On Jan. 29, 1964, a triple premiere — in New York, London and Toronto — launched one of Stanley Kubrick’s signature masterpieces into the chilly Cold War atmosphere: Dr. Strangelove, with the marquee-challenging subtitle Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Kubrick described it as a “nightmare comedy.” Sixty years later, the comedy still works, but the immediacy of the nightmare may be missed.
Shot in Shepperton Studios outside of London from February through November 1963, Dr. Strangelove was conceived and realized in the shadow of a real-life nightmare scenario that no one laughed at: the Cuban Missile Crisis, which unfolded over 13 terrifying days in October 1962.
On Oct. 14, 1962, a U-2 spy plane detected facilities for the launching of nuclear ballistic missiles from Cuba, a Soviet client state since 1959. President John F. Kennedy convened an executive committee of the National Security Council to consider options. The consensus from the Joint Chiefs...
Shot in Shepperton Studios outside of London from February through November 1963, Dr. Strangelove was conceived and realized in the shadow of a real-life nightmare scenario that no one laughed at: the Cuban Missile Crisis, which unfolded over 13 terrifying days in October 1962.
On Oct. 14, 1962, a U-2 spy plane detected facilities for the launching of nuclear ballistic missiles from Cuba, a Soviet client state since 1959. President John F. Kennedy convened an executive committee of the National Security Council to consider options. The consensus from the Joint Chiefs...
- 1/29/2024
- by Thomas Doherty
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"From the unique perspective of one man, there is a lighter side to everything – even Armageddon." One of Stanley Kubrick's all-timer classics is the Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove, originally released in 1964. It was one of his big steps towards making his most famous films, delivered just before he would go on to make 2001, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and A Clockwork Orange. This vintage 45-minute long making of video has been floating around on the web for years, but we only stumbled across it recently and had to post it for everyone to watch. The video features plenty of stories and interviews with cast & crew and many other people involved in Kubrick's career as a filmmaker. Dr. Strangelove is based on Peter George's book "Red Alert" - an insane American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a...
- 11/30/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Every year, it's almost inevitable that two movies with a similar premise will go head to head, whether it be a siege on the white house, an asteroid heading towards Earth, or a story about animated bugs fighting fascism. It's bound to keep on happening since it's been going on for so long — with 1964 as the year in which two competing movies told us how close we were to nuclear annihilation.
Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was released in January, while Sidney Lumet's "Fail Safe" came out in October. Each featured their own idiosyncrasies, but the one thing they did share was the looming nuclear threat bound to manifest itself. Kubrick's film took on a satirist tone with a paranoid Air Force commander sending out B-52 bombers to attack the Soviets, all while a group of disconcerted buffoons argue,...
Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was released in January, while Sidney Lumet's "Fail Safe" came out in October. Each featured their own idiosyncrasies, but the one thing they did share was the looming nuclear threat bound to manifest itself. Kubrick's film took on a satirist tone with a paranoid Air Force commander sending out B-52 bombers to attack the Soviets, all while a group of disconcerted buffoons argue,...
- 8/23/2022
- by Matthew Bilodeau
- Slash Film
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”
It’s time to unlock the secret codes and scheme with the best, as the one-of-a-kind classic Dr. Strangelove returns to cinemas later this month, as part of Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies’ TCM Big Screen Classics series. “TCM Big Screen Classics: Dr. Strangelove” will screen on Sunday, September 18 and Wednesday, September 21 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. local time (both days), and will include specially-produced commentary from TCM host Ben Mankiewicz to help decipher the many layers of satire in Kubrick’s dark comedic masterpiece.
Through a series of military and political accidents, a pair of psychotic senior military officers – U.S. Air Force Commander Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) and Joint Chiefs of Staff General “Buck” Turgidson (George C. Scott) – hatch an ingenious, foolproof and irrevocable plan to unleash a wing of B-...
It’s time to unlock the secret codes and scheme with the best, as the one-of-a-kind classic Dr. Strangelove returns to cinemas later this month, as part of Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies’ TCM Big Screen Classics series. “TCM Big Screen Classics: Dr. Strangelove” will screen on Sunday, September 18 and Wednesday, September 21 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. local time (both days), and will include specially-produced commentary from TCM host Ben Mankiewicz to help decipher the many layers of satire in Kubrick’s dark comedic masterpiece.
Through a series of military and political accidents, a pair of psychotic senior military officers – U.S. Air Force Commander Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) and Joint Chiefs of Staff General “Buck” Turgidson (George C. Scott) – hatch an ingenious, foolproof and irrevocable plan to unleash a wing of B-...
- 9/12/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
At BFI, 11 directors pick their favorite Stanley Kubrick films.
Listen to Jeff Goldblum‘s 1.5-hour career-spanning interview with Marc Maron:
Criterion‘s David Bromwich on Dr. Strangelove, now available on the collection (also, read about Terry Southern‘s time on set):
When Stanley Kubrick bought the motion picture rights to the 1958 thriller Red Alert, by the retired Royal Air Force navigator Peter George, he meant to direct an action film about a nuclear war triggered by a solitary madman. Some way into his work on the script, however, Kubrick realized the story was too appalling for serious treatment and decided to recast it as an out-and-out satire.
At BFI, 11 directors pick their favorite Stanley Kubrick films.
Listen to Jeff Goldblum‘s 1.5-hour career-spanning interview with Marc Maron:
Criterion‘s David Bromwich on Dr. Strangelove, now available on the collection (also, read about Terry Southern‘s time on set):
When Stanley Kubrick bought the motion picture rights to the 1958 thriller Red Alert, by the retired Royal Air Force navigator Peter George, he meant to direct an action film about a nuclear war triggered by a solitary madman. Some way into his work on the script, however, Kubrick realized the story was too appalling for serious treatment and decided to recast it as an out-and-out satire.
- 7/5/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
“Purity Of Essence”
By Raymond Benson
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is such an iconic motion picture that most readers of Cinema Retro, I would bet, already own a copy of this brilliant keepsake of the 1960s on DVD or Blu-ray. The film has been released several times before, but now it gets the Criterion treatment. Believe me—fans of the movie and of director Stanley Kubrick will still want to get this edition. It is definitely an upgrade in quality and the disk also comes with a plethora of fascinating supplements and some terrific goodies in the packaging.
Unless you’ve haven’t been paying attention to the lists of Great Movies You Should See Before You Die, you know that Dr. Strangelove is the story of how an air force general (Sterling Hayden) goes “a little funny in the head.
By Raymond Benson
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is such an iconic motion picture that most readers of Cinema Retro, I would bet, already own a copy of this brilliant keepsake of the 1960s on DVD or Blu-ray. The film has been released several times before, but now it gets the Criterion treatment. Believe me—fans of the movie and of director Stanley Kubrick will still want to get this edition. It is definitely an upgrade in quality and the disk also comes with a plethora of fascinating supplements and some terrific goodies in the packaging.
Unless you’ve haven’t been paying attention to the lists of Great Movies You Should See Before You Die, you know that Dr. Strangelove is the story of how an air force general (Sterling Hayden) goes “a little funny in the head.
