Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a 1964 satirical (specifically, a film directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written with and Peter George.Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb IMDb. The film was based on the 1958 novel (a.k.a. Two Hours to Doom) by Peter George under the pseudonym Peter Bryant.Two Hours to Doom by Peter Boardman (1958) T. V. Boardman. The plot of Red Alert very closely resembled that of the 1963 novel Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, and resulted in a copyright-infringement lawsuit and an out-of-court settlement.Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick & Harvey Wheeler (1963). Fail-Safe also went on to a become a less-successful and less-memorable, non-satirical film in 1964, which also resulted in an out-of-court settlement over copyright infringement. Dr. Strangelove is the best black comedy film of all time, at least by some accounts.10 best black comedies of all time, from Dr Strangelove to Withnail and I: These are the Movies that Some Sections of the Audience Just Didn't Get by Graeme Ross (22 February 2019 13:48) The Independent.
The film stars Peter Sellers playing three major roles (the meek President Merkin Muffley; the half-broken man, half-broken machine Dr. Strangelove; and the overly polite British Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake) and features a much-parodied scene of Slim Pickens bull-riding an atomic bomb. It was less well known for being Darth Vader's James Earl Jones' first movie.
The movie depicts a series of fictional events leading to a World War III scenario involving mutually assured destruction (MAD) between the United States and the Soviet Union. Plot elements involve various Cold War themes, including McCarthyism and the influences of Nazi scientists. There is also a plethora of sexual undertones to the film, such as General Jack D. Ripper's ostensibly fluoride-fueled impotence, Dr. Strangelove's recommendation of a 10:1 female to male ratio for the post-apocalyptic world, the hyper-masculine overcompensation of military men, and the inability of the bomber crew to "perform" (drop the bomb) after much elaborate foreplay (in-flight build-up).Detailed analysis of sexual themes
The film's main thrust (so to speak), however, is to mock the nuclear arms race and tensions between the US and the USSR by showing the insanity of predicating one's entire national defense on the idea of the fittingly-acronymed MAD. The characters go from talking about "missile gaps" and "bomber gaps" to claiming vast communist conspiracies at every level of government (they're poisoning our precious bodily fluids!) to, after the guarantee of apocalypse, worrying about a "mineshaft gap" with the Reds. It's either the scariest comedy ever made, or the funniest disaster movie ever made.
==Themes==
Besides the Cold War and MAD, Dr. Strangelove touches on a number of themes, including the Red Scare, water fluoridation, conspiracy theories as one group, and game theory and a doomsday scenario as a second.
===Fluoride is a commie plot===
Preceding this exchange, Ripper has directed — without authorization — bomber aircraft to fly to the Soviet Union and initiate nuclear war. This passage introduces Ripper's conspiracist mindset and his obsession with fluoride, indicating that he only drinks water or grain alcohol (40%-95% alcohol), the latter of which is demonstrably worse than fluoridated water — though nuclear war would of course be worse still by many orders of magnitude. The passage further shows Ripper blaming fluoridation on communism (Red Scare) and blaming it for his presumptive impotence (the correlation does not imply causation fallacy and the phallic-weapon trope).Phallic Weapon TV Tropes. From this exchange, it also becomes clear that the Ripper character, in his obsession with commies and fluoridation, is a satire on the John Birch Society.
In this scene, Ripper and Mandrake are attacking US troops under the delusion/misunderstanding that they are foreign invaders. Ripper then calmly continues on about the dangers of fluoride. Despite the imminent threat of nuclear war killing millions, Ripper uses the "think of the children" fallacy against fluoridation.
Since Kubrick was known to have been a perfectionist,The Kubrick FAQ Visual Memory: Stanley Kubrick. it is likely that the date of fluoridation inception was intentionally erroneous; the first city to fluoridate water was actually Grand Rapids Michigan in 1945.The Story of Fluoridation Ripper's complaint that "A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual." foreshadows the "personal choice" argument of the anti-vaccination movement.
===The game of doom===
"Cobalt thorium G" is not an actual thing, but is apparently a reference a cobalt-spiked nuclear weapon conceived by physicist that would increase the amount of radioactive fallout and potentially could end human and other life on Earth. The "Bland Corporation" is an allusion to the which performed much research on nuclear war strategy and game theory.
Turgidson brings us to the phallic-weapon trope again with "I wish we had one of them doomsday machines," even though it is becoming apparent that bigger/badder is not necessarily better.
In this scene, which in the film is intercut with the previous Ripper-Mandrake scene, one sees the laying out of the game theoretic aspects of nuclear war strategy: the strategic power of nuclear deterrence and the importance of fore-knowledge. If one does not know the deterrent power of the adversary, one may act rashly and cause very bad consequences for both the adversary and oneself.
== “Mein Führer! I can walk!”==
The film ends by cutting-back to our reality—with a montage of nuclear explosions, captured from historical footage—while the cheerful, hopeful song, "" plays. During the Cold War, Vera Lynn’s WWII yarn— "We'll Meet Again"—was included inside bunkers in Britain, as a morale-boosting song, should there have been a nuclear attack …
==Gallery==
File:Dr. Strangelove - The War Room.png|The War RoomNo fighting!
File:Dr. Strangelove - President Merkin Muffley.png|Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley
File:Dr. Strangelove - General Buck Turgidson.png|George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson
File:Dr. Strangelove - Ripper and Mandrake.png|thumb|right|165px|Sterling Hayden as Ripper (left) with Sellers as Mandrake, discussing fluoridation after killing US troops
File:Dr. Strangelove - Wing Attack Plan R.png|Slim Pickins as Major T. J. "King" Kong (right) opening Wing Attack Plan R
File:Dr. Strangelove - Holy Bible and Russian Phrases (8648640165).jpg|A fake book prop, "Holy Bible and Russian Phrases"
File:Dr. Strangelove - Riding the Bomb.png|Major T. J. "King" Kong riding the bomb down
File:PAX 2008 - Strangelove Pip Boy (2816123492).jpg|The nuclear bomb prop: YEEEE-HAW!!!
File:Production notes (8649773498).jpg|Production notes
==Trailer==
==See also==
*A Clockwork Orange — another film by Kubrick
*Coup d'état
*Jack the Ripper
*Nuclear war
*Water fluoridation
==External links==
*Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove
*If one wishes to call Stephen Colbert this generation's Sellers, [Gawker.com: archive.is, web.archive.org they can present this as evidence.]
*Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb — A Continuity Transcript, Visual Memory: Stanley Kubrick
*Dr. Strangelove on IMDb
*Dr. Strangelove on TV Tropes
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Cold War
Category:Conspiracy theories
Category:End of the world
Category:Government incompetence
Category:War
Category:Water fluoridation