Peter Sellers was paid $1 million, 55% of the film's budget. Stanley Kubrick famously quipped "I got three for the price of six".
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.
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 film led to actual changes in policy to ensure that the events depicted could never really occur in real life.
In the early 1960s the B-52 was cutting-edge technology. Access to it was a matter of national security. The Pentagon refused to lend any support to the film after they read the script. Set designers reconstructed the B-52 bomber's cockpit from a single photograph that appeared in a British flying magazine. When some American Air Force personnel were invited to view the movie's B-52 cockpit, they said it was a perfect copy. Stanley Kubrick feared that Ken Adam's production design team had used illegal methods and could be investigated by the FBI.
Peter Sellers improvised most of his lines. And one of the most significant is in the final scene, when Sellers as Dr. Strangelove, exclaims "Mein Führer! I can walk!" According to Kubrick, "Peter said he couldn't promise to do the same thing twice. And he couldn't do anything more than two, three times. So the day we did the sequence...I had six cameras lined up and he came in and... no one knew what he was going to do, himself included."
George C. Scott was reputedly annoyed that Stanley Kubrick was pushing him to overact for his role. While he vowed never to work with Kubrick again, Scott eventually saw this as one of his favorite performances.
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 cutaway shots in the sequence where Dr. Strangelove gets carried away in the War Room and his out-of-control right hand makes Nazi salutes and tries to strangle him, mainly to cover up the cast around him cracking up with laughter. Despite this, Peter Bull, playing Soviet Ambassador de Sadesky, can be glimpsed trying to suppress his laughter.
James Earl Jones initially thought Slim Pickens was staying in character off camera, until being told he wasn't putting on the character, that's the way he always talked.
Stanley Kubrick wanted the tablecloth on the War Room table to be green, so the actors would feel like they were playing a game of poker over the world's fate.
As research, Stanley Kubrick read nearly 50 books about nuclear war.
Peter Sellers was also cast as Maj. T.J. "King" Kong, but he had trouble developing a Texas accent. When Sellers broke his ankle, Stanley Kubrick decided to cast another actor who naturally fit the role. John Wayne never responded. Bonanza (1959) star Dan Blocker declined the role because of the script's progressive political content. Kubrick cast Slim Pickens because of his work on One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Pickens was not told that the movie was a comedy and was only shown the script for scenes he was in. As a result, Pickens played the role "straight".
Dr. Strangelove's glove is from Stanley Kubrick's personal collection. Peter Sellers had seen Kubrick wearing them to handle hot lights on the set, and thought they looked sinister. He wore one on his right hand (the one not under his control) to add to Strangelove's eeriness.
Peter Sellers was the first actor to be nominated for a single Academy award (best actor) for a film in which he portrayed three different characters in the same film.
In Terry Southern's script, Muffley has a bad cold and a slightly effeminate manner. Peter Sellers played this up so hilariously that the cast kept cracking up during filming. Stanley Kubrick decided to make him a foil for everyone else's craziness instead, and re-shot the scenes with Sellers now playing the role straight, serving as an oasis of reason amidst all the madness.
Peter Sellers was not keen on multiple takes, one of Stanley Kubrick's trademarks. Kubrick felt that Sellers' performance improved with each successive take, while Sellers couldn't understand why he was being asked to keep doing the same scene over and over.
Sterling Hayden, who plays a paranoiac who fears communists, was himself an American Communist Party member at one time.
Stanley Kubrick usually gave directions to actors without cracking a smile. However, during the shooting of this film, Kubrick was laughing a good deal of the time while Peter Sellers was performing, often so hard that he brought himself to tears.
During the attack on Burpleson Air Force Base, a sign reading "Peace Is Our Profession" is seen. That's not a satirical sign made up by the filmmakers; it's actually the motto of the Strategic Air Command.
Film debut of James Earl Jones. NOTE: Stanley Kubrick cast him after seeing him in a production of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", in which George C. Scott also appeared.
