Latest / All The Right Movies / Dr. Strangelove (1964) | Ep. 73 - Part 1

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Dr. Strangelove (1964) | Ep. 73 - Part 1 · All The Right Movies

0:06
Doctor Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying in Love
0:08
the Bomb was released in 1964 to acclaim as a satirical classic.
0:12
Stanley Kubrick's Cold War comedy tells the story of
0:15
nuclear annihilation triggered by one general in the hapless
0:18
politicians and military men who can't stop it.
0:20
My name is John and the deviated preverts with me Matt.
0:25
He went a little funny in the head, you know, just a little
0:28
funny. And Westie.
0:30
Always did wonders for a man that Jack.
0:32
A little wash and a brush up water on the back of the neck
0:34
makes you feel marvelous. We're in the war room to discuss
0:37
Stanley and Soviet spies, but gentlemen, you can't talk in
0:40
here. This is the podcast room.
1:01
Hello, Dimitri. Sorry.
1:03
Hello and welcome to All the Right Movies.
1:06
Dimitri, let me finish, Dimitri. I'm just as sorry as you are,
1:09
John. Telling the story of Hollywood
1:13
one film at a time. And this episode, it's the end
1:16
of the world as we know it. Absolutely.
1:18
This. Hilariously so.
1:20
Yeah, Stanley Kubrick, Peter Sellers and more as we talk the
1:24
Cold War classic satire that is Doctor Strangelove, or How I
1:27
Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
1:30
Indeed, should be a blast if you'll bomb the expression.
1:33
Yeah, should be, yeah. Big one.
1:35
Before we enter the war room, though, let's talk about our own
1:37
bunker of bonus content on Patreon.
1:39
Absolutely. If you're a regular listener to
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this or main podcast, you can help support what we do by
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becoming an ATRM patron. Patrons get access to our bonus
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And you got access to our whole podcast archive full of bonus
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episodes and archives episodes. There's more content in there
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now than you can shake a nuclear warhead at.
2:07
So if you're a Kubrick fan, we have Full Metal Jackets and The
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Shining, Plenty of other great titles as well.
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So to find out more, visit patreon.com/all the Right Movies
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or subscribe directly on Apple Podcast, Spotify or YouTube and
2:22
offer You'd have to be as mad as General Riba to refuse.
2:25
Yes, you indeed will. Back to today, though, and it's
2:28
Doctor Strangelove, or how I Learned to Stop Worrying and
2:31
Love the Bomb. They'll not be calling it by its
2:33
full title every time from here on in, obviously.
2:35
Thank God, yeah. You're going to abbreviate it
2:37
like you normally do. Yeah, well, you put this one up,
2:39
Matt. So why are we talking about
2:42
DSOHLITSWALTB? Beautiful.
2:45
Well done. Vibrate the habit of a lifetime.
2:47
I love that. I mean, this one, I've just been
2:50
thinking, it's been a very long time since we've covered
2:52
Anything Cubic, and obviously there's still a good few films
2:55
from him that we could cover, but this one, it's just always
2:58
started to me because it's one of those films where you think
3:00
this shouldn't work at all. A comedy about nuclear
3:03
annihilation shot like a thriller crossed with a
3:06
documentary. One active play in three
3:08
different parts, one of which is the most ludicrous OTT
3:11
performance you'll ever seen in your life.
3:12
And with that title, this should be just a recipe for disaster.
3:16
This one. And yet somehow cubic with
3:18
Sellers, they've made one of the most incisive and funny sad
3:21
highest to ever come out of Hollywood.
3:22
I've always found this one hilarious, but how they pulled
3:25
it off, I don't know. So let's try and find out.
3:27
Let's do it. Yeah, we're talking Kubrick.
3:29
I think this was the 5th Kubrick film I saw.
3:34
The order was Full Metal Jacket 2001, The Shining Clockwork
3:38
Orange, and then this. Right.
3:40
So even then, I knew it was a serious, meticulous filmmaker,
3:43
but probably from Full Metal Jacket.
3:44
I also knew we could be funny. But Even so, this wasn't what I
3:48
was expecting at the time, I don't think.
3:49
I mean, how could it be? There's not been anything like
3:52
it before. I'm not sure there has been
3:54
since really. Not really.
3:55
No. And as order Kubrick there's
3:58
laws for us to talk about the creative choices on strange live
4:01
alone could make up a full podcast that interesting and
4:04
that outrageous to me. And you've got the way they taps
4:07
into the like climate of the 60's the Cold War, the Cuban
4:11
missile crisis that makes it a fascinating film of its time but
4:14
still timeless in some ways. Yeah, very much.
