Cinema
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Stanley Kubrick · 1964
Synopsis
General Jack D. Ripper, who commands Burpelson air base and believes that the Communists are corrupting the country's water, sends his bombers on his own initiative to attack the Soviet Union, seals off his base and keeps the recall code to himself. In Washington, President Merkin Muffley gathers the general staff in the Pentagon war room; he is told that only this general knows the code. The Soviet ambassador is brought in, and the president telephones the Premier in Moscow. The ambassador then announces what his country has just installed.
Context
The film comes from a novel by Peter George published in 1958, whose rights its director had bought for a few thousand dollars; he was writing a drama from it when he realised he could not set the comedy aside, and made of it what he called a nightmare comedy. A press screening was planned in New York on 22 November 1963; it was cancelled and the release postponed to the end of January 1964. A line about a weekend in Dallas was redubbed. The film was to end with a custard pie fight between the leaders; shot and then removed, it seemed to him too farcical for the satirical tone of the rest.
Who it is for
A black comedy of about an hour and thirty-five minutes, in which Peter Sellers plays three roles; the action is divided between a base, a bomber and the command post in Washington.
Prizes and reception
Four Oscar nominations; third among the comedies ranked by the American Film Institute; entered in the National Film Registry as early as 1989.
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