According to Christiane Kubrick in her 2002 book "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures," her husband Stanley Kubrick often played chess with George C. Scott on the set between setups. Kubrick, renowned as a master-level chess player who used to hustle other players in his youth in New York City, outclassed Scott as a player and easily beat him, which had the effect of winning Scott's admiration for the director and keeping the famously volatile actor (who was only a few months younger than Kubrick) focused during the down-time.
Shortly after the release of the movie, Stanley Kubrick met with Arthur C. Clarke to talk about making the "proverbial good science-fiction movie". During a discussion of ideas (that eventually became 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)), the two men saw what they at first thought was a satellite moving in a polar orbit, but it abruptly changed direction. When Clarke suggested calling in a UFO report, Kubrick said, "After 'Dr. Strangelove', the Air Force doesn't want to hear from me."
Filmed during the spring and summer of 1963, the first test screening was scheduled for November 22, 1963, the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The producers felt that the public would not be in a mood for a black comedy so soon after such a traumatic event, so the premiere was moved back to late January 1964.
When Slim Pickens was cast as Maj. Kong, he had never traveled outside the US 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 ones to be shot.
Based on the novel "Red Alert" by Peter George, and originally conceived as a tense thriller about the possibility of accidental nuclear war. Stanley Kubrick was working on the script when he realized that many scenes he had written were actually quite funny. He then brought in Terry Southern to turn the story into a satire. Among the changes were the addition of the title character and the renaming of other characters using satirical names such as Turgidson, Kissoff, Guano, DeSadesky, and Merkin Muffley.
Dr. Strangelove apparently suffers from agonistic apraxia, also known as "alien hand syndrome". It's caused by damage to the corpus callosum, the nerve fibers that connect the brain's two hemispheres. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen who identified it named it Dr. Strangelove Syndrome. According to Prof. Sergio Della Sala, patients "slam their hand and shout 'My hand does things that I don't want it to do!'"
For the role of Gen. Jack D. Ripper, Stanley Kubrick was able to talk Sterling Hayden into coming out of retirement to make his first film in five years. Kubrick had previously used Hayden in The Killing (1956).
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.
Columbia Pictures agreed to provide financing only if Peter Sellers played at least four major roles. In the studio's eyes, Sellers playing multiple roles was one reason Lolita (1962) was so successful.
Kubrick said, in a '68 Playboy interview, that he was not "entirely assured that somewhere in the Pentagon or Red army upper echelons there does not exist the real-life prototype of General Jack D. Ripper." The film's success and wide viewership caused changes to be made, in terms of military protocol, to lessen the chance that the events in the film could take place in real life.
A visitor to the set observed Stanley Kubrick's total control over every aspect of the process, which, she said, the crew regarded with awe and respect rather than hostility. She noted there was an overall atmosphere of dedication and good humour although no prankishness was evident. The happiest moments, the ones that inspired outright laughter on the set, were when a difficult shot was achieved.
Strangelove is said to have Americanized his name from Merkwuerdigliebe." This is a slight misspelling of the German term "Merkwuerdige Liebe", meaning "Strange love".
Gen. Ripper's paranoia about water fluoridation being a Communist plot is based on a conspiracy theory circulated by the extreme-right-wing John Birch Society in the 1950s and 1960s. The organization, which was founded in 1958, was quite influential in conservative politics at the time, and the "fluoridation is a Communist plot" theory took hold in many rural areas of the US, with some small towns going so far as to not only ban fluoridation of water but to pass ordinances requiring the arrest and jailing of anyone who advocated it.
The character of Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) was patterned after the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. Curtis LeMay, who was renowned for his extreme anti-Communist views and who once stated that he would not be afraid to start a nuclear war with the Soviet Union if he was elected president. Similarly, Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) was patterned after Gen. Thomas S. Power, LeMay's protégé and successor as Chief of the Strategic Air Command. When briefed on a RAND proposal to limit U.S. nuclear strikes on Soviet cities at the beginning of a war, Power responded, "Restraint! Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards! . . . At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!"
Stanley Kubrick's last black-and-white film.
