masterpiece
I saw that in theatre when it first came out. I laughed like crazy but a young woman behind us said to her date “I thought this was supposed to be a comedy”. I don’t think she got it.
Love the swipe Kubrick makes at the US using former Nazi scientists. Such a brilliant movie
The FBI investigated Kubrick because the interior of the B-52 was classified at the time, and he got it DAMN close.
The moment of you discovering where a sample came from, is exactly why I love showing people movies and watching UA-cam reactions, to see people make those connections between the arts they already love, to this new piece that predates it, is just wonderful.
The way art is as a whole, all connected, makes everything that much more impactful, to me. For example my good friend listens to alot of metal, and just like rap and hip hop, a good amount of metal artists will sample soundclips from movies, so when I'm showing him a movie or a clip from a show, he can see where those parts of the song came from, he doesn't watch to many movies or shows, so he wouldn't know where they came from otherwise, I showed him One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest, and he recognized a line from a metal song during out viewing, and that connection just pushed his interest in the film up just a good amount, it was like he discovered a missing piece to the puzzle of his appreciation.
always love your videos, no matter the movie we’re watching the vibes are immaculate
that’s love, thank you for this comment!
I used to fly in B-52 bombers. The opening sequence shows a B-52 performing air refueling. You notice that the refueling boom pops out at the end, which is not standard. It is known as an emergency breakaway (which you can actually watch happening).
So what you're saying is, pulling out isn't standard procedure because it wastes our precious fluids?
Actually, "Peace is our profession" was the motto of the Strategic Air Command.
During the cold war, half of our fleet of B-52's was airborne 24/7, and yes, they were 2 hours from their targets in the Soviet Union. The other half of the B-52 fleet was on the ground, but also at varying states of alert.
About the time this film was released, local governments began flouridation of drinking water, and, of course, that was a big controversy.
Fun times.
The ending was most likely a suggestion of a friend and co star from a radio series called The Goons of Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan , as Kubrick did not know how to end the movie. Spike was known for his dark and weird humor.
Also: John Themis' "Final Cruise": ua-cam.com/video/-mE55w80mNM/v-deo.html
"Mutually Assured Destruction" may seem parodoxical but it TOTALLY WORKED.
So the thing with the cold war - my dad talks about being convinced he would die either in Vietnam or in a nuclear war, which could happen at any time. For any reason - or no reason at all. We came down to literally a single vote against starting a nuclear war during the cuban missile crisis - from a guy in a submarine who was being hit with depth charges at the time.
And then there's our Paperclip Man. And I LOVE ('love') the relevance of the Precious Bodily Fluids conspiracy. Flourination and Vaccines and Soy Products... it's all the same conspiracy and swap out the words.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov he kept the Soviet sub from using nuclear torpedos against the US Navy, which most likely would have triggered a Globla Nuclear War, and we would not be here talking about this today. So anytime we think we’re on the darkest timeline, remember it could always be worse.
@@Gankhisprawn Everyone should know his name. There are very few people who you can say literally singlehandedly saved the world.
Strangelove was representing Henry Kissinger. In 1964. Even then they could see who that monster was.
Kubrick actually got in trouble with the US government because he was able to so perfectly re-create the interior and operation of a B-52.
The original title was "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb", but he also got in trouble about that; due to this coming out during the height of the Cold War intensity, right after the Bay of Pigs failure.
@@jkorshak ah, thank you for the info.
This came out only a year after The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, when for a period of 13 days, Americans were in mortal fear of total nuclear annhilation at any time, on any day.
Even with the very real possibility of a nuclear war on the horizon, you will still have to answer to the Coca Cola Company for breaking a vending machine.
The true Evil xD
That’s bat shit (bat guano) crazy.
The bit in which Dr. Strangelove stands up was entirely improvised
I'll connect a couple dots for you since you mentioned Monty Python in this.
I think Kubrick really absorbed British humor after he disowned Hollywood after making Spartacus, moved to England and spent the rest of his life there. The British really have a way of casually tossing off some truly dark witticisms that are brilliantly funny if they doesn't sucker-punch you too hard and I wouldn't doubt that Kubrick really responded to that. Peter Sellers (bad mustache guy, president and strangelove himself) is more internationally known for the Pink Panther movies and the film Being There, but he rose to prominence with the British radio comedy group the Goon Show, which was a direct influence on Monty Python. In fact, the guy in Life of Brian who was trying to pontificate to the group of Brian's followers, but just walked away when they left him is another Goon Show member, Spike Milligan, who principally wrote their material.