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And then you've got Peter Sellers playing three roles
4:19
legendarily, George C Scott chewing bubble gum nearly as
4:22
much as he choose. The scenery, all time famous
4:25
production design, one of the the most famous iconic images in
4:29
all of cinema. And it's hilarious.
4:31
So this is going to be massive. Yeah, nuclear Armageddon, and
4:35
I'm up for it. And Westie, you've not stopped
4:38
worrying as long as I've known you.
4:39
So maybe this is your time. It might be.
4:41
It might. Be we shall see.
4:43
But yeah, I mean, I've got this. I think it was on a triple VHS
4:47
with Barry London and A Clockwork Orange I.
4:50
Think. Blimey.
4:52
But I might be wrong because I don't know if Clockwork Orange
4:54
was available on VHS. It was banned for a long time,
4:56
wasn't it? Yeah.
4:57
It was, and I think that's how I saw them, but I don't quite know
4:59
how I got ahold of that, but it's just vividly in me
5:02
imagination. So there was them three that I
5:03
kind of watched at the same time.
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Triple feature. And I kind of missed out on it a
5:07
little bit. This one, oh, it's black and
5:10
white. I don't know, not very
5:11
accessible for me at that age. But now, I mean, honestly, this
5:14
is so relevant even now, scarily relevant.
5:17
And we're just laughing purely at fear.
5:19
And really timeless is a timeless look at it.
5:22
And it's the fragility and the just absurdity of masculinity
5:25
which is laced all over this film.
5:27
It really is so many things. You can spot so many things.
5:31
Easter eggs are just hidden in there.
5:33
It's just a very, very clever film.
5:34
And unfortunately, it's just the state of the world as it's been
5:37
since. So it's one to dive into now,
5:39
want to be wary about now, and definitely want to explore,
5:41
especially in this current climate.
5:43
So Doctor Strangelove was produced by Hulk Films,
5:46
distributed by Columbia Pictures and released on January the
5:48
29th, 1964, filmed at Shepherdon Studios in England with aerial
5:53
photography shot over North America and the Arctic.
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It was directed by Stanley Kubrick, written by Kubrick,
5:58
Terry Southern and Peter George, based on George's novel Red
6:01
Alert, and stars Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley,
6:04
Group Captain Lionel Mandrick and Dr. Strangelove.
6:07
George Lee Scott was general booked Richardson Slim Pick and
6:10
his major TGA cog, and Sterling Hayden is Brigadier General Jack
6:14
D Ripper. Nice, yeah.
6:16
Let's on the warheads then, should we?
6:18
Let's do it, yeah. We're heading to Burbleson Air
6:21
Force Base. It's condition red in the
6:23
beginning of Doctor Strangelove. Mine fuhrer I can talk the
6:31
beginning. Doctor Strangelove opens like a
6:35
slow burning fuse, it doesn't let up for 95 minutes and we're
6:39
starting off in the first act, the introductions to General
6:43
Turgeon and the War Room. So no fighting you 2 they're
6:46
coming, but we're starting with a Rogue General and a Boeing B52
6:50
Strata Fortress crew ready for action.
6:53
Yeah. So the opening sets everything
6:55
in motion. General Jackson Ripper put
6:57
Burbleson Air Force Base on red alert and ordered his bombers to
7:00
launch a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.
7:03
Kind of a big deal. Little bit, just a bit.
7:05
Yeah, Meanwhile, RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake starts
7:08
to realize something is very, very wrong indeed.
7:11
We're kicking off with you, Matt.
7:12
So how was the opening? I mean, what you've got here is
7:15
Cubic just drip feeding you these little moments to make you
7:19
realize something isn't quite right.
7:20
And it's that contrast you get between Mandrake, who's this
7:23
upbeat, very British cheery character, and then what?
7:27
RIP. It is like that conversation of
7:29
do you recognize my voice? I do, Sir.
7:31
Why do you ask? What do you think I ask?
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I don't know, Sir. We spoke just a few minutes ago
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on the phone, didn't we? Just so upbeat and great and
7:38
polite. But something's off in this
7:40
conversation and Mandrake is just too polite a question.
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And when he gets told the moving tread alert but for real and he
7:47
just goes oh hell, that's just like such a British middle class
7:51
reaction to bad news. It's just a British way of
7:54
humour in him, isn't it? He just humours his whole
7:56
persona. Yeah, which he does until he
7:58
kills himself. It's all he can do to him.