According to Pablo Ferro, title designer, the opening title shots were born of remarks between himself and Stanley Kubrick wherein Ferro observed that all machines invented by men have a sexual aspect. In the context of the film, it made Kubrick think of B-52s refueling in mid-air. Originally talking about arranging for a shoot to capture that image, Ferro said he was sure the Air Force had been so proud of the technology that they had filmed the process from every conceivable angle. It didn't take long for him to bring back stock footage in which both men were delighted to see the aircraft involved in the process suggestively "bobbing," "bumping" up and down and swaying in the air as they connect, transfer fuel and then disconnect. The addition of the music instrumental on top heightened the intended effect, and knowing all this makes watching the opening titles quite a different experience. Indeed, the music actually 'punctuates' the refueling rod's eventual withdrawal from the B-52 scene.
The War Room was inspired by Metropolis (1927).
Tracy Reed, the only woman seen in the film, plays Turgidson's secretary, Miss Scott, who was billed in some early advertisements as "Miss Foreign Affairs". This was due to her also appearing as that character in the centerfold of Playboy magazine (June 1962), which is read by Maj. Kong in the cockpit. The magazine covering her butt is "Foreign Affairs".
This film was selected into the National Film Registry in 1989 (the first year of inductions) for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Among the titles that Stanley Kubrick considered for the film were "Dr. Doomsday or: How to Start World War III Without Even Trying", "Dr. Strangelove's Secret Uses of Uranus" and "Wonderful Bomb".
In 1995 Stanley Kubrick enlisted Terry Southern to script a sequel titled "Son of Strangelove". Kubrick had Terry Gilliam in mind to direct. The script was never completed, but index cards laying out the story's basic structure were found among Southern's papers after his October 1995 death; it was set largely in underground bunkers, where Dr. Strangelove had taken refuge with a group of women. In 2013 Gilliam commented, "I was told after Kubrick died--by someone who had been dealing with him--that he had been interested in trying to do another 'Strangelove' with me directing. I never knew about that until after he died but I would have loved to."
The plan to regenerate the human race from the people sheltered in mineshafts is a parody of Nelson Rockefeller, Edward Teller, Herman Kahn and Chester E. Holifield's 1961 plan to spend billions of dollars on a nationwide network of concrete-lined underground fallout shelters capable of holding millions of people. The proposed fallout shelter network has similarities and contrasts to that of the very real and robust Swiss civil defense network. Switzerland has an overcapacity of nuclear fallout shelters for the country's population size, and by law, new homes must still be built with a fallout shelter. If the US did that, it would violate the spirit of MAD and destabilize the situation because the US could launch a first strike and be safe against a retaliatory second strike.
Although the film is named after him, the character of Dr. Strangelove has the least amount of screen time of Peter Sellers' three roles.
When the screens in the War Room were being constructed, Stanley Kubrick asked if the rocket trajectories were accurate and was told that they were fictional. Kubrick got the production team to inquire from their contacts in the Defense Department if they could find out the real locations of the missile silos. After they got all the relevant info, Kubrick asked, based on the statistics they had received, where the safest place in the world would be, and he was told that it would be West Cork in Ireland. This has often been cited as the reason why so many wealthy Europeans bought properties in the area from the mid-'60s onwards.
Shortly after making the film, Peter Sellers suffered a massive heart attack that briefly left him clinically dead. The experience changed him profoundly and he became less dedicated to his craft and took on parts that were much less exacting than the three he played in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
Slim Pickens, who had previously played only minor supporting and character roles, said his appearance as Maj. Kong greatly improved his career. He later commented, "After 'Dr. Strangelove' the roles, the dressing rooms and the checks all started getting bigger."
Stanley Kubrick intended to film in the United States. Filming was moved to England's Shepperton Studio because Peter Sellers had to stay in England due to his pending divorce.
According to film critic Alexander Walker, the author of biographies of both Peter Sellers and Stanley Kubrick, the role of Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake was the easiest of the three for Sellers to play, as he was aided by his experience of mimicking his superiors while serving in the RAF during World War II. There is also a heavy resemblance to Sellers' friend and occasional co-star Terry-Thomas and prosthetic-limbed RAF ace Douglas Bader.
