Facts > Films > Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Facts
| Director(s) | Stanley Kubrick |
| Producer(s) | Stanley Kubrick, Victor Lyndon, Leon Minoff (uncredited) |
| Featured Cast | Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens |
| Total Facts | 68 |
The ending in the novel was similar to the novel and movie Fail-Safe. Author Peter George detested the conversion of his book to a satire, but wrote a tie-in novelization of the film anyway.
The favorite film of film critic Gene Siskel.
The film led to actual changes in policy to ensure that the events depicted could never really occur in real life.
The German word "Gemeinschaft" means "A spontaneously arising organic social relationship characterized by strong reciprocal bonds of sentiment and kinship within a common tradition". In this context the discussion of the post-apocalypse society living in mine shafts at the end of the film presents an interesting double-entendre. Dr. Strangelove's remarks about the participants in the new society spontaneously accepting new social norms and having "bold curiosity for the adventure ahead" is especially germane. Also, General Turgidson's admonition to "not allow a mine shaft gap" at the end is a particularly vivid pun.
The illuminated symbols on the War Room map displays were cutouts lit by individual floodlights behind them. They generated so much heat that the display was damaged. Air-conditioning had to be installed.
The ninth nuclear explosion shot in the end sequence is US nuclear test "Baker" from "Operations Crossroads", the first post-war nuclear tests on the Bikini atoll. Shot No. 14 is "Able" from the same operation. Shot No. 15 is "Trinity," the first atomic explosion ever.
The photographic mural in General Ripper's office is actually a view of Heathrow Airport, London.
The scene where Gen. Turgidson trips and falls in the War Room, and then gets back up and resumes talking as if nothing happened, really was an accident. Stanley Kubrick mistakenly thought that it was George C. Scott really in character, so he left it in the film.
The score for the B-52 scenes is mostly "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye", a traditional Irish anti-war song that tells the story of a broken, heavily mutilated soldier coming back from war. The last lines are "They're rolling out the guns again / but they'll never take my sons again." It's also the melody of the American Civil War song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," which describes the celebrations that will happen when the soldiers return from war. "The men will cheer and the boys will shout / The ladies they will all turn out / And we'll all feel gay / When Johnny comes marching home."
The Soviet ambassador describes the Doomsday Machine as an array of 100 megaton bombs covered with a special fallout-inducing material. A few years before the movie's release, the Soviets produced a working 100 megaton bomb design (the "Tsar Bomba") but scaled it back to 50 megatons before testing. If the full- scale bomb were tested, it would have increased the global radioactive fallout from all nuclear detonations to that point in history by 25%. Interestingly, by removing the fallout-producing uranium third stage, the scaled-back test had the lowest fallout per kiloton of explosive power.
The U.S. government dismissed Stanley Kubrick's scenario of an accidental nuclear war as too far-fetched. However, the scene where Group Captain Mandrake is trying to get through to the Pentagon with the code to recall the bombers, but doesn't have enough change for the pay phone, was shown at a session of Congress. Members said it raised legitimate questions about whether crucial information could find its way to the right people during a nuclear crisis.
The War Room contains a large table of food because Stanley Kubrick intended to end the film with a custard pie fight between the Russians and the Americans. He decided not to use the footage because he found it too farcical to fit with the satirical nature of the rest of the film. The only known public showing of the pie fight scene was at the 1999 screening of the film at London's National Film Theatre, following Kubrick's death.
There is a great deal of editing and cutting away shots in the sequence where Dr. Strangelove gets carried away in the War Room when his mechanical right hand makes Nazi salutes and tries to strangle him, mainly to cover up the cast around him cracking up with laughter.
This was the final collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and his producing partner James B. Harris. Harris left to begin his own directing career. Harris was involved in the early development stage of this production. It was during this stage that, according to Harris, Kubrick began to toy with the idea of turning it into a comedy.
Voted as one of The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time (Premiere, 2006), 14th Greatest Film of all time (Entertainment Weekly), and 3rd of 100 greatest comedies (American Film Institute).
When Slim Pickens was cast as Major Kong, he had never traveled outside the United States in his life. Production was delayed for over a month while he applied and got a passport to travel to England to film his scenes which were the very last scenes to be shot.
When Strangelove talks about the doomsday device, Turgidson says, "Strangelove. What is that, German?" The reply he receives is "He changed his name; it was originally Merkwuerdigliebe." This original name is a slightly altered version of the German term "Merkwuerdige Liebe", meaning "Strange love".
While shooting aerial footage over Greenland, the second unit camera crew accidentally filmed a secret US military base. Their plane was forced down, and the crew was suspected of being Soviet spies.