8:00
Yeah, it's amazing. And as well, you get this visual
8:03
contrast as well because Mandrake, he's in this hive of
8:05
noisy activity and then RIP it is just in complete solitude in
8:09
his office. And I'll talk about this
8:10
morning, the cinematography, but I think Cubic's use of space and
8:14
how he isolates characters in these fast, open spaces in this
8:17
film tells us so much about the characters.
8:19
Because this guy has gone insane and there's no one around to
8:22
stop him. Yeah.
8:24
Yeah, I think you can't see Kubrick right from the start.
8:26
Those opening helicopter shots over the Arctic mountains above
8:29
the, like, sea of clouds. That's an unbelievable shot to
8:32
start. Like, wow, what a way in.
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And then it goes into what feels like a documentary, the shots of
8:38
the planes, like Airborne with the narration about the bomber
8:41
force. It's all really technical
8:42
dialogue and gives this feeling of like a really serious threat
8:45
straight away. And then we're dropped into the
8:47
narrative with that phone call between Ripa and Mandrake.
8:50
That conversation is crazy that. But you mentioned Matt, like
8:53
Ripa. Do you recognize my voice?
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Yes, Sir. We just spoke a few minutes ago.
8:57
Yeah, but kind of like bizarre humor.
8:59
It's like airplane. Yeah, it is.
9:00
RIP. I could easily be saying, do you
9:02
like movies about gladiators or something?
9:05
Surprised he doesn't. Do you like?
9:06
Spartacus but calmly ordering Armageddon about Mandricks doing
9:11
that very typically British thing and trying to remain
9:13
polite while the world falls apart.
9:15
It's the first time we see something Kubrick did all the
9:17
way through way sets of contrasts.
9:19
Here it's contrasting tones and contrasting the acting styles
9:23
between Sellers and Hayden. That's there for the whole film
9:25
and we'll get it straight away. The tone of the film shifts like
9:28
3 times in the 1st 90 seconds or something, but all still fits
9:32
together really well. And that's just Kubrick for me.
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Just this like expert controlled filmmaking without us really
9:38
noticing what's going on. And those opening credits, they
9:42
are a montage of B52 bombers refueling mid air with the
9:45
titles off the top. And that sequence was created by
9:48
designer Pablo Ferro. And he was known for creating TV
9:51
commercials which had quick cutting styles with large
9:54
vortex. And Cubic wanted that to be the
9:56
visual identity of Doctor Strangelove as a hired Ferro.
9:59
Yeah, that hand drawn font for the credits that like tall thin
10:03
script. I love that.
10:04
Yeah, it's great. That would need more credits
10:06
like that. Yeah, definitely the Ledrings,
10:08
not bored, but I think the choice to use it is because it's
10:10
really striking. It does create that like visual
10:12
identity. It fills the spaces as well as
10:15
like the whole screen and but I think with the sexualization of
10:17
the imagery, especially with the machines kind of refuel and I
10:20
think it just sets the whole sexual frustration of the whole
10:23
film up that masculinity in that side of it.
10:26
It's really, really good, really clever.
10:28
Have you seen him Stop Making Sense, The Talking Heads
10:30
documentary? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:32
They use the exact same font, a one that's very.
10:34
Similar. Yeah.
10:34
Yes, they do. That's right.
10:36
Yeah. I've got a T-shirt of that.
10:37
Of course you have the. Idea to shots of the bombers
10:43
came from a conversation between Cubic and Pharaoh.
10:46
Cubic asked Pharaoh what he thought about human beings and
10:48
technology, and Pharaoh said that all machines invented by
10:51
men have a sexual aspect, as as he mentioned there, it made
10:54
Cubic think of the image of B50 twos refueling the mid air.
10:57
But he also knew filming it would be difficult.
11:00
So Pharaoh said that he was sure the Air Force would have been so
11:03
proud of the technology that they would have filmed the
11:05
process from every angle. And he was right.
11:07
And so they were able to get stock footage, which is what we
11:09
see in the film. Amazing.
11:11
What do you think of human beings as the most Kubrick
11:13
question you could be asked? I think.
11:15
Probably the first thing you asked him as well.
11:16
Like oh the. First thing you asked anyone.
11:19
Yeah, well, like you're saying, Wesley, there is a theme of sex,
11:22
I think that runs through the whole film.
11:24
Yeah. Talk about as we go.
11:25
It kind of starts. Yeah.
11:26
Have you noticed the error in the titles as well?
11:29
When it credits Peter George's book, it says base on red alert
11:33
rather than based on red alert. All right, OK, It's.