Stanley Kubrick sought no help from the U.S. Department of Defense. The flight deck of the B-52 bomber was based on a single still shot that had been published in a British aviation magazine. Most of the shots of the plane in flight were simulated with a ten-foot model of the plane and a moving matte image behind. Each shot cost about $600.
As seen in the code book ("today's codes", on top of the page just after the crew member finds the right codes), the action takes place on Friday, 13 September 1963.
The character of President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) was patterned after Adlai Stevenson II, who lost two presidential elections to Dwight D. Eisenhower before becoming America's ambassador to the United Nations (1961-65, dying in office), which was his position at the time this film was made.
The assault on Burpleson Air Force base was shot on orthochromatic film using a handheld camera that was operated much of the time by Stanley Kubrick himself, an activity rarely engaged in by feature film directors.
At around the 28-minute mark, Gen. Turgidson explains that they have determined there are around 17,000 three-letter code combinations possible for the prefix they would need to send to get a message through. That's correct; there are 17,576 assuming two- and three-letter repeats are allowed (AAB and AAA, respectively, for example). He then says it will take about 2.5 days to transmit them all. That works out to an attempt lasting ten seconds each.
Stanley Kubrick chose Ken Adam as production designer after having been impressed with his work on Dr. No (1962).
Peter Sellers had a formidable talent for replicating (and sometimes inventing or combining) dialects, accents, and speech patterns. Those abilities were amply demonstrated in the many characters he played in Dr. Strangelove. For his performance of the title character, Sellers combined a German accent with the speech patterns of legendary photographer and photojournalist Weegie (a pseudonym for Arthur Fellig), who had worked with director Stanley Kubrick and was frequently on the set of Dr. Strangelove. Sellers confirmed this during a 1964 television interview with Steve Allen.
According to Ken Adam, the "War Room" was exaggerated in size and filmed in long shots to give a fantastic quality to the activity there, primarily the decision-making process where the power players are at considerable distances from each other.
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."
While CRM114 first appeared in this movie and appeared in subsequent Kubrick films (as well as other films paying homage to Kubrick) the designation CRM114 is actually utilized in the book Red Alert, upon which Strangelove is based and which preceded the film.
The character of Maj. T.J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) was based on Alvin "Tex" Johnston. Johnston was the chief test pilot for Bell Aircraft and Boeing in the 1940s and 1950s. Like Kong, he regularly flew wearing cowboy boots and a Stetson. While working for Boeing, he piloted the first flight of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, the same plane his fictional counterpart piloted in this film. Johnston was perhaps best known for his demonstration flight of the Dash-80, prototype for the Boeing 707, over Lake Washington during the 1955 Gold Cup Hydroplane Races. He was scheduled to perform a simple flyover. Instead, he performed a double barrel roll, leading many in the crowd--including Boeing president Bill Allen--to believe the plane was out of control and about to crash. The same year that this film premiered, Johnston was promoted to manage the Boeing Atlantic Test Center. One of the projects he worked on there was the development of the Minute Man missile.
Among the people on whom Dr. Strangelove is based is the mathematician John von Neumann, some of whose work on game theory might suggest that the way to win the Cold War was with a preventive war. He was consulted by Truman and Eisenhower on nuclear war strategy. He was also instrumental in the development of the modern computer. Toward the end of his life, he was confined to a wheelchair. He probably did not wear a single black glove.
Peter Sellers based the voice of Dr. Strangelove on that of famed photographer Arthur 'Weegee' Fellig (real name Arthur Fellig), who did still photography for the movie. Sellers made recordings of conversations he had with Weegee so he could imitate his distinct high-pitched voice and heavy foreign accent.
Laurie Johnson's musical score - primarily a tense, epic arrangement of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" - begins 10 minutes into the movie. At this point Major Kong takes off his helmet and dons his cowboy hat, signaling the beginning of the bombing mission. The tune continues relentlessly throughout the B-52 scenes and is the only incidental music in the film. In fact, other than the opening credits, a brief snatch of big band music on a radio, and "We'll Meet Again" at the finale there is no other music in the film. The emotional effect is to make the B-52 scenes seem heroic - an ironic framing of a mission that will end with the destruction of all life on Earth.
