Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Director: Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick

Overview

In 1964, with the Cuban Missile Crisis fresh in viewers' minds, the Cold War at its frostiest, and the hydrogen bomb relatively new and frightening, Stanley Kubrick dared to make a film about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button -- and played the situation for laughs. Dr. Strangelove's jet-black satire (from a script by director Stanley Kubrick, Peter George, and Terry Southern) and a host of superb comic performances (including three from Peter Sellers) have kept the film fresh and entertaining, even as its issues have become (slightly) less timely. Loaded with thermonuclear weapons, a U.S. bomber piloted by Maj. T.J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) is on a routine flight pattern near the Soviet Union when they receive orders to commence Wing Attack Plan R, best summarized by Maj. Kong as "Nuclear combat! Toe to toe with the Russkies!" On the ground at Burpleson Air Force Base, Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) notices nothing on the news about America being at war. Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) calmly informs him that he gave the command to attack the Soviet Union because it was high time someone did something about fluoridation, which is sapping Americans' bodily fluids (and apparently has something to do with Ripper's sexual dysfunction). Meanwhile, President Merkin Muffley (Sellers again) meets with his top Pentagon advisors, including super-hawk Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), who sees this as an opportunity to do something about Communism in general and Russians in particular. However, the ante is upped considerably when Soviet ambassador de Sadesky (Peter Bull) informs Muffley and his staff of the latest innovation in Soviet weapons technology: a "Doomsday Machine" that will destroy the entire world if the Russians are attacked.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/28/2016
UPC:	0715515179515
Original Release:	1964
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Time:	1:35:00
Sales rank:	2,927

Special Features

Restored 4k digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack, in DTS-HD Master Audio; New Interviews with Stanley Kubrick scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill; Archivist Richard Daniels; Cinematographer and Camera Innovator Joe Dunto; Camera Operator Kelvin Pike; and David George, son of Peter George, on whose novel Red Alert the film is based; Excerpts from a 1966 Audio Interview with Kubrick, Conducted by Physicist and Author Jeremy Bernstein; Four Short Documentaries, about the waking of the film, the sociopolitical climate of the period, the work of actor Peter Sellers, and the artistry of Kubrick; Interviews from 1963 with Sellers and actor George C. Scott; Excerpt from a 1980 Interview with Sellers from NBC's Today Show; Trailers; Plus: An essay by scholar David Bromwich and a 1994 article by Screenwriter Terry Southern on the making of the film

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Peter Sellers	Dr. Strangelove,Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake,President Merkin Muffley
George C. Scott	Gen. Buck Turgidson
Sterling Hayden	Gen. Jack D. Ripper
Keenan Wynn	Col. Bat Guano
Slim Pickens	Maj. T.J. "King" Kong
James Earl Jones	Lt. Lothar Zogg
Peter Bull	Ambassador de Sadesky
Tracy Reed	Miss Scott
Jack Creley	Mr. Staines
Frank Berry	Lt. H.R. Dietrich, DSO
Glenn Beck	Lt. W.D. Kivel
Shane Rimmer	Capt. G.A. "Ace" Owens
Gordon Tanner	Gen. Faceman
Robert O'Neil	Adm. Randolph
Roy Stephens	Frank
Laurence Herder	Burpelson Defense Team Member
John McCarthy	On Defense Team
Hal Galili	Members of the Defense Team
Paul Tamarin	Lt. B. Goldberg

Technical Credits

Stanley Kubrick

Peter George

Terry Southern

Stanley Kubrick	Director,Producer,Screenwriter
Ken Adam	Production Designer
Richard Bird	Sound/Sound Designer
Richard Bird	Sound/Sound Designer
Stuart Freeborn	Makeup
Peter George	Screenwriter
Anthony Harvey	Editor
Laurie Johnson	Score Composer
Victor Lyndon	Associate Producer
Peter Murton	Art Director
Kelvin Pike	Camera Operator
Eric Rattray	Asst. Director
Bridget Sellers	Costumes/Costume Designer
Terry Southern	Screenwriter
Gilbert Taylor	Cinematographer
Wally Veevers	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

Rarely does nihilistic humor bubble up so relentlessly as in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 masterpiece of political satire, Dr. Strangelove. The tale begins when Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), a United States general who is as obsessed with the spread of communism as he is with the dangers of fluoridation, dispatches a flock of B-52's into Russia, putting the world inexorably on a path toward self-annihilation. Kubrick's early training as a photographer is evident, especially in his bold sense of visual composition. The film's cartoonish characters grease the scathing commentary on cold war buffoonery. George C. Scott blows hard as a posturing hawk of the Pentagon. Peter Sellers plays three characters, among them the bizarre title character -- a former Nazi war criminal turned White House consultant. And of course, there's Slim Pickens's cowboy kamikaze, who rides a missile rodeo style, whooping and hollering into oblivion.

Barnes & Noble - Monica McIntyre

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is widely regarded as the screen's greatest satire, a film that superbly encapsulates the fear and paranoia of the Cold War. There is not a sequence in the film in which the dialogue is not quotable -- indeed, there are so many well-remembered moments that viewers and critics will differ on the best, though surely the sight of Major Kong (Slim Pickens) waving his cowboy hat as he rides the bomb into oblivion is among the most enduring images of its era. As was consistently the case in his career, director Stanley Kubrick brilliantly matches actors with their roles, from Peter Sellers' three-character performance to the screen debut of James Earl Jones, whom Kubrick had spotted in a stage play. Similarly, George C. Scott, who plays the hawkish general Buck Turgidsdon, considered Strangelove among his greatest screen achievements. Every performance is top-notch, and many Kubrick trademarks can be found in the film, from the visual style to the shift to a hand-held camera when the Air Force base is attacked to the sparse and ironic use of music.

All Movie Guide - Richard Gilliam