- 6/30/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Choosing the best movie Stanley Kubrick ever made is a contentious task fit for the War Room, but deeming one the funniest is considerably easier: “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” elicits more laughter than “The Shining,” “2001” and “Eyes Wide Shut” combined. A making-of documentary available on YouTube goes behind the scenes of Kubrick’s political satire.
Read More: Sir Patrick Stewart Hails the Wrong Ruler in Film Independent’s Live Reading of ‘Dr. Strangelove’
By the late 1950s, a narrator informs us in the opening minutes, Kubrick was deeply troubled by the prospect of nuclear war; James B. Harris, the filmmaker’s former production partner, says it was the only thing on his mind after finishing “Lolita.” This led him to read more than 50 books on the subject, one of which came recommended from a friend at the International Institute for Strategic...
Read More: Sir Patrick Stewart Hails the Wrong Ruler in Film Independent’s Live Reading of ‘Dr. Strangelove’
By the late 1950s, a narrator informs us in the opening minutes, Kubrick was deeply troubled by the prospect of nuclear war; James B. Harris, the filmmaker’s former production partner, says it was the only thing on his mind after finishing “Lolita.” This led him to read more than 50 books on the subject, one of which came recommended from a friend at the International Institute for Strategic...
- 6/26/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Criterion's special edition of Stanley Kubrick's doomsday comedy is more powerful than ever in a 4K remaster; and it even comes with a top-secret mission profile package and a partial-contents survival kit. A Kubrick fan can have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff. Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 821 1964 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 28, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Peter Bull, James Earl Jones, Tracy Reed Cinematography Gilbert Taylor Production Designer Ken Adam Art Direction Peter Murton Film Editor Anthony Harvey Original Music Laurie Johnson Written by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, Peter George from his book Red Alert Produced by Stanley Kubrick, Leon Minoff Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
When I heard that Criterion was putting out a Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb I thought that there already was a disc out there from The Collection. Nope, Sony released a Blu-ray in 2009, and back around 2000, a DVD. I was thinking of a deluxe laserdisc from Criterion sometime in the early 1990s. I remember being impressed by its extras, which included documentary materials about the Bomb in the Cold War years. Potential new fans of Kubrick's wickedly funny movie are being born every year, which leaves those of us for whom Strangelove was an important part of growing up having to remind ourselves just how good it still is. I remember recording the soundtrack off TV in high school and memorizing all of the dialogue; this has to be the most quotable movie of its decade. I also can remember my father's reaction when we watched it together on network TV, ABC, I think. An Air Force lifer who wouldn't discuss politics (or much of anything), the Old Sarge had little use for 'defeatist' movies like On the Beach. But he thought the premise of Seven Days in May wasn't really farfetched, having worked with Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay. He shook his head after seeing Dr. Strangelove but I could tell that he found it very funny. It's too bad the two of us couldn't have gotten our senses of humor more in sync -- as soon as I wore my hair long, I think he stopped trusting me. I believe that Dr. Strangelove is one of few movies that 'made a difference' in that it redirected American public opinion about a major life issue. From that point forward only the ignorant and Shoot First fanatics talked about nuclear war as win-able, at least not until the neo-con Millennium. 1963 audiences had little use for suspect 'pacifist' movies that ended in masochistic doom, like On the Beach. The nuclear crisis was such a hot topic that that the low-key English science fiction film The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a surprise hit. Strangelove is more realistic than the straight atom nightmare movies. We're told that when Ronald Reagan was briefed at the start of his first term in office, he asked where the White House elevator to the War Room was. He figured it was there because he saw it in the movie. The decision to opt for broad comedy was Kubrick's inspired stroke. Dr. Strangelove may be the first hit film that was a bona-fide black comedy; I don't recall anybody even using the expression before it came out. It's not a crazy comedy where anything funny is okay. The backbone of the story remains 100% serious, while the jokes relentlessly demolish the death-cult logic of our Nuclear Deterrent. Kubrick and Terry Southern populate Peter George's credible cold-sweat crisis with insane caricatures given ridiculous names. The scary part is that, no matter how stupid they behave, none are really that exaggerated. Peter Sellers serves triple duty in a trio of characterizations, effectively outdoing previous champion film chameleon Alec Guinness. George C. Scott steals the show as an infantile Air Force General who acts like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. And the rest of the inspired cast nails their highly original quasi-comic characters. Every joke is a gallows joke; we're never allowed to forget that we all have an atomic noose around our necks. I almost envy the dead viewers still unfamiliar with Dr. Strangelove, as seeing it for the first time was a mind-opening experience. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), the commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, orders a flight of B-52s to attack Russia. He then seals off Burpelson to prevent a recall of the planes. Exchange officer Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) tries to talk him into divulging the recall code. Holding court in the War Room, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) is horrified to discover that such a Snafu is even possible. He orders General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) to take Burpelson Air Base by force and recall the planes, and gets on the hotline with the Soviet Premier. Up in the lead B-52, Major 'King' Kong (Slim Pickens) receives Ripper's orders, coded 'Wing Attack Plan R.' He urges his crew to avoid Russian defenses and reach their primary target, while Turgidson tries to talk Muffley into launching an all-out attack. Advising in the War Room is ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, a grinning theoretician already fantasizing about the sexual recreation for the ruling elite in the VIP bomb shelters, where America's chosen high officials will be living for the next 93 years. Dr. Strangelove divides its time between three main locations, each with its own deadly serious function and each overlaid with a different comedic tone. In his locked executive office in the Alaskan Air Force Base, the sexually obsessed American General Ripper faces off with a veddy proper English officer in a farcical one-act. Beady-eyed and intense in his anti-Communist convictions, Sterling Hayden contrasts beautifully with Seller's genial Group Captain, who can't fathom the depth of his commanding officer's madness. The action in the B-52 is a throwback to those gung-ho WW2 action films in which a racially and ethnically diverse attack team uses brains and guts to barrel through their suicide mission. Even though their pilot is a cowboy clown (Slim Pickens doing his only characterization, Slim Pickens) they're an admirable bunch, seemingly the only humans capable of doing anything without red tape or Coca-Cola machines getting in their way. The horror is that our heroes' mission is totally against every moral precept ever imagined. The docu feeling in the B-52 is further amplified by the gritty newsreel-like footage of the taking of Burpelson Afb, with American troops fighting American troops. In 1964 these were traumatic, subversive scenes. U.S. troops on film are supposed to fight for freedom and righteousness, not kill each other. Kubrick has the audacity to place in the middle of it all a big sign that reads, 'Peace is our Profession.' The grainy authenticity of these scenes would come back to haunt us when similar footage started being seen nightly on television, fresh from Vietnam. The center of activities is the War Room, a Camelot-like round table of Death located in the basement of the White House. The rational President Merkin Muffley trips over an ideological roadblock in the form of Buck Turgidson, a gum-chewing military nutcase itching to go to war and overjoyed that Jack Ripper has 'exceeded his authority.' The President is hardly in charge of