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.
This was the final collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and his producing partner James B. Harris. Harris was involved in the early development stage of this production but left to begin his own directing career. It was during this stage that, according to Harris, Kubrick began to toy with the idea of turning "Strangelove" into a comedy.
It is possible that the character Colonel 'Bat' Guano may have been loosely based on the general, Matthew Ridgway. He was famous for having two grenades on his fatigues in order to show his troops he was a fighter too. It was said that his aides-de-camp may have give him neutralized grenades in order to avoid unexpected accident.
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).
The photographic mural in Gen. Ripper's office is actually a view of Heathrow Airport in London, England.
The ending in the novel was similar to the novel and movie Fail Safe (1964). Author Peter George detested the conversion of his book to a satire, but wrote a tie-in novelization of the film anyway.
According to some accounts, Peter Sellers was also invited to play the part of Gen. Buck Turgidson, but turned it down because it was too physically demanding.
In the novel by Peter George the two H-bombs are named "Hi There!" and "Lolita". Two years earlier, Stanley Kubrick directed Lolita (1962). The graffiti on the second bomb is "Dear John". Slim Pickens once owned a horse named Dear John.
The film was made and released about six years after its source novel "Red Alert" by Peter George had been first published in 1958.
Gen. Turgidson (George C. Scott) is a veteran of both WWII and Korea, wearing the Army Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart, among numerous campaign medals.
At one stage during filming, Sellers was in one of his more negative moods. To this end, he locked himself away in the bathroom of his dressing room and broke down in tears. One of the film crew managed to persuade him to return to the set.
The favorite film of film critic Gene Siskel.
In reality, Slim Pickens actually dressed like his character, Major Kong. As the film was made in the UK, Pickens (who had never left the USA before) had to acquire a passport and showed up on set in his usual regalia of cowboy hat and boots. The cast and crew assumed he'd already been dressed by the costume department.
The bomber scenes, shot in an area not much bigger than a closet, were very tightly framed to emphasize the claustrophobic cramped space and filmed with available lighting only.
Sterling Hayden would have known something about Russian spying that he refers to in the film. Hayden served in espionage for the Allies during World War II. He worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the American wartime intelligence service. He went by the name, John Hamilton. He ferried supplies from Italy to partisans in Yugoslavia and did undercover work in the Balkans and the Mediterranean. Hayden was awarded a silver star for his service.
The background footage for the model B-52 is filmed from a Boeing B-17G, whose shadow can be seen on the ground.
The role of George C. Scott resembled that of real life Air Force chief, General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force Chief, who was an advocate of "pre-emptive nuclear war to rid the world of the Soviet threat" [Defense secretary Robert MacNamara recollection] and had once mused aloud to a Washington Post columnist that nuclear war was "inevitable" (in July '61) and "would break out in the final weeks of the year," casually acknowledging that "it would likely incinerate such major U.S. cities as Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit." LeMay, during World War II, made his name by "laying waste to much of Japan with his infamous firebombing campaign." [as reported in 'Brothers: the hidden history of the Kennedy years'; David Talbott, 2007.] Further in referencing this film in this book: the Special Assistant to President Kennedy (Arthur Schlesinger), later recalled that during the Cuban missile crisis time: "Certainly we did not control the Joint Chiefs of Staff," and regarding Kennedy's fears of the military: "Kennedy's concern was not that Khrushchev [the Soviet leader] would initiate something, but that something would go wrong in a Dr. Strangelove kind of way," referring to Stanley Kubrick's film in which a rogue U.S. general starts World War III." [Ibid.]
Some of the Air Force stock footage of mid-air refueling seen in the opening credit sequence also appears in other films including (in color) Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964).