11:35
Missing the day, but also based on red alert it seems like it
11:38
could be intentional. Maybe I.
11:39
Think so, yeah. He's not over look in that
11:42
cubic. Like is it?
11:42
I know I would be surprised. I'd be very surprised if we
11:44
missed that. Clever.
11:46
Busted anything? Yes, he is that.
11:49
And the idea of the refuelling being sexual is the reason the
11:52
credits are scored with an instrumental version of Try
11:54
Little Tenderness. The song was written by Harry M
11:57
Woods, Jimmy Connolly and Reg Connolly, and it was first
12:00
recorded in 1932 by Jack Payne and his band.
12:03
The version he was arranged by Laurie Johnson, who wrote the
12:06
score for the film. Yes, Orders Reading's version
12:09
that came out in 1966, probably the most famous one, I think.
12:13
Yeah, apart from the commitments obviously, but the titles, the
12:18
images and the music in that sequence all syncs up to create
12:21
such a strong like unique identity straight away, I think.
12:24
So Kubrick's original plan, it was a different opening all
12:28
together. An early draft of the script
12:30
begins with aliens in outer space coming across the remains
12:32
of a destroyed Earth. We then go back to explaining
12:35
the story of what happened to destroy the whole planet.
12:39
That sounds crazy, but then when you watch 2001, you go, actually
12:42
that would have been amazing, yeah.
12:44
Well, that's it. It's quite interesting that he's
12:45
desperate shoehorn aliens in there. 2001 already bubbling
12:48
away under the surface, maybe, Yeah.
12:50
Came straight after this one, didn't it?
12:51
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but I can't picture that
12:53
scene without imagining the aliens from The Simpsons.
12:56
Yeah. Kang.
12:58
Kangan Kordos in there. Can you close?
13:01
That's right. And Cubic reportedly considered
13:04
Gene Kelly is playing Ripper before asking Sterling Hayden.
13:07
Hayden had already worked with Cubic on The Killing and had
13:10
recently retired from acting. So I had made a film in five
13:12
years. But Cubic convinced him to play
13:14
the part. Hidden said that he told Cubic.
13:17
You've got the wrong man to play the part of a general in.
13:19
Cubic replied. And that's why I want you.
13:21
Brilliant. Yeah, the time Hayden had
13:23
apparently been living on a ferry boat in California,
13:26
writing his autobiography, right?
13:27
Which sounds rather pleasant. Wow.
13:29
Needs another chapter so just do it.
13:31
Yeah, need a cubic chapter? Of course you do.
13:35
I think it's really good as Ripper.
13:36
He's very dead part and sincere but still manages to come across
13:39
as like totally insane somehow. Yeah, he's brilliant.
13:42
Yeah. And again, I say a huge
13:43
influence on parody comedies. Like, have you ever seen a
13:46
comedy drink a glass of water? That could be like, a Mel Brooks
13:48
line or something. Definitely, yeah.
13:50
Yeah, yeah. He's insane, but it's almost
13:52
subtly. Yeah, it is subtly right.
13:55
Hayden had a real life military background.
13:57
During World War Two he worked for the Office of Strategic
14:00
Services, which became the same a year later, ran guns and
14:03
parachuted into Yugoslavia and fought alongside communist
14:06
resistance fighters for 13 months.
14:08
Well, unlike Ripa, he liked communists and joined the
14:11
Communist Party USA after the war ended.
14:14
He said his war experiences gave him great insight into how
14:17
someone like Ripa might actually think.
14:20
Yeah, 1951 underlay McCarthyism. The FBI apparently threatened
14:24
custody of Hayden children. So he testified and named names.
14:28
Wow. Including a woman called Bee
14:29
Williams. She was his mistress at the time
14:31
and she'd recruited him to the Communist Party and Robert Lays,
14:34
who was a screenwriter in Hollywood and a kind of ended
14:36
his career. Wow.
14:38
And Hayden said Leah, the naming names, was the one moment in his
14:40
life he was truly ashamed of. Yeah, I bet.
14:43
Right. Yeah, and again, I reckon that
14:45
contrast is probably why Kubik wanted him and they had that
14:47
link from the killing, so when you could get him I guess as
14:50
well. Yeah, exactly.
14:51
It's kind of like this character is just a parody of Hayden
14:53
himself, which really works. Pretty much.
14:55
I think so, yeah. Yeah.
14:57
So continue in the first act. Now we're introduced to the
15:00
bomber crew in the B52 and as John said at the top, ready for
15:03
action. I don't really think these guys
15:05
are. Far from it.