foreign policy, and none of fifty advisors come to his aid with any original thinking. An amateur among experts, Muffley must be shepherded through protocol by an assistant. Here's where Southern and Kubrick make their biggest points, basically asserting that a showdown with the Russkies is inevitable because the American stance is a military one -- Sac just wants the peacenik in the Oval Office to get out of their way. The comedy is all over the place, and it's a miracle that it works. The stand-up humor on the hot line to Moscow is very much like a Bob Newhart routine. At Burpelson, it's the Goon Show all over again. Sellers' Mandrake cannot sway General Ripper, and the moronic Major Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn) suspects the Raf officer of being a 'deviated prevert.' Up in the bomber, Mad Magazine craziness is grafted onto combat realism. Previous looks at the Air Force's flying deterrent were enlistment booster films like Strategic Air Command. Kubrick drove his English craftsmen to fake the entire bomber interior right down to the switches and gauges. The aerial combat is more realistic than that in escapist films, even with inadequate models used for exteriors of the jet bomber in flight. Dr. Strangelove maintains a nervous tension between absurd comedy and morbid unease. Kubrick's main career themes -- sexual madness, treacherous technology and the folly of human planning -- come into strong relief. We're motivated to root for the fliers that are going to destroy the world. Then we fret over the President's pitiful lack of control. Dour, glowering Russian Ambassador De Sadesky (Peter Bull) informs the War Room about his country's solution to the costly Arms Race, the dreaded Doomsday Machine. Security advisor Dr. Strangelove enters the film in the last act to serve as sort of an angel of Death. Based loosely on Rand-corporation experts that calculated eventualities in nuclear war scenarios, Sellers' vision of Strangelove is a throwback to German Expressionism. A Mabuse in a wheelchair, he's black-gloved like the brilliant but mad Rotwang of Metropolis. Strangelove enters like the specter of Death itself; his grin looks like a skull. Contemplating 'megadeaths' gives him sexual pleasure. The detonation of the first bomb seems to liberate Strangelove, and he finds he can walk again. The character is straight from the Siegfried Kracauer playbook. The evil of nuclear war has restored the representative of apocalyptic Nazi vengeance to full power. Twenty years after his death, we all get to join Hitler in his suicide bunker. First-time viewers are usually floored by the audacious Dr. Strangelove. Only the truly uninformed will not recognize baritone James Earl Jones as one of Major Kong's flight crew. Those going back for a repeated peek will derive added enjoyment from Kubrick's deft juggling of his several visual styles and his avoidance of anything that might deflate tension: we hear about the recall code being issued but are spared any view of the responsible military personnel that must have sent it. Some of the best fun is finding details in designer Ken Adam's impressive War Room, such as the pies already laid out in preparation for the aborted pie-fight finale. Even better is watching the War room extras as they strain to maintain straight faces no matter how funny Sellers and Scott get; that contrast is what makes the comedy so brilliant. Watch Peter Bull carefully. In one extended take he starts to smile at Sellers, more than once. He catches himself and then is clearly on the verge of cracking up, forcing Kubrick to cut away. The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the expected sterling transfer of this Kubrick classic, a 4K digital transfer. I put it up against Sony's old Blu-ray and the difference is not so great as to recommend that a trade-up is necessary. However, it looks extremely good. The Kubrick faithful out there will be thinking, 'I must not allow a disc shelf gap.' The HD picture makes quite a bit of difference in understanding Kubrick's photographic strategy. Not only do the hand-held Burpelson combat sequences approximate the look of documentary footage, a more contrasty and grainy film stock has been used. Switching "film looks" later became a fad for directors looking to be viewed as artists. The idea perhaps reached its zenith in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Back in 1964 the effect of imitating a news film look was quite stunning -- audiences reacted to the combat scenes as if they were real. I'm glad that we're finally beyond the frustrating early DVD years, when someone (at Warner Home Video?) claimed that Stanley Kubrick insisted that his films be shown at the old 1:33 aspect ratio for TV and disc. Even if they wangled a note from Kubrick to that effect, I still believe that the aspect ratio games were played because Kubrick was too busy to oversee new masters of his films, and Whv wanted to market them in a hurry at a minimum of cost. That's all old news now, but there was also the interesting aspect ratio question concerning Strangelove. At least one disc iteration -- Criterion's laserdisc, I'm fairly sure -- was released in a completely un-original dual-ratio scan. Kubrick apparently said that he preferred to see the War Room scenes at a full-frame 1:37, and so this one transfer of the film popped back and forth between ratios. I've never heard of anything like this before or after. Criterion's British 1:66 framing for this disc is correct, even though the film was probably screened at 1:85 for many of its American play dates. Criterion's new extras begin with interview featurettes with well-chosen spokespeople, like scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill. Kubrick archivist Richard Daniels' piece is quite good, as is an examination of the film's visuals by two of the original camera crew. The son of author Peter George gives an excellent account of his father's life and the adaptation of his novel Red Alert. George reportedly liked the notion of turning his story into a black comedy, especially when his original narrative was changed very little. The stroke of genius was deciding that the entire subject could best be approached as a sick joke. Other extras are repeated from Sony's DVD disc of 2004. A making-of docu interviews several surviving technicians and actors, and a primer on the Cold War atom standoff goes deep into detail. The featurettes have input from Robert McNamara, Spike Lee and Bob Woodward. Critics Roger Ebert and Alexander Walker are also represented. Docu pieces on Peter Sellers and Kubrick appear to suffer from legal restraints disallowing the use of clips from non-Columbia sources. The Peter Sellers show features several choice film clips from the 'fifties, including Sellers' almost perfect take on a William Conrad-like hired killer. We're shown some stills from the legendary The Goon Show, which is not mentioned by name. A Stanley Kubrick career piece that uses UA, MGM and Universal trailers covers a lot of territory a bit too quickly. It does have some nice interview input from Kubrick's partner James B. Harris. Harris has since given terrific interviews on Criterion discs for Kubrick's The Killing and Paths of Glory. Criterion's Curtis Tsui produced those discs as well as this one. An entertaining extra is a pair of vintage 'split screen' fake interviews with Sellers and Scott intended for publicity use. Each actor projects his chosen PR image. They're charming, especially when Sellers takes us on a lightning tour of regional English accents. I wonder if those distinctions have faded, 52 years later? As a pleasant surprise, Curtis Tsui has overseen the creation of a collectable, highly amusing substitute for a standard disc insert booklet. Inside an authentic-looking 'Wing Attack Plan R' envelope, David Bromwich's insert essay is printed in the form of classified orders on two sheets of loose-leaf paper. Terry Southern's hilariously profane 1994 essay on the movie comes in the form of a Playboy parody, illustrated with photos of Tracy Reed as 'Miss Foreign Affairs.' Finally, the disc credits and details are printed in a genuine miniature Russian Phrase Book and Holy Bible, a little bigger than one-inch square. It indeed offers some phrases that I'll have to try on my multi-lingual daughter, like "Where is the toilet?" But the cover Lies, as there's no Bible in there that I could find. Also, no nine packs of chewing gum and no issue of prophylactics. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Dr. Strangelove Blu-ray rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent uncompressed monaural + alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-hd Master Audio Supplements: (from Criterion stats): New interviews with Stanley Kubrick scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill; archivist Richard Daniels; cinematographer and camera innovator Joe Dunton; camera operator Kelvin Pike; and David George, son of Peter George, on whose novel Red Alert the film is based. Excerpts from a 1966 audio interview with Kubrick, conducted by physicist and author Jeremy Bernstein; Four short documentaries about the making of the film, the sociopolitical climate of the period, the work of actor Peter Sellers, and the artistry of Kubrick. Promotional interviews from 1963 with Sellers and actor George C. Scott; excerpt from a 1980 interview with Sellers from NBC's Today show; Trailers; insert essay by scholar David Bromwich and a 1994 article by screenwriter Terry Southern on the making of the film. Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 7, 2016 (5136love)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
