(Stanley Kubrick, UK 1964, 93 min., 35mm)
In Kubrick’s triumphant black comedy, a frantic group of US political and military leaders must de-escalate a possible nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Peter Sellers shines in three roles: the president, a British captain, and the infamous title character. George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, and James Earl Jones co-star. “Whoa! Can the nuclear obliteration of mankind really be so funny? Well, yes it can. That’s the definition of absurdity. And so is this Kubrick classic” —Jack Garner. New 35mm print!
Program Notes
Director Stanley Kubrick’s original intention was to create a serious drama about accidental nuclear war based on Peter George’s novel Red Alert. After beginning work on the screenplay, Kubrick found that the scenarios that occurred to him all seemed absurd. He decided that he needed to alter his approach to the topic and decided to write the film as a black comedy. In a later interview he said, “After all, what could be more absurd than the very idea of two mega-powers willing to wipe out all human life because of an accident, spiced up by political differences that will seem as meaningless to people a hundred years from now as the theological conflicts of the Middle Ages appear to us today?”(Gelmis 309) For the time period it was a brave move to present a dark political satire in film and many people, upon hearing that the film was to be a comedy, believed Kubrick was on the verge of destroying his career.
Forcing people to laugh at the absurdity inherent in the cold war mentality was a way to help overcome the overwhelming fear of nuclear war and provoked discussion in a more rational and objective way. As nuclear strategist Herman Kahn said, “One wishes to relieve the grimness of the subject matter. People in a state of horror are not good analysts or detached and objective listeners.”(Ghamari-Tabrizi 275) After the release of Dr. Strangelove, critics debated whether it was poor taste to laugh at nuclear holocaust. New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther called it “the most shattering sick joke I’ve ever come across.” Audiences made their feelings clear by the film’s success at the box office.
As in Kubrick’s previous film Lolita (1962), Peter Sellers again plays multiple characters in this film—the president, a British Air Force Captain, and Dr. Strangelove. Initially Sellers was to play four roles but an accident on the set (that resulted in a broken ankle) led Kubrick to cast Slim Pickens as the bomber pilot. George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden deliver strong performances, and James Earl Jones makes his film debut.
While Dr. Strangelove was in production, director Sidney Lumet was working on a film titled Fail-Safe (1964). A serious drama starring Henry Fonda, the plot was strikingly similar to that of Dr. Strangelove. Kubrick feared that if Fail-Safe opened first it would affect box office sales for Dr. Strangelove. He filed a lawsuit with the accusation of plagiarism in order to deliberately stall production of Fail-Safe. Dr. Strangelove was scheduled to open on November 22, 1963, but after news of President Kennedy’s assassination, it was decided to postpone the release until January of 1964. Delayed by the court case filed by Kubrick, Fail-Safe didn’t open until October of 1964. Kubrick’s instinct proved correct. While Fail-Safe received critical praise at the time of release, it did poorly at the box office and, falling in the shadow of Dr. Strangelove, is largely overlooked by modern audiences.
In 1990, Stanley Kubrick became one of the founding members of the Film Foundation—a non-profit organization committed to the preservation of motion pictures. It was also in the early 1990s that Kubrick discovered that the original negative of Dr. Strangelove had been lost by the studio. He initiated work to begin restoring existing prints of the film, but died before any real progress had been made. A digital restoration of the film was completed in 2006 supervised by Grover Crisp, vice president of asset management/film restoration at Sony Pictures and conducted at the Cineric film laboratory.
~Dianna Ford, Student, L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation
