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Dr. Strangelove
Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, US/UK)
In Stanley Kubrick's black comedy satire, with Peter
Sellers playing three marvelous and distinctive roles:
- the opening credits sequence of a B-52 jet aircraft
refueling in mid-air - looking like a sexual act (mechanical copulation)
- the caricatures of all the major characters: the
belligerent military leaders and politicians
- delusionally-demented cigar-chomping renegade general
Gen. Jack D. Ripper's (Sterling Hayden) babbling about "precious
bodily fluids"
- the egg-head ineffectual American President Merkin
Muffley's (Peter Sellers also) classic, polite hot-line phone call
(a monologue) to the drunken Soviet premier Dmitri Kissof to explain
an erroneous bombing attack ("...It's a friendly call. Of course
it's a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn't friendly, ...you probably
wouldn't have even got it. They will not reach their targets for
at least another hour!")
- the priceless dialogue in the War Room
- militarist Gen. "Buck" Turgidson's (George
C. Scott) dalliance with his Playmate 'secretary' and his cold calculations
about nuclear destruction and the lone bomber's chances against Soviet
defenses
- "Buck's" scuffle in the War Room with the
Soviet Ambassador de Sadesky (Peter Bull) that concluded with Muffley's
line: "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room"
- the scene of the British RAF attache Capt. Lionel
Mandrake (Peter Sellers) not having enough spare change to telephone
the White House to save the world and Col. "Bat" Guano's
(Keenan Wynn) refusal to shoot at a Coca Cola machine for fear of
retribution by the company
- the sinister and peculiar wheelchair-bound ex-Nazi
mad German scientist Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers) with a falsetto-
and German-accent, and an uncontrollable, independently-minded mechanical-arm
Nazi salute (and his wrestling with his own gloved hand)
- Strangelove's giggling pleasure as he described his
plan for survival of the elites - and his personal duty to populate
the human race with women (at a ratio of 10 females to one male)
in deep underground, mine-shaft caverns
- Strangelove's ultimate exclamation: "Mein Fuhrer,
I can walk!"
- gung-ho redneck cowboy commander-pilot of the radio-disabled
B-52 bomber plane Major T.J. "King"
Kong's (Slim Pickens) patriotic speech: ("I'd say that you're
all in line for some important promotions an' personal citations when
this thing's over with")
- the image of Kong rodeo-riding the nuclear bomb like
a bucking bronco toward its target and crying "Yaahooo" as
he fanned his cowboy hat
- the finale with multiple H-bomb mushroom clouds signaling
universal nuclear destruction, blossoming into Vera Lynn's rendition
of "We'll Meet Again" ("We'll meet again / Don't know
where, don't know when / But I know we'll meet again / Some sunny
day")
The H-Bomb and Mushroom Cloud Destruction
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Gen. Jack D. Ripper
Gen. "Buck" Turgidson (George C. Scott)
Phone Call Between Soviet Premier and US President
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the
War Room"
Crazed Dr. Strangelove: "Mein Fuhrer, I can
walk!"
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