When I heard that Criterion was putting out a Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb I thought that there already was a disc out there from The Collection. Nope, Sony released a Blu-ray in 2009, and back around 2000, a DVD. I was thinking of a deluxe laserdisc from Criterion sometime in the early 1990s. I remember being impressed by its extras, which included documentary materials about the Bomb in the Cold War years. Potential new fans of Kubrick's wickedly funny movie are being born every year, which leaves those of us for whom Strangelove was an important part of growing up having to remind ourselves just how good it still is. I remember recording the soundtrack off TV in high school and memorizing all of the dialogue; this has to be the most quotable movie of its decade. I also can remember my father's reaction when we watched it together on network TV, ABC, I think. An Air Force lifer who wouldn't discuss politics (or much of anything), the Old Sarge had little use for 'defeatist' movies like On the Beach. But he thought the premise of Seven Days in May wasn't really farfetched, having worked with Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay. He shook his head after seeing Dr. Strangelove but I could tell that he found it very funny. It's too bad the two of us couldn't have gotten our senses of humor more in sync -- as soon as I wore my hair long, I think he stopped trusting me. I believe that Dr. Strangelove is one of few movies that 'made a difference' in that it redirected American public opinion about a major life issue. From that point forward only the ignorant and Shoot First fanatics talked about nuclear war as win-able, at least not until the neo-con Millennium. 1963 audiences had little use for suspect 'pacifist' movies that ended in masochistic doom, like On the Beach. The nuclear crisis was such a hot topic that that the low-key English science fiction film The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a surprise hit. Strangelove is more realistic than the straight atom nightmare movies. We're told that when Ronald Reagan was briefed at the start of his first term in office, he asked where the White House elevator to the War Room was. He figured it was there because he saw it in the movie. The decision to opt for broad comedy was Kubrick's inspired stroke. Dr. Strangelove may be the first hit film that was a bona-fide black comedy; I don't recall anybody even using the expression before it came out. It's not a crazy comedy where anything funny is okay. The backbone of the story remains 100% serious, while the jokes relentlessly demolish the death-cult logic of our Nuclear Deterrent. Kubrick and Terry Southern populate Peter George's credible cold-sweat crisis with insane caricatures given ridiculous names. The scary part is that, no matter how stupid they behave, none are really that exaggerated. Peter Sellers serves triple duty in a trio of characterizations, effectively outdoing previous champion film chameleon Alec Guinness. George C. Scott steals the show as an infantile Air Force General who acts like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. And the rest of the inspired cast nails their highly original quasi-comic characters. Every joke is a gallows joke; we're never allowed to forget that we all have an atomic noose around our necks. I almost envy the dead viewers still unfamiliar with Dr. Strangelove, as seeing it for the first time was a mind-opening experience. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), the commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, orders a flight of B-52s to attack Russia. He then seals off Burpelson to prevent a recall of the planes. Exchange officer Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) tries to talk him into divulging the recall code. Holding court in the War Room, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) is horrified to discover that such a Snafu is even possible. He orders General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) to take Burpelson Air Base by force and recall the planes, and gets on the hotline with the Soviet Premier. Up in the lead B-52, Major 'King' Kong (Slim Pickens) receives Ripper's orders, coded 'Wing Attack Plan R.' He urges his crew to avoid Russian defenses and reach their primary target, while Turgidson tries to talk Muffley into launching an all-out attack. Advising in the War Room is ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, a grinning theoretician already fantasizing about the sexual recreation for the ruling elite in the VIP bomb shelters, where America's chosen high officials will be living for the next 93 years. Dr. Strangelove divides its time between three main locations, each with its own deadly serious function and each overlaid with a different comedic tone. In his locked executive office in the Alaskan Air Force Base, the sexually obsessed American General Ripper faces off with a veddy proper English officer in a farcical one-act. Beady-eyed and intense in his anti-Communist convictions, Sterling Hayden contrasts beautifully with Seller's genial Group Captain, who can't fathom the depth of his commanding officer's madness. The action in the B-52 is a throwback to those gung-ho WW2 action films in which a racially and ethnically diverse attack team uses brains and guts to barrel through their suicide mission. Even though their pilot is a cowboy clown (Slim Pickens doing his only characterization, Slim Pickens) they're an admirable bunch, seemingly the only humans capable of doing anything without red tape or Coca-Cola machines getting in their way. The horror is that our heroes' mission is totally against every moral precept ever imagined. The docu feeling in the B-52 is further amplified by the gritty newsreel-like footage of the taking of Burpelson Afb, with American troops fighting American troops. In 1964 these were traumatic, subversive scenes. U.S. troops on film are supposed to fight for freedom and righteousness, not kill each other. Kubrick has the audacity to place in the middle of it all a big sign that reads, 'Peace is our Profession.' The grainy authenticity of these scenes would come back to haunt us when similar footage started being seen nightly on television, fresh from Vietnam. The center of activities is the War Room, a Camelot-like round table of Death located in the basement of the White House. The rational President Merkin Muffley trips over an ideological roadblock in the form of Buck Turgidson, a gum-chewing military nutcase itching to go to war and overjoyed that Jack Ripper has 'exceeded his authority.' The President is hardly in charge of foreign policy, and none of fifty advisors come to his aid with any original thinking. An amateur among experts, Muffley must be shepherded through protocol by an assistant. Here's where Southern and Kubrick make their biggest points, basically asserting that a showdown with the Russkies is inevitable because the American stance is a military one -- Sac just wants the peacenik in the Oval Office to get out of their way. The comedy is all over the place, and it's a miracle that it works. The stand-up humor on the hot line to Moscow is very much like a Bob Newhart routine. At Burpelson, it's the Goon Show all over again. Sellers' Mandrake cannot sway General Ripper, and the moronic Major Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn) suspects the Raf officer of being a 'deviated prevert.' Up in the bomber, Mad Magazine craziness is grafted onto combat realism. Previous looks at the Air Force's flying deterrent were enlistment booster films like Strategic Air Command. Kubrick drove his English craftsmen to fake the entire bomber interior right down to the switches and gauges. The aerial combat is more realistic than that in escapist films, even with inadequate models used for exteriors of the jet bomber in flight. Dr. Strangelove maintains a nervous tension between absurd comedy and morbid unease. Kubrick's main career themes -- sexual madness, treacherous technology and the folly of human planning -- come into strong relief. We're motivated to root for the fliers that are going to destroy the world. Then we fret over the President's pitiful lack of control. Dour, glowering Russian Ambassador De Sadesky (Peter Bull) informs