The Film Canon: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

In 1964, a film examined the grim possibility of something going very wrong with America’s nuclear program. A group of bombers carrying nuclear weapons are accidentally given the GO-codes to drop their nuclear payload onto the Soviet Union. The President of the United States and Strategic Air Command (SAC) watch helplessly as all attempts to stop the bombers end futilely. The bombs are dropped and the film ends in a nuclear holocaust. No, this is not a brief plot synopsis of Stanley Kubrick’s satire/black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, but its dramatic counterpart Fail-Safe. Unfortunately, for the Sidney Lumet helmed drama starring Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau the similarly plotted film was eclipsed by Kubrick’s attempt to inject humor into the War Room. Timing is everything. Fail-Safe was released a few months after Dr. Strangelove and parallels to the scenarios unfolding in each film are striking. It is not the fault of Fail-Safe (it’s a rather well made film) that the manically comic musings of Kubrick’s characters whisper in your head as one watches the film. Time, or as much as we have left of it, has proven to be kinder to Kubrick than Lumet—in this area.

Fifty years have passed since Dr. Strangelove was released and in the interim the Berlin Wall has been dismantled along with the Soviet Union and it has been quite a few years since the Cold War has been a mainstay on the national news circuit. Nuclear weapons on the other hand still pose an unwavering threat to our peaceful co-existence, and unlike the Cold War, nuclear weapons can still be found in the news snuck in between election predictions and the newest cute cat video that went viral and now boasts of over 15,000,000 views on YouTube. The present nuclear threat from domestic, foreign countries and terrorist organizations keep Dr. Strangelove relevant and it is the film itself that continues to remind its audience of one horrific fact—accidents will happen.

      The non-misleading, set-up of Dr. Strangelove is as follows: The commander of Burpelson Air Force has gone insane and has issued the GO-codes for Wing Attack plan R (an all-out nuclear assault on the Soviet Union) In the War Room the President is informed of the unfortunate happenstance that has occurred. The President invites the Soviet Ambassador to facilitate communications between himself and the Soviet Prime Minister. The Ambassador reveals to the President the existence of a Doomsday Machine—if triggered it will wipe away all human and animal life from Earth. That’s the set-up. Not funny, right? That’s what Kubrick and Peter George initially believed. The film was originally titled The Delicate Balance of Power based on George’s novel Red Alert. Kubrick eventually realized the comedy in the situation and along with author Terry Southern turned his film into Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Dr. Strangelove became a film about an inept military, out of touch politicians, and the ridiculous hopelessness in fighting a war that will end in mutual destruction. To illustrate the different peculiarities of several of the films key characters, Kubrick enlisted the help of Peter Sellers to play multiple roles. Kubrick and Sellers had worked previously together in the The Film Cannon: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bombfilm version of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Kubrick became enamored by Sellers’s innate chameleon-like talent of turning into any character he chose with the drop of a hat. Sellers was to play four characters (Dr. Strangelove, President Merkin Muffley, Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake, and Maj. King Kong). But, Sellers became unsure of his talent when it came to contorting his vocal chords to suit a Texan accent for Maj. King Kong, so the part was given to Slim Pickens. George C. Scott was charged with portraying the inept Gen. Buck Turgidson and Sterling the paranoid and chauvinistic Jack D. Ripper commander of Burpelson Air Force base who initiates the catastrophic events of the film.

 The final product featured an unforgettable cast of characters with an equally unforgettable message. The film was released to an audience traumatized by recent events such as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. In a span of four years, Americans braced themselves for the end of days and mourned the death of a President. They say laughter is the best medicine. Unfortunately Dr. Strangelove isn’t exactly comforting, but it is funny. “Gentlemen, you can’t fight here! This is the War Room,” yells President Muffley as he tries to separate the feuding Turgidson and Soviet Ambassador. The film cuts back and forth between the strategic and political maneuvering in the War Room, Capt. Lionel Mandrake’s failed attempts to coerce Jack D. Ripper into telling him the recall codes to stop the bombers, and the going-ons in one of the bombers helmed by Maj. King Kong. The three pronged story comes to a head in the final minutes of the film. It does not end happily, unless you’re Dr. Strangelove himself.

The eponymous Dr. Strangelove is one of three brilliant characterizations performed by Peter Sellers. Sellers performs all three characters to perfection. Capt. Lionel Mandrake is duty bound but cowardly and sports a mustache and lisp. The balding President Merklin Muffley displays a quiet incompetency, and Dr. Strangelove lets his love for the pulchritude of a Nuclear Holocaust be known to those in the War Room:

General “Buck” Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Dr. Strangelovee: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious… service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

With leaders like these who needs enemies.

For a fifty year old film, Dr. Strangelove continues to be a remarkably contemporary film. Although the Soviet Union has gone the way of the Dodo, the security and ownership of Nuclear Weapons continues to be an endangerment to mankind. Peter Seller’s Dr. Strangelove, Ken Adam’s set design for the War Room, and Slim Pickens straddling the nuke on his way to infinity are ingrained in popular culture. Kubrick’s and Southern’s script will remain perpetually relevant as long as there is a nuclear threat. Go watch Dr. Strangelove now! You never know how much time you have left.

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