15:07
Yeah, reading Playboy card tricks and they're all having
15:10
snacks. It's just very much, you know,
15:12
this parody of what you would think.
15:14
But at the same time it can be played quite straight.
15:17
I think that's the whole point. And we'll get this in Pickens
15:19
performance later on. Don't really want to spoil that
15:21
yet. Yeah, but these guys are just,
15:23
they seem completely inept, but at the same time very switched
15:26
on. Like when that comes comes
15:27
through and they get the wing attack.
15:29
Oh, it's just ludicrous on so many levels.
15:31
I love that crash zoom to just see the little code that's
15:34
coming up and they get the news. And it's Kong's character who's
15:38
kind of in charge of everything and he's making all these big
15:40
decisions and he's just already assumed as he's opening the
15:43
safe, he sees it. He knows it's something serious.
15:45
It's being confirmed. I love the ways cowboy hats in
15:48
the safe. It might not be.
15:49
That's where he gets it. From I think.
15:51
That's who has it after that moment, which I think is
15:52
fantastic. He's ready for action.
15:54
So that's going on. And then he sits in the cockpit
15:57
and he realises what's going to happen.
15:59
And he gives this incredible speech, which if you play that
16:01
down, if you give that to Bill Pullman, an Independence Day,
16:03
you know, you're punching the sky.
16:05
Yeah, yeah, you're all going to get rid, you know, remembered
16:07
for this. And but it's just the way that
16:09
it's played so ridiculously straight.
16:11
It's great dialogue. And if you're reading that,
16:13
you're thinking, wow, this is going to be really patriotic.
16:15
This is what I'm doing it for. But I'm sacrificing myself for
16:17
the greater good, and Kong hasn't got any idea about what
16:21
nuclear warfare entails whatsoever.
16:24
When so all this is done, we're going to get citations no matter
16:26
your colour. No, everyone.
16:28
'S going to be dead bro. Everyone's going to be dead.
16:31
That's the end of the world, and we're in deep trouble if these
16:34
guys are in charge. So it's a really good set up
16:36
with the crew and a really good set up of this kind of subplot
16:39
that's going to go all the way through the film.
16:41
Yeah, you're right. It doesn't look too bad at
16:43
first. Playing cards, reading Playboy.
16:45
Yeah. Yeah.
16:46
I like how mundane it all is until a kind of isn't suddenly
16:49
that documentary style narration we talked about that's already
16:52
told us how armed the bombers are.
16:53
Yeah. And that's backed up with the
16:54
visuals in the bomber as well. The interiors look so authentic.
16:58
Yeah. Like, really claustrophobic.
17:00
I feel like I can't breathe when we're in there.
17:02
Yeah. And obviously I enjoyed a Slim
17:03
picking his major Kong the cowboy, one of the key
17:06
characters. And nice to see James Dale Jones
17:08
in there as well. It is lovely to see Jones, Yeah.
17:10
Lieutenant Lothos, he's called. Yeah.
17:13
His film debut? It was, Yeah.
17:15
And the scenes aboard the B52 were filmed at Shepperton
17:17
Studios and the flight deck set was created by production
17:20
designer Ken Adam. At the time the imagery of the
17:23
interior of the bombers was classified so they couldn't get
17:26
access to it. So the art director Peter Muron
17:29
found a non fiction book called Strategic Air Command by Mel
17:32
Hunter and that gave information about US Air Force technology at
17:35
the time. Yeah, that cover of that book's
17:37
got a partial shot of AB 52 cockpit and based on that, the
17:41
design kind of the whole set. So a lot of guesswork I guess.
17:44
All right. But to get it that right, I
17:45
think he'd, you know, good on him.
17:47
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
17:48
Good guesswork. Great guesswork.
17:50
And then during film in US Air Force personnel visited the set
17:53
and told Cubic the set was almost 100% accurate.
17:57
Even the CRM, the machine which verifies the three letter chord
18:00
messages, that was fictional but looked exactly like the black
18:03
box on board AB 52. Wow.
18:06
Yeah, freaked the Air Force guys out.
18:08
Apparently thought they'd been compromised by Kubrick.
18:13
What does classified even mean? And Ken Adams said the day after
18:17
that visit, he received a memo from Cubic saying, just to
18:20
confirm all your research came from legal sources, right?
18:23
Which it had in the had made most of it all.
18:26
Right. But the detail on the walls with
18:27
the switches and the readouts, it's crazy.
18:30
It's brilliant. No, it's really good, Yeah.
18:32
I mean, you could do a crash zoom to any of it and it would.