the War Room about his country's solution to the costly Arms Race, the dreaded Doomsday Machine. Security advisor Dr. Strangelove enters the film in the last act to serve as sort of an angel of Death. Based loosely on Rand-corporation experts that calculated eventualities in nuclear war scenarios, Sellers' vision of Strangelove is a throwback to German Expressionism. A Mabuse in a wheelchair, he's black-gloved like the brilliant but mad Rotwang of Metropolis. Strangelove enters like the specter of Death itself; his grin looks like a skull. Contemplating 'megadeaths' gives him sexual pleasure. The detonation of the first bomb seems to liberate Strangelove, and he finds he can walk again. The character is straight from the Siegfried Kracauer playbook. The evil of nuclear war has restored the representative of apocalyptic Nazi vengeance to full power. Twenty years after his death, we all get to join Hitler in his suicide bunker. First-time viewers are usually floored by the audacious Dr. Strangelove. Only the truly uninformed will not recognize baritone James Earl Jones as one of Major Kong's flight crew. Those going back for a repeated peek will derive added enjoyment from Kubrick's deft juggling of his several visual styles and his avoidance of anything that might deflate tension: we hear about the recall code being issued but are spared any view of the responsible military personnel that must have sent it. Some of the best fun is finding details in designer Ken Adam's impressive War Room, such as the pies already laid out in preparation for the aborted pie-fight finale. Even better is watching the War room extras as they strain to maintain straight faces no matter how funny Sellers and Scott get; that contrast is what makes the comedy so brilliant. Watch Peter Bull carefully. In one extended take he starts to smile at Sellers, more than once. He catches himself and then is clearly on the verge of cracking up, forcing Kubrick to cut away. The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the expected sterling transfer of this Kubrick classic, a 4K digital transfer. I put it up against Sony's old Blu-ray and the difference is not so great as to recommend that a trade-up is necessary. However, it looks extremely good. The Kubrick faithful out there will be thinking, 'I must not allow a disc shelf gap.' The HD picture makes quite a bit of difference in understanding Kubrick's photographic strategy. Not only do the hand-held Burpelson combat sequences approximate the look of documentary footage, a more contrasty and grainy film stock has been used. Switching "film looks" later became a fad for directors looking to be viewed as artists. The idea perhaps reached its zenith in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Back in 1964 the effect of imitating a news film look was quite stunning -- audiences reacted to the combat scenes as if they were real. I'm glad that we're finally beyond the frustrating early DVD years, when someone (at Warner Home Video?) claimed that Stanley Kubrick insisted that his films be shown at the old 1:33 aspect ratio for TV and disc. Even if they wangled a note from Kubrick to that effect, I still believe that the aspect ratio games were played because Kubrick was too busy to oversee new masters of his films, and Whv wanted to market them in a hurry at a minimum of cost. That's all old news now, but there was also the interesting aspect ratio question concerning Strangelove. At least one disc iteration -- Criterion's laserdisc, I'm fairly sure -- was released in a completely un-original dual-ratio scan. Kubrick apparently said that he preferred to see the War Room scenes at a full-frame 1:37, and so this one transfer of the film popped back and forth between ratios. I've never heard of anything like this before or after. Criterion's British 1:66 framing for this disc is correct, even though the film was probably screened at 1:85 for many of its American play dates. Criterion's new extras begin with interview featurettes with well-chosen spokespeople, like scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill. Kubrick archivist Richard Daniels' piece is quite good, as is an examination of the film's visuals by two of the original camera crew. The son of author Peter George gives an excellent account of his father's life and the adaptation of his novel Red Alert. George reportedly liked the notion of turning his story into a black comedy, especially when his original narrative was changed very little. The stroke of genius was deciding that the entire subject could best be approached as a sick joke. Other extras are repeated from Sony's DVD disc of 2004. A making-of docu interviews several surviving technicians and actors, and a primer on the Cold War atom standoff goes deep into detail. The featurettes have input from Robert McNamara, Spike Lee and Bob Woodward. Critics Roger Ebert and Alexander Walker are also represented. Docu pieces on Peter Sellers and Kubrick appear to suffer from legal restraints disallowing the use of clips from non-Columbia sources. The Peter Sellers show features several choice film clips from the 'fifties, including Sellers' almost perfect take on a William Conrad-like hired killer. We're shown some stills from the legendary The Goon Show, which is not mentioned by name. A Stanley Kubrick career piece that uses UA, MGM and Universal trailers covers a lot of territory a bit too quickly. It does have some nice interview input from Kubrick's partner James B. Harris. Harris has since given terrific interviews on Criterion discs for Kubrick's The Killing and Paths of Glory. Criterion's Curtis Tsui produced those discs as well as this one. An entertaining extra is a pair of vintage 'split screen' fake interviews with Sellers and Scott intended for publicity use. Each actor projects his chosen PR image. They're charming, especially when Sellers takes us on a lightning tour of regional English accents. I wonder if those distinctions have faded, 52 years later? As a pleasant surprise, Curtis Tsui has overseen the creation of a collectable, highly amusing substitute for a standard disc insert booklet. Inside an authentic-looking 'Wing Attack Plan R' envelope, David Bromwich's insert essay is printed in the form of classified orders on two sheets of loose-leaf paper. Terry Southern's hilariously profane 1994 essay on the movie comes in the form of a Playboy parody, illustrated with photos of Tracy Reed as 'Miss Foreign Affairs.' Finally, the disc credits and details are printed in a genuine miniature Russian Phrase Book and Holy Bible, a little bigger than one-inch square. It indeed offers some phrases that I'll have to try on my multi-lingual daughter, like "Where is the toilet?" But the cover Lies, as there's no Bible in there that I could find. Also, no nine packs of chewing gum and no issue of prophylactics. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Dr. Strangelove Blu-ray rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent uncompressed monaural + alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-hd Master Audio Supplements: (from Criterion stats): New interviews with Stanley Kubrick scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill; archivist Richard Daniels; cinematographer and camera innovator Joe Dunton; camera operator Kelvin Pike; and David George, son of Peter George, on whose novel Red Alert the film is based. Excerpts from a 1966 audio interview with Kubrick, conducted by physicist and author Jeremy Bernstein; Four short documentaries about the making of the film, the sociopolitical climate of the period, the work of actor Peter Sellers, and the artistry of Kubrick. Promotional interviews from 1963 with Sellers and actor George C. Scott; excerpt from a 1980 interview with Sellers from NBC's Today show; Trailers; insert essay by scholar David Bromwich and a 1994 article by screenwriter Terry Southern on the making of the film. Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 7, 2016 (5136love)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
- 6/11/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Mubi is showing Sidney Lumet's Fail-Safe (1964) May 7 - June 6 and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) May 8 - June 7, 2016 in the UK.“Yes, it’s a hard day. Goodbye, my friend.”— General Koniev, Fail-Safe“Jack, this is Helen.”— Helen Grady, Fail-SafeTiming was everything during the Cold War. A matter of life and death, democracy or communism, us versus them. And, for true megalomaniacs, my motion picture against your motion picture. In January 1963, Stanley Kubrick filed a lawsuit to halt the production of Fail-Safe, an upcoming adaptation of the recently published novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. A political thriller about nuclear war, it was being directed by Sidney Lumet and starred Henry Fonda. Kubrick’s charge was plagiarism: Fail-Safe, the director claimed, was a copy in all but name of Peter George’s Red Alert, the 1958 novel that...