Several members of the cast and crew were actual military veterans; most of whom served during World War II. Writer Terry Southern served in the United States Army as a demolitions technician, while writer and author Peter George was an officer and navigator flying night fighter missions over Malta and Italy in the Royal Air Force (RAF). In fact, George wrote the novel "Red Alert" during his service as an RAF officer, drawing from personal experience. Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor and production designer Ken Adam were also in the RAF; Taylor spent the War photographing nighttime bombing raids over Germany, while Ken Adam was a fighter pilot, flying the Hawker Typhoon in support of long-range bombing missions over Europe. Actor Peter Sellers also served in the Royal Air Force while Peter Bull was an officer in the Royal Navy. George C. Scott served in the United States Marine Corps while Slim Pickens and Jack Creley were enlisted in the Army. Sterling Hayden was in both the Army and the Marine Corps, serving as an officer in the latter; Hayden was also a secret agent during the War, serving in the OSS which was the predecessor to the CIA. James Earl Jones was the only non-WWII cast member, serving in the Army during the Korean War.
Terry Southern said that the climatic pie-fight scene, ultimately cut from the film, was supposed to reflect the ongoing rivalry between the four military branches, "which causes each one to exaggerate its needs, [and] precludes any chance of reducing our absurdly high defense budget." Kubrick called the failure of the scene as shot to reflect this a "disaster of Homeric proportions."
Maj. Kong's comment about the survival kit was originally "A fella could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff". "Dallas" was overdubbed with "Vegas" after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Kong still mouths the word "Dallas".
Because of the McGurk effect, viewers will often think they hear the sentence "a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Degas."
Because of the McGurk effect, viewers will often think they hear the sentence "a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Degas."
When the B-52 is making its final run on the target, a brief image of a radar screen is shown. The source of the radar beam is emanating 'generally' from the Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada-region, hundreds of miles from the 'suggested' Novaya Zemlya Island, Russian-region.
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, Gen. Turgidson's admonition to "not allow a mineshaft gap" at the end is a particularly vivid pun.
The sets occupied three main sound stages: the Pentagon War Room, the B-52 Stratofortress bomber and the last one containing both the motel room and Gen. Ripper's office and outside corridor.
In the War Room scenes, Gen. Turgidson and the Air Force general seated next to him both wear wings of the lowest Air Force aeronautical rating ("pilot"). Although it is possible nowadays, in the era in which the film was made it is highly unlikely that a senior Air Force general (and the apparent Air Force Chief of Staff) would have any aeronautical rating lower than "command pilot" (wings with a star and a wreath), which required 15 years as a rated pilot and a minimum of 3,000 flight hours.
General Turgidson mentions the "Bland Corporation", clearly a thinly veiled reference to the real-life Rand Corporation who were involved in helping the US formulate policy decisions on the US-Soviet nuclear arms confrontation.
Peter Sellers said the Dr. Strangelove character wasn't based on Henry Kissinger, "that's a misconception - it's von Braun," referring to the rocket scientist sucked into the Nazi rocket program and, after the war, brought over to the U.S. and seen publicizing the rocket-building efforts with such personages as Walt Disney in ads and promotional appearances. When Stanley Kubrick later on called up some NASA scientists to help with the verisimilitude of "2001," some of them, of course, had worked with, under, and around von Braun, and the Jewish Kubrick was able to play off the previous film's rendering with wit and aplomb - winning them over, as accounts from *that* film's set can attest, to the point of giving him respect bordering on awe.
The band Muse based their "Time Is Running Out" music video on this movie.
Sharp-eyed moviegoers may notice a strong resemblance between Dr.Strangelove's war room and its re-creations in the nuclear war themed comic book films Watchmen (2009) and X-Men: First Class (2011)
The voice Peter Sellers uses for Dr. Strangelove bears a striking resemblance to the voice of Dr. William Penney, the director of the British nuclear bomb program from its inception through the making of the film. Interviews with Dr. Penney can be found in the documentary, "Equinox. A very British Bomb" and is introduced at 5:00 minutes in the version available on Youtube at this time.
Ken Adam was unable to work on From Russia with Love (1963) because of his commitment to this film.