Anyway, Kubrick really got along with Sellers when they first worked together on Lolita, the first film Kubrick did in England and the one before Dr. Strangelove. He liked Sellers' improvisational abilities as a comic, so he made his part in Lolita bigger and then particularly modeled Strangelove as a vehicle for Sellers to play four different parts, but it wound up being only three. I'd say why, but someone else probably already did and I'm rambling too much. F'in factoids!
Coming full circle, Spike Milligan, co-creator of the Goon Show with Sellers, wrote his own dark comedy post-nuclear apocalypse film: ua-cam.com/video/hzxKbPXjVGA/v-deo.html You might like to contrast it with this one; Dr Strangelove is a satirical farce filmed with typically Kubrickian realism; Milligan's "The Bed Sitting Room" is also a satirical farce but filmed with Milligan's typical *surrealism.*
@@tommcewan7936 Ahhh yeah The Bed-Sitting Room is ODD. Milligan had a sensibility that was so adjacent to reality, I love it. Pretty much the brainchild of The Goon Show.
For reasons of security the crew were not allowed inside an actual B-52 and Kubrick only had photos to figure things out. When US Air Force people saw the set they were shocked at it's accuracy so it must be pretty spot on.
"Death smiles at everyone, and all a man can do is smile back."
- Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor
In my opinion this is the peak of Kubrick's achievements. He started as a photographer for magazines. At the mid-60s juncture of his career, "Spartacus" was his only film in color, and there's something about black & white as a component of aesthetic that he *MASTERED*. There wasn't a more sumptuous visual feast that he could cook up after "Dr. Strangelove", so detailed, so atmospheric, so foreboding. In terms of storytelling he had also crafted his most mature examination of the world, but by paradox he did so through the most immature characters imaginable. This is what the end of Earth's civilization would look like. Not conjecture; just fact.
Kubrick wisely didn't waste his remaining career trying to jump the bar he set for himself. Instead he switched to color and built his style from scratch. From "2001 A Space Odyssey" onward you see him explore ... you see him play with filmmaking, with the existence of art and story and commercial appeal mingling together. He did so with absolute confidence because (as "Dr. Strangelove" proved) he was already the best and didn't have to prove anything.
I also hold a special place in my heart for anything that can make me laugh so hard I fart.
Check out Being There (1979) starring Peter Sellers in his second to last role. Absolutely spectacular film and as much as I'm a Kubrick fan, Hal Ashby's masterpiece is my personal favorite film. Thank you for your consideration and reactions - top notch!
Great video. My father joined Strategic Air Command in 1952 as a 2nd Lieutenant and retired as a full Colonel in 1969. His boss there until 1957 was General Curtis Lemay known as Bombs Away Lemay. Lemay spent many evenings at our dinner table and fishing with my father in a local stream. Peace is our Profession was indeed their motto. My father's and Lemay's favorite film of all time? Doctor Strangelove.
This movie pairs well with The Bed Sitting Room; a another dark absurd comedy about nuclear annihilation, my favorite description of it is people in post apocalyptic England deal with the end of the world in the most British way possible. If you loved dr strangelove & Monty python you need to see The Bed Sitting Room
Most people miss the first joke of the film. The intro song is "Try a little tenderness" during the mid air re fulling scene...i.e. mating.
The transference of precious (aircraft) bodily fluids.
I'm waiting for the musical to come out. Slim Pickens was in Blazing Saddles and in millions of Westerns. Peter Sellers best movie, played five roles. Sellers also played Chauncey Gardner in Being There... The drum playing as the B-52's heading toward Russia. Like maybe one of biggest anti-war statements ever and the MAD concept: Mutual Assured Destruction...
Something which I think is important: it's easy to say 'shit happens, we could die at any moment, and we have to find a way to live with that.' And it's true. We could and we do. BUT. This was not inevitable. The fact that we were in such a literally mad situation, with people saying in complete seriousness that a world with one American and no Soviets was a victory, the way people actively pushed for nuclear war... these were *decisions that were made* by people who *we* put in power. We need to somehow find acceptance of the reality without ignoring responsibility.
I was 7 when this film came out. I probably first saw it when I was 12 or 13. This was the reality of what we knew could happen at any time for my entire life up to about 1989, at which point things felt a little calmer. Now, instead of incinerating the planet directly, we are just going to let it burn up from too much CO2 in Earth's bodily fluids, but what can you do?
So bummed we didn't get to see your reaction to "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here. This is the war room!"