- 5/9/2016
- MUBI
Insanity reigns in Stanley Kubrick’s absurdist adaptation of Peter George’s no-nonsense cold war thriller, Red Alert, as the earth spirals toward destruction thanks to the twisted scheme of a deranged Air Force General. Fortunately it’s a very funny spiral with a (literally) lunatic cast that boasts George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers (essaying three roles including the title character). Slim Pickens (in a role intended for Sellers) plays a gonzo cowpoke who contributes to one of the most astonishing finales in movie history.
- 4/11/2016
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Stanley Kubrick was a sucker for order, so he might have appreciated the desire to catalogue his career. However, since his films often warn against placing too much faith in systems, perhaps he knew that this way madness lies.
Frankly, most of his films have fair claim to being number one, so establishing first amongst equals means some hard choices have been made along the way - just try not to trigger the doomsday device or start swinging the axe if you don't agree.
So without further ado, let's open the pod bay doors and enter the enigmatic, exceptional work of Stanley Kubrick.
13. Fear and Desire (1953)
Even a genius has to start somewhere. Already a successful magazine photographer and documentary maker, 24-year-old Kubrick directed his debut about a military mission on limited funds - it was shot silently with sound added later.
Plagued by difficulties, Kubrick later called it "a completely inept oddity,...
Frankly, most of his films have fair claim to being number one, so establishing first amongst equals means some hard choices have been made along the way - just try not to trigger the doomsday device or start swinging the axe if you don't agree.
So without further ado, let's open the pod bay doors and enter the enigmatic, exceptional work of Stanley Kubrick.
13. Fear and Desire (1953)
Even a genius has to start somewhere. Already a successful magazine photographer and documentary maker, 24-year-old Kubrick directed his debut about a military mission on limited funds - it was shot silently with sound added later.
Plagued by difficulties, Kubrick later called it "a completely inept oddity,...
- 7/26/2015
- Digital Spy
CopAt the ripe age of twenty-six—the two were born within days of each other in 1928—James B. Harris and Stanley Kubrick formed Harris-Kubrick Productions. With Kubrick leading the charge behind the camera and Harris acting as the right-hand-man producer, the duo completed three major critical successes: The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), and Lolita (1962). But where Kubrick’s subsequent work has achieved a supreme, hall-of-fame stature, Harris’s own directorial career—consisting of five excellent movies made across a four-decade span—remains, despite the valiant effort of a few notable English-language critics (Michael Atkinson, Jonathan Rosenbaum), on the relative sidelines. The latest attempt to boost Harris’s reputation: BAMcinématek’s week-long retrospective of Harris’s producing and directing output, selected by “Overdue” co-programmers Nick Pinkerton and Nicolas Rapold.Harris and Kubrick stopped working together amidst a pre-production disagreement during the making of what would become Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb...
- 4/9/2015
- by Danny King
- MUBI
Sidney And The Sixties: Real-time 1957-1966
Throughout the 1950s, Hollywood’s relationship with television was fraught: TV was a hated rival but also a source of cheap talent and material, as in the case of the small-scale Marty (1955), which won the Best Picture Oscar. These contradictions were well represented by the apparently “televisual” 12 Angry Men (1957), which began life as a teleplay concerning a jury with a lone holdout who must, and eventually does, convince his fellow jurors of the defendant’s innocence. Its writer, Reginald Rose, persuaded one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Henry Fonda, to become a first-time producer of the film version. Fonda and Rose took basement-low salaries in favor of future points, and hired a TV director, Sidney Lumet, for next to nothing because Lumet wanted a first feature credit. Technically, there’s an opening bit on the courtroom steps that keeps this from being a true real-time film,...
Throughout the 1950s, Hollywood’s relationship with television was fraught: TV was a hated rival but also a source of cheap talent and material, as in the case of the small-scale Marty (1955), which won the Best Picture Oscar. These contradictions were well represented by the apparently “televisual” 12 Angry Men (1957), which began life as a teleplay concerning a jury with a lone holdout who must, and eventually does, convince his fellow jurors of the defendant’s innocence. Its writer, Reginald Rose, persuaded one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Henry Fonda, to become a first-time producer of the film version. Fonda and Rose took basement-low salaries in favor of future points, and hired a TV director, Sidney Lumet, for next to nothing because Lumet wanted a first feature credit. Technically, there’s an opening bit on the courtroom steps that keeps this from being a true real-time film,...
- 10/18/2014
- by Daniel Smith-Rowsey
- SoundOnSight
There are few auteurs as instantly recognizable and divisive as Stanley Kubrick, few filmmakers as idiosyncratic or groundbreaking. His work spans the entirety of life itself–sometimes in the same film–and has inspired almost as much derision as hosannas. There is no easy consensus on Kubrick’s films–though you may not be terribly surprised by our writers’ choice for his best, it’s hard to imagine that your ranking of his work will line up wholly with ours–nor on the messages imparted within. Is The Shining secretly about the moon landing? Is 2001? What is he really saying about violence in society in A Clockwork Orange? And so on. Closing out (some weeks late, granted) our monthly theme on his works, here is Sound on Sight’s ranking of the films of Stanley Kubrick. Enjoy. Share. Debate. We know you’ll want to debate.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey...
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey...
- 4/23/2014
- by Josh Spiegel
- SoundOnSight
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Written by Stanley Kubrick, Peter George, and Terry Southern
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
USA/UK, 1964
Having finished Lolita, a subversive Hollywood piece even by noirish standards, Stanley Kubrick returned to war. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb‘s scope was more encompassing than the private torture of Paths of Glory, looking forward to the threat of apocalyptic destruction instead of a reflective portrait of immediate world wars. Instead of matching and multiplying the grave tone inherent in his previous work and the source material, Red Alert by Peter George, Kubrick opted for a brand of blacker-than-pitch humor, claiming, “The only way to tell the story was as a black comedy or, better, a nightmare comedy, where the things you laugh at most are really the heart of the paradoxical postures...