During the Cold War, a recording of We'll Meet Again was included in the package of music and programs held in 20 underground radio stations of the BBC's Wartime Broadcasting Service (WTBS), designed to provide public information and morale-boosting broadcasts for 100 days after a nuclear attack.
The only film that year nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and not in any Best Motion Picture category at the Golden Globes.
One of the main reasons for the famous custard pie climax being discarded was because most of the cast broke character and started laughing during the sequence.
The film is included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list.
Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.
The film, ready for release in 1963 but delayed until 1964 (it was screened for critics, but the Kennedy assassination put it on the back-burner until the public mood had changed), came out in the same year as Thomas Pynchon's "V." - a novel which features characters with names like Benny Profane, Rachel Owlglass, and Sidney Stencil, not unlike those of Colonel ("Bat") Guano, Merkin Muffley, and other characters' names in the Kubrick film. (Of course, it's altogether possible Pynchon *read* Terry Southern - and, in any case, both of them were "hipsters" who liked to "party!")
The names of the characters all have meanings. Turgidson refers to the word turgid, which means oddly inflated or over-the-top. Mandrake refers to the mandrake root which is used as a narcotic or sleep medication. Jack D. (the) Ripper is obvious, as are King Kong and Kissoff. Bat guano is an obnoxious thing found in dark places. The name "De Sade" is concealed within the name of the Soviet Ambassador, referring to Marquis de Sade, who was known for debauchery. Muffley refers to being error-prone.
Part of the satire in this film is in regard to the postwar relationship between the U.S. and the U.K., in which Britain emerged with a dissolving empire and an economy in ruins, and the U.S. emerged as the world's greatest economic and military power. The uneasy relationship between the dominating Ripper and the cowed Mandrake makes grim fun of how the U.K. had found itself struggling to retain its dignity while being compelled to submit to American determination; something that for many Britons remains a continuing issue to this day.
The army base referred to is supposedly located in Alvarado, Texas, which is supposedly sixty miles from the fictional Burpleson S.A.C. base. In reality, Fort Hood army base is located sixty miles south of Alvarado. The only Air Force base in the region was Carswell S.A.C. base, which was located. thirty miles northwest of Alvarado. This would make the distance between the army and S.A.C. base to be about ninety miles.
Kubrick had the art director cover the war room table in green felt in order to make it seem like the people seated at it were playing an absurdly large game of poker.
When Ronald Reagan assumed the office of President, one of the first things he asked was the location of the "war room." He was told there was no such room at the While House. Reagan then said he thought there was one because he had seen a war room in "Dr. Strangelove."
The Soviet ambassador refers to the severe economic strain of trying to shrink the "doomsday gap" by having to develop expensive countermeasures for the non-existent U.S. doomsday machine. This was oddly prophetic. The fall of the U.S.S.R. some 27 years after this film was largely due to the economic strain of having to develop countermeasures for the American so-called "Star Wars" defense system ("S.D.I."). The irony was that the SDI system of ray guns and such did not work and the whole thing was essentially false.
Kubrick dealt with George C. Scott's history of unruly and aggressive behavior by setting out a chessboard. Knowing that Scott fancied himself a great player and that he himself was a genius at chess, he earned Scott's respect by beating him decisively over and over again.
George C. Scott, who was a truly brilliant actor was dissatisfied with the film. Kubrick wanted him to overact but Scott was very serious about his art. What Kubrick did was have Scott do a couple of serious takes and then do a take that was over-the-top. The latter were the takes Kubrick wanted in the first place and that he used for the film. In any case, this film made Scott a star and paved the way for many triumphs to come.
Strangelove's original German name is revealed to be "Merkwuerdigliebe", which is German for Strangelove.
The opening credits are played over a sequence featuring a refueling operation. This was an intentional sexual innuendo by Stanley Kubrick with the intention of making the machines of death to be sexually alluring.
As seen in the sign on the air base, the motto of the Strategic Air Command is "Peace is our profession". In contrast, the S.A.C. patch includes the word "war" in the motto, "willing, able, and ready."
