<holds up hand, sheepishly>
I’ve never enjoyed Dr Strangelove, even when I saw it first in the early 80s. But I am not a big Peter Sellars fan.
Then again, I am some sort of deviated prevert!
(if that is a warped way of saying deviant pervert?)
Partee num num
Declan
They did the same story in another film the same year, but they played it straight, which is probably why no one watches Fail-Safe nowadays.
Not a fan of Dr. Strangelove, and aside from Killers Kiss, IMO its his weakest film. Play games with names all you want, this film is bitty, overlong, and stale. Some scenes standout, and ofcourse its worth a view in anyones book, but overall very disappointing. I thought that I was a fan of Peter Sellers, but I’ve also revisited A Shot in The Dark (considered by many to be the best in The Pink Panther series) recently and hated it. NOT funny. Being There, however, is. Favourite Kubricks have to be Lolita and Paths of Glory.
And yes, I too am a perv.
Dr. Strangelove has some great bits, and even holds my interest all the way through, but I like Fail-safe much better. There’s a review (including a spoiler) on the IMDB that says better than I can just how good it is.
Darth Vader flies in the plane that drops the bomb. How the hell can you NOT like ‘Strangelove?’
I believe that was stock military footage, not shot by Kubrick.
That a pie fight ending was filmed and not used is well known, but it’s slightly unclear whether it survives.
There are several shots in the completed film where it’s obvious that there’s a long buffet-style table off to one side of the War Room, laden with food. It’s only there to provide the ammunition for the final fight. However, having filmed it, Kubrick seems to have decided that it was just too silly a finish and so switched to the familiar, darker ending.
Stills of the fight survive, but whether footage does is the province of rumour and speculation. And there has been a lot of both about this over the years.
There is currently some talk that the NFT in London may be in negotiations with Christiane Kubrick and the estate about mounting a definitive retrospective. If true, I’d be hopeful that that would be the occasion to finally resolve the question of whether Kubrick had a personal copy of the original ending tucked away.
I believe the entire pie fight ending was on the laserdisc release of the film.
UnuMondo
The key to liking (and by extension really liking) Dr. Strangelove is being able to appreciate subtle humor. It reminds me of a thread a little while ago comparing the two adult animation shows Home Movies and Family Guy. One is low key and subtle, the other over the top and goofy.
Interestingly enough, Dr. S was originally going to be a serious action/drama like Fail Safe. But as they got into preproduction Kubrick felt that really dark, comedic satire was a much better approach.
If you watch the scenes toward the end when the B-52 is trying to avoid the SAM, if that was all you ever saw you’d have no idea the film was a comedy.
I saw it when I was a kid, and it scared the crap out of me.
Of course, when I was a kid in the 60’s, anything to do with atomic bombs falling scared the crap out of me.
Slim Pickins riding that bomb down is still one of the most chilling scenes I can remember in movies.
No,
A real, full scale B-52 has wings that are quite flexible, they would be flopping like a bird taking off if flown in the manner depicted in the film. So flexible in fact, they have small landing gear affixed to the wingtips to keep them from dragging on take-off.
As to the flying, Major Kong says something to the effect that they are flying so low that they need sleigh bells on the plane and the only thing that would bring them down is a harpoon (one hurled at whales, not the current anti-ship missle).
But when reading off the bombing run checklist, the bombs are fused for airburst at fifteen thousand and twelve…check, ten thousand feet. A bit higher than they are flying, either by Kong’s description or the view from the cockpit. And considering they are set for an airburst at 10~15K feet, the plane would need to be quite a bit higher than that to escape the blast.
Peace Is Our Profession
This movie is a classic. What other movies of the 60’s would have such delicious lines as:
I was born outside of the “Russia will nuke us all!!!” portion of the Cold War, but I enjoy the movie for it’s subtle but sly dealing with sexuality in a Hollywood that didn’t yet highly approve of such things.
UnuMondo
Duke: At least some of it was stock footage:
Just curious: what was the source for your quote?
Yes, that was stock footage, and you can tell it is real by the way the planes are flexing during flight.
Sorry, I was talking about the flight sequences leading up to, during, and after the missle is fired at the B-52…specifically the sequence where they barely clear the mountain, also where they are flying low between ridges of mountains.
The B-52 is a fairly large plane, and is not nearly as nimble as some of those sequnces would suggest. Flying the B-52 in such a manner would generate even more severe wing flex than experienced during the relatively benign refueling footage.
Yet the wings remain as rigid as an ironing board during all the shots.
And it’s not just the shots of the plane…the panorama of the landscape below reminds me of the old film noir car chase scenes where the actors set in a car being shaken by prop grips as a projector shows the “road” behind them.
The source for my quote was This Site
Are you sure ? After all, one prominent fan remains pessimistic about it surfacing. And in his recent biography of Peter Sellers, Mr Strangelove (Sidgwick & Jackson, 2002), Ed Sikov goes no further than suggesting that a copy of the footage is held by the BFI. Even that has been doubted.
Apparently - I haven’t seen it - the DVD release of the film includes a selection of stills and some discussion of the fight, but no footage.