In the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove survival kit contents check scene, Major Kong said “Shoot, a fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.” Originally, the line was “Dallas” but it was overdubbed with “Vegas” because of the recent Kennedy assassination in Dallas. Some movie reviewers have suggested that Vegas makes more sense than Dallas anyway. I disagree. Given the nature of the character Major Kong, I think Dallas would have been much better. What do the brilliant minds of the SDMB think?
(Could someone please post a YouTube link to this scene for those who haven’t seen it or don’t remember it. I am not allowed to access YouTube here because I am supposed to be working and not playing on the computer. Instead, I have to browse SDMB all afternoon.)
Honestly, I think a city in Europe might have made more sense for the joke than Dallas. I’m thinking a WWII Vet would think about some city/town in France or Italy with the stuff in the kit. I’m not sure how that helps in Dallas and you don’t need most of that in Vegas.
He makes the statement right after reading off: “3 Lipsticks, 3 pairs of nylon stockings”. That sounds very WWII to me.
I don’t think Dallas makes me think of good time night life like Vegas does. To me, Dallas is like Omaha, but duller. And with Texans. Vegas is the city where anything goes, with people from anywhere and everywhere. Even Texans go to Vegas for a good time.
This is one time where meddling improved a movie.
et: it was a stupid decision anyway. Would anyone have been offended? Was there no fun allowed in Dallas in the 60s?
I think if you’re a fella who could have a good weekend with all that stuff, you could probably have a good weekend with it almost anywhere. Heavy on the “almost.”
That said, all good times are not created equal, and Vegas is the place with the reputation as a party town. There’s probably more potential there.
Now here is a strange (ha!) thing. Had you asked me with no prompting if he says “Vegas” or “Dallas” I’d have said “Dallas”. I’ve seen the film several times but “Vegas” just sounds wrong to me.
Have I seen a version with the orignal reference still in there I wonder? Or am I just misremembering?
Maybe, but I think that in the early sixties, Las Vegas was ramping up to becoming what it is today. I would guess that audiences at the time would have understood that line the same way we do today, even if today the joke might get a little more bang for the buck.
Just to clarify, the question in the OP is not which is a better place to have a good weekend. The question is which would have been a better line for Major Kong given what the audience has already perceived about his worldview. I think Kubrick was trying to make a joke by having the provincial Kong say Dallas rather than some other obvious choice.
I’m not sure if we ever learn where exactly Kong is from, but if we know that he’s from some one-traffic-light town located where Dallas is the closest big city, that would clearly be a point in favor of Dallas.
While you’re clearly right about this, I think the joke ultimately works better with Vegas. The meat of it is that the contents of the survival kit is rather diverse… and that Major Kong actually interrupts his reading when he gets to the lipstick and stockings. Vegas instantly brings a party town to mind. Dallas doesn’t, except when filtered through Kong’s provincial mindset. Better to have one strong joke than to pack two into one.
Dallas was no big shakes among the cowboys of the old west - Fort Worth was the cattle and saloon town - so the line didn’t work as well as intended even when it was written.
Surely, you jest. Vegas had the Rat Pack, chorus girls, gambling, and 24 hour booze. Dallas (I lived there during that time) had Neiman-Marcus, fashion designers, Broadway road company presentations, Southern Methodist University, and enough Baptists that Oak Cliff (the part of the city west of the Trinity River) didn’t even allow alcohol sales.
Not when the movie was released two months after the Kennedy assassination, no. Would anyone have released a movie with the line “Let’s party on top of the World Trade Center” two months after 9/11?
Making some changes to a quote of mine from an early post I made about that movie military kit in a past thread:
I think one very dark humor joke was missed by many then:
Such a kit assumes a chaotic or rationed economy and a loss of a power base as a result of a war with an enemy country; most of the items in the kit are there to bribe people in Russia or a country that was conquered, in the style of WWII.
Many allied troops in Europe got a lot of help and other things from the locals thanks to trading their cigarettes, candy and other items that the allied soldiers had access to, just like in the kit.
One bit of humor of the scene that many viewers can miss, is to by realize that global thermonuclear war was not going to be like WWII, and most if not all those items that were useful in WWII would be totally useless by the end of WWIII; because the point that was missed by the “great” military minds designing that anachronistic kit was that the local population was going to be completely obliterated.
Indeed; a great deal of the movie plays exactly on the same theme, like Bat Guano being worried about destroying the Coke machine, or the Russian ambassador taking pictures of the big board. All completely useless once the bombs fall.