Written by Stanley Kubrick, Peter George, and Terry Southern
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
USA/UK, 1964
Having finished Lolita, a subversive Hollywood piece even by noirish standards, Stanley Kubrick returned to war. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb‘s scope was more encompassing than the private torture of Paths of Glory, looking forward to the threat of apocalyptic destruction instead of a reflective portrait of immediate world wars. Instead of matching and multiplying the grave tone inherent in his previous work and the source material, Red Alert by Peter George, Kubrick opted for a brand of blacker-than-pitch humor, claiming, “The only way to tell the story was as a black comedy or, better, a nightmare comedy, where the things you laugh at most are really the heart of the paradoxical postures...
- 3/25/2014
- by Zach Lewis
- SoundOnSight
The ultimate punchline to the nuclear satire of "Dr. Strangelove"? As absurd as Stanley Kubrick's imaginative black comedy about World War III seemed when it opened 50 years ago this week (on January 29, 1964), it all turned out to be true.
Everything in the movie that the Pentagon said couldn't happen in real life -- from Air Force officers launching nuclear strikes without Presidential approval, to the Ussr being ready to respond with an automated doomsday system of its own -- actually could have happened. The safeguards really were as flimsy as Kubrick and his screenwriters imagined them to be. (Which begs the question: How safe are we now from a nuclear apocalypse?)
That's just one reason -- albeit the most chilling one -- that Kubrick's 50-year-old comedy holds up shockingly well today. But there are many other reasons that the aftershocks of "Dr. Strangelove" continue to have an impact.
The...
Everything in the movie that the Pentagon said couldn't happen in real life -- from Air Force officers launching nuclear strikes without Presidential approval, to the Ussr being ready to respond with an automated doomsday system of its own -- actually could have happened. The safeguards really were as flimsy as Kubrick and his screenwriters imagined them to be. (Which begs the question: How safe are we now from a nuclear apocalypse?)
That's just one reason -- albeit the most chilling one -- that Kubrick's 50-year-old comedy holds up shockingly well today. But there are many other reasons that the aftershocks of "Dr. Strangelove" continue to have an impact.
The...
- 1/29/2014
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
Creatives have always punctured power by exposing its funny side, welcoming those who might shy away from controversy
• Jonathan Wakeham's top 10 satirical comedies
Fifty years ago, Stanley Kubrick co-wrote and directed the film Dr Strangelove. It's now a comedy classic, but it was adapted from a book called Red Alert by an Raf officer named Peter George – an entirely serious indictment of the supposedly failsafe systems designed to prevent nuclear war.
Kubrick was fascinated by nuclear conflict. But the more he read about the situation, the more he became convinced that a realistic treatment simply couldn't dramatise the absurdity of the situation: that each side possessed enough weaponry to destroy the world several times over; that winning a nuclear war was like winning a suicide race.
What emerged was not the serious drama that Peter George had intended, but a dark and brilliant comedy that still informs the way we look at global conflict.
• Jonathan Wakeham's top 10 satirical comedies
Fifty years ago, Stanley Kubrick co-wrote and directed the film Dr Strangelove. It's now a comedy classic, but it was adapted from a book called Red Alert by an Raf officer named Peter George – an entirely serious indictment of the supposedly failsafe systems designed to prevent nuclear war.
Kubrick was fascinated by nuclear conflict. But the more he read about the situation, the more he became convinced that a realistic treatment simply couldn't dramatise the absurdity of the situation: that each side possessed enough weaponry to destroy the world several times over; that winning a nuclear war was like winning a suicide race.
What emerged was not the serious drama that Peter George had intended, but a dark and brilliant comedy that still informs the way we look at global conflict.
- 1/17/2014
- The Guardian - Film News
When it was announced that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were making a film featuring their usual troupe playing cartoonish versions of themselves at the end of the world it was clear they intended to leave us laughing as they go. The film is out today on Blu-ray and DVD and the time is nigh to take a look at other big screen concoctions of hilarity and calamity.
As you may imagine there aren’t too many choices, with many cinemapocalypses going for the grandest depiction of the ultimate tragedy. Roland Emmerich’s 2012 is a very different catastrophe to Von Trier’s wistful, beautiful Melancholia, the unfairly under seen 4:44 Last Day on Earth deals in a deep-seated routine combined with a brutal sense of helplessness in the final 24 hours of existence. The numerous zombie/infection disaster movies have the world thrown into a mass panic. Either way there aren...
As you may imagine there aren’t too many choices, with many cinemapocalypses going for the grandest depiction of the ultimate tragedy. Roland Emmerich’s 2012 is a very different catastrophe to Von Trier’s wistful, beautiful Melancholia, the unfairly under seen 4:44 Last Day on Earth deals in a deep-seated routine combined with a brutal sense of helplessness in the final 24 hours of existence. The numerous zombie/infection disaster movies have the world thrown into a mass panic. Either way there aren...
- 11/4/2013
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Wings, Dr. Strangelove: Film preservation and ‘Amazing Tales from the Archives’ (photo: Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Clara Bow, Richard Arlen in William A. Wellman’s Wings) The 2012 San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s edition of "Amazing Tales from the Archives" was perhaps the weakest of the series to date. In the past, they have done a wonderful job demonstrating the excitement of finding lost films and footage, assembling them together, preserving and restoring them. This installment revolved around the "Digital Age," and did not concentrate only on silent film. The reconstruction of William A. Wellman’s Wings (1927), the first Best Picture (or "Best Production") Academy Award winner, was a familiar story of how an old film print could be dusted off and used for the production of a Digital Cinema Package. By now, we all are aware of the importance of film preservation, which is part detective work and part modern technology.
- 6/4/2013
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
Soon after completing Lolita in 1962, Stanley Kubrick, Peter George and Terry Southern took a straight-laced Cold War thriller novel published in 1958 as Red Alert, renamed all the characters for maximum absurdity,...
- 3/7/2013
- by Ryan Adams
- AwardsDaily.com
Feature Tom Bond Jan 23, 2013
With TV series based on Psycho, Fargo and About A Boy announced, Tom wonders whether the future of film remakes lies on the telly...
If the film industry had a mantra it would be: “if it ain’t broke, remake it”. As long as cinema has existed so have remakes, recycling popular books, films and musicals to feed the appetites of audiences hungry for familiar big-screen fare.
The reuse of creative material comes in so many forms, and it’s pointless to try and distinguish between them. Whether it’s an adaptation, a remake, a reboot, a reimagining, a sidequel (The Bourne Legacy), or whatever ludicrous name you want to give it, the principle is the same. At its least dependent, this could be something like Dr Strangelove, which was based on Peter George’s novel Red Alert, and at its most extreme something like the...
With TV series based on Psycho, Fargo and About A Boy announced, Tom wonders whether the future of film remakes lies on the telly...
If the film industry had a mantra it would be: “if it ain’t broke, remake it”. As long as cinema has existed so have remakes, recycling popular books, films and musicals to feed the appetites of audiences hungry for familiar big-screen fare.