18:34
Work. Yeah, absolutely.
18:35
Yeah, that's our opening. Rogue generals, Cowboy bombers
18:38
and the beginning of the end of the world.
18:40
We've met some of our main players.
18:42
Time to head to the war room and meet some more, I think.
18:44
Let's do it. I think we should.
18:48
From Burp Wilson Air Force Base in the skies over the Arctic,
18:51
we're heading to the Pentagon. The introduction to the war room
18:54
and U.S. President Merck and Muff lead on
18:56
our radar, and also General Buck Turgeon burst under the scene.
19:00
He does. So, Wesley, what do you make of
19:02
all this? I mean, it's great.
19:04
His introduction is fantastic, just his voice.
19:06
But I mean, the way this scene is set up is fantastic.
19:09
We're talking about 3-4 minutes. The camera doesn't necessarily
19:12
move. It's an incredible set up
19:14
because it has to hold your attention.
19:16
I mean, Tracy reads in there, which really helps.
19:18
She's fantastic in this. Looks the part, Axe the part.
19:21
She's incredibly funny without trying to be incredibly funny.
19:25
The way she takes all of his messages and softens them and
19:28
makes them more professional. She's just a secretary in every
19:30
sense. It's like the general suggests
19:32
calling General Rupert. It's like I suggest, absolutely
19:36
brilliant. And then when he gets on the
19:42
phone, it's just a complete change of pace totally from what
19:46
she was saying because she's absolutely wonderful, Miss
19:48
Scott. And then he just gets the phone
19:49
and he's like Fred Bug, what's it look like?
19:51
I absolutely love it. He's straight down the line and
19:55
he's like, tell you what we're going to do, tell you what we're
19:56
going to do, the old buddy. And that just slaps his belly.
19:59
Absolutely love that. And then he's just giving
20:02
excuses to her as if she hasn't heard the whole fucking
20:04
conversation. And this whole setup, and you
20:07
don't realize it, but it sets up his whole performance throughout
20:10
the entire film and that he's just sexually frustrated.
20:14
Yeah, yeah, she's waiting. She's like, I'm not tired, I'm
20:17
here. And he's like, and it's just
20:18
really sets up his character, his eagerness.
20:21
And again. How fragile he is as a man and
20:24
how he can't just, like, prioritize anything but his
20:26
sexual output. That's all he wants to do is get
20:29
back there to miss Scott, and it's just not happening.
20:31
So he's prepared to kill 20 million people just to get laid,
20:33
which is absolutely outrageous. That's very much the character.
20:37
Great setup and great, great performance from Scott.
20:40
He's just incredible in this whole film.
20:42
Oh, absolutely. Yes.
20:43
I think it's a really interesting intro to Turgidson
20:45
because we're basically meeting through Miss Scott, like, you
20:48
see, And she's on the phone to Freddie.
20:49
Yeah. And it's worth remembering, I
20:51
think, that this film was being written and in production when
20:53
JFK was in office. Yeah.
20:55
Like politics and romance weren't seen as separated as the
20:57
ones had been. Maybe.
20:59
Right. So having a general secretary
21:00
also be his mistress, I think that might be a joke about how
21:03
Washington was viewed at the time.
21:04
Possibly. Nice, yeah.
21:05
But as I've seen, it's all exposition and Miss Scott's
21:07
basically telling us what's happened so far.
21:10
But I love how Kubic started all through to deliver it without
21:12
just feeling like a dump of information because she's there
21:15
in a bikini yelling at someone off screen who just replies in
21:18
grunts. Like, got to think of everything
21:20
around here. And that shot with a mirrored
21:24
wall behind her, firing off reflections all over the place,
21:27
that's visually so interesting for what could have been really
21:30
dull. Classic Kubrick.
21:31
It is, yeah. And then from there we go to
21:33
Rippers PA announcement across the base telling the men to get
21:36
ready for battle. So we go from this like
21:38
intimate, slightly bizarre domestic scene with Miss Scott
21:41
to the madman ordering nuclear war.
21:44
And Kubrick keeps cutting between these different tones,
21:46
like seamlessly, but you'll always find impressive when I
21:49
watch the film. Yeah, yeah.
21:51
So we've been talking about it. Miss Scott played by Tracy Reed
21:53
and she is the only woman in the film and she said she met Kubik
21:57
at a dinner with friends the spoke and he asked her if she
21:59
wanted to play Miss Scott. Louis warned that she would be
22:02
in a bikini for her only dialogue scene.