Gen. Turgidson says it would take 2 days to run 17,000 potential codes to recall the bombers. Assuming all the codes are run in order (AAA, AAB, AAC... etc) it would take 28.5 hours to reach the correct code: OPE - well beyond the two hour time limit.
One of the binders sitting on the desk next to President Muffley as he talks to the Russian Premier is entitled 'World Targets In Megadeaths".
Two possible nods to the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964) are shown here. The enumerated items in the bomber crew's survival kit are similar to those in Bond's briefcase. And Ripper orders a grain alcohol and rainwater, similar to Bond's remark about the bourbon and branch water being quite palatable.
A "doomsday" device also figured prominently in another Peter Sellers film, The Mouse That Roared (1959).
The 007 franchise would become enmeshed in the world of the bomber squadrons the following year, in the James Bond film "Thunderball" (1965).
Two of the bombs shown are named: Dear John and Hi There! This was a common practice that became popular in WW2.
The rotary wheel device used by Dr. Strangelove is an actual tool for calculating nuclear fallout. In promoting the film, the producers sent these inexpensive cardboard devices to theater owners.
Dr. Stragelove, being in charge of weapons R and D, says that he commissioned a study by the "Bland Corporation: that showed the doomsday machine to be a useless solution. Ironically, it was during the Kennedy administration that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara commissioned an ongoing study by the Rand Corporation on the ongoing status of the war in Vietnam and to document the history as it unfolded. When an employee of Rand discovered this massive report and its implications, he leaked it to the New York Times, revealing that the confidential assessment of the U.S. government was that the Vietnam war was unwinnable and should have been brought to a halt several years earlier. Naturally, Stankey Kubrick had no idea of any of this. It was just another interesting co-incidence.
Strangelove's odd voice was based on a New York photographer well-known for photographing mob hits and gruesome traffic accidents. A recording exists of Sellers interviewing him. Sellers then added the German inflection, reminiscent of former Nazi rocket scientist Werner von Braun.
Director Trademark
Stanley Kubrick: [bathroom] Gen. Turgidson's first scene and Gen. Ripper's final scene take place in bathrooms.
Stanley Kubrick: [Maniacal staring face] Gen. Jack D. Ripper explaining his plot to Group Captain Mandrake.
Stanley Kubrick: [114] Name of the message decoder CRM-114.
Stanley Kubrick: [three-way] USA vs. Russia vs. Gen. Ripper.
Stanley Kubrick: [faces] Gen. Turgidson, Gen. Ripper and Dr. Strangelove.
Spoilers
The U.S. government dismissed Stanley Kubrick's scenario of an accidental nuclear war as too far-fetched. However, the scene where Group Capt. 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.
Vera Lynn's climactic song, "We'll Meet Again," is identified in its Wikipedia entry as one of the songs distributed in the BBC's Wartime Broadcasting Service with the intention of improving morale in the event of a nuclear exchange.
During the deleted pie-fight scene, President Muffley took a pie in the face and fell down, prompting Gen. Turgidson to cry, "Gentlemen! Our gallant young president has just been struck down in his prime!" Had not Stanley Kubrick already decided to cut the pie fight by the time President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the line (or possibly the entire sequence) likely would have been cut due to its eerie similarity to real events.
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 end sequence, in which Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" is played over several shots of nuclear explosions, was suggested by Peter Sellers' fellow ex-Goon, Spike Milligan.
"Bat" Guano's name can be translated as "Bat Shit", a common slang for "insane", which could also describe his reasoning with Mandrake about not wanting to shoot the Coca-Cola machine.
The reason why Maj. Kong climbs into the bomb bay is to manually hot-wire the bay doors to open, but when he rides the bomb down, his shouts would not have been heard due to the vacuum of the air being sucked out of his throat much akin to a skydiver. However, this does not matter from a fictional point of view.
The scene where Major Kong rides the missile most likely was inspired by a similar scene in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1943) where the title character rides a cannonball into a building.
Towards the climax of the film, a Coca-Cola machine is shot to obtain coin change for a payphone. During much of the 1980s, Columbia Pictures- which released this film- was owned by the Coca-Cola Company.