The reuse of creative material comes in so many forms, and it’s pointless to try and distinguish between them. Whether it’s an adaptation, a remake, a reboot, a reimagining, a sidequel (The Bourne Legacy), or whatever ludicrous name you want to give it, the principle is the same. At its least dependent, this could be something like Dr Strangelove, which was based on Peter George’s novel Red Alert, and at its most extreme something like the...
- 1/22/2013
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
Who are the great American film directors? More to the point, who do we think are the great American film directors? Well, there’s Ford, of course, the Zeus of the American pantheon, by turns comic, epic, maudlin and humane. Then there’s Welles, the ill-fated genius, abused by producers but beloved of critics. Spielberg, even in his seventh decade, is still the boy wonder; Scorsese the mad scientist. Griffith is the wise forefather, deeply flawed but idolized nonetheless, while Hawks is ageless, just as sly and self-assured as he was at the time of “The Big Sleep” (1946).
Kubrick, however, beats them all.
Is there anyone more respected or, with the possible exception of Hitchcock, recognizable? Turn on any Stanley Kubrick movie and you should know instantly, whether you’ve seen it before or not, who the film’s director is. The peerless, pristine images; the long, empty corridors; the upturned,...
Kubrick, however, beats them all.
Is there anyone more respected or, with the possible exception of Hitchcock, recognizable? Turn on any Stanley Kubrick movie and you should know instantly, whether you’ve seen it before or not, who the film’s director is. The peerless, pristine images; the long, empty corridors; the upturned,...
- 4/9/2012
- by Graham Daseler
- The Moving Arts Journal
While often referred to simply as Dr. Strangelove, the full title for Stanley Kubrick's 1964 dark, political comedy is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and as you can see from the image below, pulled from "The Stanley Kubrick Archives" by Lists of Note (via Flavorwire), Kubrick had several different and curious ideas when it came to possible titles for the film. And considering it's based on Peter George's less than adventurously titled "Red Alert" makes Kubrick's exploration for a title of whim and meaning even more fascinating. The titles on the page, as compiled by Lists of Notes, include the following: Doctor Doomsday Don't Knock the Bomb Dr. Doomsday and his Nuclear Wiseman Dr. Doomsday Meets Ingrid Strangelove Dr. Doomsday or: How to Start World War III Without Even Trying Dr. Strangelove's Bomb Dr. Strangelove's Secret Uses of Uranus My Bomb,...
- 4/3/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Since its first publication in 1983, Susan Hill’s Gothic chiller The Woman in Black has been terrorising audiences, from teenagers studying the novel in English lessons to horror aficionados like Mark Kermode, who wrote a chapter on the novel for his PhD in horror fiction. Its reputation has been subsequently enhanced by the long-running stage play, which left the author of this piece so scared, he had to be prised from his chair with a crowbar.
The most recent incarnation of The Woman in Black (our review Here) was released in cinemas on February 10th, with the backing of the reformed Hammer brand and the star power of Daniel Radcliffe in his first proper post-Potter role. It joins a ream of recent ghost stories to make it to our screens, including The Others, The Orphanage and The Awakening. What explains this resurgence for old-fashioned horror of creaks, shadows and suggestion?...
The most recent incarnation of The Woman in Black (our review Here) was released in cinemas on February 10th, with the backing of the reformed Hammer brand and the star power of Daniel Radcliffe in his first proper post-Potter role. It joins a ream of recent ghost stories to make it to our screens, including The Others, The Orphanage and The Awakening. What explains this resurgence for old-fashioned horror of creaks, shadows and suggestion?...
- 2/20/2012
- by Daniel Mumby
- Obsessed with Film
Unfortunately, I've never had the opportunity to screen Stanley Kubrick's black comedy opus Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) for a class of UCLA undergraduates. From time to time, in my FTV106A course, I screen the trailer for the film and the laughter I hope it will inspire is nearly always absent. I've always been a bit confused by this. Is the film, as was worried at the time of its release, simply not funny because it deals with nuclear holocaust or is it not funny because my students are so temporally removed from the Cuban missile crisis that it lacks any resonance? My money has always gone on the latter option, as I would assume that the irony and arsenic tone of Kubrick's film would more than gel with a movie audience raised on Fight Club (1999), Office Space (1999), and Hot Fuzz...
- 4/17/2011
- by Drew Morton
Dec 29, 2010
Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, which has won wide and continued acceptance from the time of its release, has come to be considered one of the screen's great masterpieces of black comedy. Yet Kubrick had originally planned the film as a serious adaptation of Peter George's Red Alert, a novel concerned with the demented General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) and his decision to order a group of B-52 bombers to launch an attack inside Russia. Gradually Kubrick's attitude toward his material changed: "My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...
Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, which has won wide and continued acceptance from the time of its release, has come to be considered one of the screen's great masterpieces of black comedy. Yet Kubrick had originally planned the film as a serious adaptation of Peter George's Red Alert, a novel concerned with the demented General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) and his decision to order a group of B-52 bombers to launch an attack inside Russia. Gradually Kubrick's attitude toward his material changed: "My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...
- 12/29/2010
- CinemaNerdz
The Informant! Directed by Steven Soderbergh You can't keep a good executive down. After Enron, after Lehman Brothers and the continuing fury at executive bonuses it was quite a change to see the corporate executive class as brimming with ineffective buffoons rather than coldly calculated capitalist psychopaths, in The Informant! Matt Damon stars as the amiable Mark Whitacre, an up and coming heavyweight at global food derivative company Adm in the early nineties. In a stream of consciousness voiceover which is probably the films finest stroke (unlike The Road where this potentially fatal technique can ostracize the viewer) Mark takes us through his corporate experience, as the film opens advising superiors that he's in touch with a Japanese whistle-blower who can expose an industrial saboteur in their midst and fix a production issue that's costing them $7 million a month. Much to Mark's consternation the company brings in the FBI to investigate the sabotage,...
- 10/29/2009
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Chicago – Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb” is nearly as important a film today as when it was released, over 45 years ago. The Anniversary Special Edition of the comedy classic is now available on Blu-Ray and it’s a must-own for any true film historian.
Blu-Ray Rating: 4.5/5.0 Personally, I think All Kubrick films are “must-owns for any true film historian”. He is one of the most influential and important voices in the history of the medium. But “Dr. Strangelove” has always been one of my personal favorites for a simple reason that’s perfect for Blu-Ray - it doesn’t age. If “Strangelove” came out today, it would be just as resonant, hilarious, and brilliant. Do you know how few films from the early ’60s that you can accurately write that about?
Dr. Strangelove was released on Blu-Ray on June 16th,...
Blu-Ray Rating: 4.5/5.0 Personally, I think All Kubrick films are “must-owns for any true film historian”. He is one of the most influential and important voices in the history of the medium. But “Dr. Strangelove” has always been one of my personal favorites for a simple reason that’s perfect for Blu-Ray - it doesn’t age. If “Strangelove” came out today, it would be just as resonant, hilarious, and brilliant. Do you know how few films from the early ’60s that you can accurately write that about?
Dr. Strangelove was released on Blu-Ray on June 16th,...
- 6/22/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.