22:04
Yeah, and Tracy Reed, she was the daughter of Penelope Dudley
22:07
Ward, a well known actress from the 30s and 40s, and the
22:11
stepdaughter of Carol Reed, the very well known director.
22:14
Right, right. Yeah, the third man, Oliver, he
22:16
did. Yeah.
22:17
Yeah. No matter what time before we
22:18
talk about him, surely. Yeah, definitely, yeah.
22:21
And we do actually see Tracy Reed in one other scene in the
22:24
first scene on the bomber. Miss Scott is the model in the
22:26
Playboy that Kong is reading. Reed said that Cubic wanted to
22:30
shoot it as a Playboy centrefold by which we remain naked, but
22:33
she refused and they did the shot we see and said which is
22:36
Miss Scott lying on her front covered by a real foreign
22:38
affairs magazine. Yeah, Miss Foreign Affairs,
22:41
she's known as. And Tracy Reed said that her
22:44
mother was, like, furious without doing that shoot.
22:46
Oh, really? Because there are some slightly
22:47
more risky shots that you did as well.
22:49
Yeah. But that addition of Foreign
22:51
Affairs, which is covering her, that was January 1963.
22:54
And apparently it's got a famous article written by Henry
22:56
Kissinger where he talks about the Cold War nuclear tensions.
22:59
So even that magazine was chosen for a specific reason.
23:03
Kubik, attention the detail. Ridiculousness.
23:06
Kuba, Chris. But she is really good.
23:08
Tracy Reed, She's only in the one scene, isn't she?
23:10
It's a delivery of those lines on the phone.
23:12
It's really good. She's so.
23:13
Funny. Yeah, she sets up every phone
23:15
conversation in the whole film. Yeah.
23:17
So we'll follow Tedjudson into the war room where he's got to
23:20
explain the situation to the president.
23:21
And this is when we first made him as well in this scene where
23:24
he's explaining it. This is like when you're at
23:26
school and the teachers asking you to explain and answer you've
23:29
just given, and you're just not sure about it, you know?
23:33
No, but when you stop talking to me.
23:34
But Muffley will not let this go.
23:37
And Scott is so funny in the scene.
23:39
The fact he's got a file called World Targets in Megadeths just
23:43
casually on the table, just leaning on that.
23:46
The more and more he sigs under Muffley's questioning, the more
23:49
intense his gum chewing gets. Because he's got nothing but bad
23:52
news for the president. Everything the president says,
23:54
well, isn't this going to happen because of it?
23:57
Well, no, Mr. President, because as you might remember, we
24:00
instituted this and this is therefore not going to happen.
24:02
But it's so funny when he reads, I read the statement and he gets
24:05
to the end. God willing, we will prevail in
24:07
peace and freedom from fear and in true health through the
24:10
beauty and essence of our natural fluids.
24:13
And that pause. He's just read that for the
24:15
first time. You say, Oh my God, Ripper is
24:18
nuts. What does this mean?
24:20
And Muffley is obviously furious.
24:21
And I love how defensive Turdersen gets, like when
24:25
Muffley called him after this whole scenario going wrong.
24:27
I don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because
24:30
of a single slip up, Sir. I mean this is some slip.
24:33
Up. Yeah, exactly.
24:34
It's so funny. I've just had a look there and I
24:36
was really hoping that that's where Megadeth got the name
24:38
from, but it isn't. Dave must stay and read a
24:42
political pamphlet on a bus. That's a shame because I would
24:45
fucking love that. Maybe it was written by Book
24:47
Judson. Yeah.
24:49
Hopefully. Yeah, but the war room where
24:52
most of the famous scenes take place, we have just met
24:54
Turgidson. I was just talked about, but he
24:56
always explained the whole situation to the president.
24:59
George C Scott's just superb. Yeah, it's unbelievably good.
25:02
The way he live has all this military jargon with loads of
25:04
enthusiasm. He's way too excited at the
25:07
prospect of nuclear war. He really is the bit when he's
25:10
explaining the safeguards to prevent like an accidental
25:12
attack. And we've literally just seen
25:14
those safeguards getting completely bypassed by rubber.
25:17
And it's all intro to sell as President Muffley Merkin.
25:20
Muffley. Outrageous name.
25:23
Yeah. And just the way the war room
25:25
looks. Oh, it's amazing.
25:26
It's so iconic, it's been the goal to look ever since for
25:30
satirical TV, cartoons or comic strips, anything really.
25:34
If you're showing powerful people playing with peoples
25:35
lives, this is the kind of image you use.
25:38
Big round table, big board full of maps, and everyone gets it as
25:42
soon as they say it. Yeah.
25:43
Yeah, exactly. That's because of this film.
25:45
And obviously it was going to be shot exclusively in black and
25:48
white. Bill Kubrick requested to have
25:49
green felt put on the table. So it felt like a massive poker
25:52
table. Yeah, yeah.
25:54
In the same kind of mindset, which I think is fantastic,
25:56
green looks great in black and white as well.
25:58
Right. It looks great.
25:59
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
26:00
Yeah, yeah. So we've mentioned production
26:02
designer Ken Adam already, and his most famous piece of work on
26:05
Doctor Strangelove, as we're saying, is The Wall Room.
26:08
And he'd been born Klaus Adam before his family fled Nazi
26:11
Germany and he stood at architecture at UCL.
26:14
This led to a career as a set designer, and he'd worked on
26:16
Doctor Noor in 1962, designing the nuclear reactor set.
26:21
Cubic had been impressed by that and saw something in that style
26:23
working for the War Room, so he asked Adam to come in.
26:26
Yeah, I love that setting, Doctor Noor.
26:27
Yeah, it's brilliant, Incredible.
26:29
Yeah. So good.
26:31
He worked on 7 Bond films in total.
26:34
He didn't do for Mushar was Love only because he was working on
26:36
Doctor Strangelove. Right, OK.
26:39
But all the early Bond films he was on, yeah.
26:41
Amazing. Yeah, it's like the Volcano
26:42
Basin. You only live twice.
26:44
Right. Yeah, he was on that, yeah.
26:45
You can tell they've got that real consistency to them where
26:48
they're all massive but really, really cleverly thought through.
26:52
Goldfinger Thunderball Diamonds are forever Moonraker.
26:54
Fort Knox and Goldfinger is amazing.
26:57
That was him. Yeah.
26:57
That was him, yeah. Amazing.
26:59
And Adam said he'd heard Kubik was difficult to please.
27:02
Yes, he was. So he was surprised when Kubik
27:04
signed off his first design for the War room immediately.
27:07
But then a few weeks later, Kubik came back and said it
27:09
wasn't going to work and the whole thing had to be
27:11
redesigned. Adam had designed it to be on 2
27:14
levels, like Doctor Noel. Kubik had said yes, and then
27:16
said actually, what am I going to do with all the extras on the
27:18
second level? Do it again.
27:21
Adam said that he had to take some Valium to calm himself down
27:24
after Kubik told him to start again.
27:26
And then Kubik watched over a second design like a hawk.
27:29
Like approving every tiny detail.
27:31
Yeah, I mean, that's more like Stanley, isn't it?
27:32
Stressing everyone out. That's the sunny we know.
27:34
Yeah. And the final war room set was
27:37
built in Studio B at Shepparton. It was 130 feet long, 100 feet
27:42
wide and 35 foot high. The floor was made from Formica,
27:46
so the crew had to wear slippers to not scratch the floor.
27:48
The centrepiece was that circular table, which is 22 foot
27:51
in diameter. Over 10 miles of cables and 1000
27:55
light bulbs were used to light the board and the whole set was
27:57
built by over 150 workers. Wow, yeah, one of the biggest
28:01
sets ever. It was at the time, and they had
28:04
to install air conditioning because the light bulbs were so
28:06
hot that they blistered all the maps on the big board.
28:09
Right. OK.
28:10
But yeah, one hell of a sadist. It's unbelievable, kids.
28:14
Yeah. Adam said his working
28:16
relationship with Kubrick revolved round a daily ritual.
28:20
Adam drove Kubrick to and from Shepperton Studios every day in
28:23
his Jaguar. He said at first this was good
28:25
because he learned what Kubrick liked quickly, but after a while
28:28
it meant he was getting feedback on his work twice a day.
28:31
Not good, he said. It was miserable.
28:35
And when Kubrick asked him to work on 2001 A Space Odyssey, he
28:38
said no. Yeah, he also said that on those
28:42
daily drives to Shepherd and Kubrick wouldn't let him go one
28:44
mile above 30 mph. Put the radio on.
28:50
Fuck off, this is what I've got to say.
28:53
But he did work with Kubik again on Barry Linden, Right.
28:56
And on that, Ken Adams said that he had a nervous breakdown as a
28:59
result of Wow. Yeah.
29:01
Ended up in hospital, although we said that he and Kubik all
29:03
remained friends. It sounds like Stockholm
29:05
syndrome or something. Exactly.
29:08
We'll get into Peter Sellers on this one as well.
29:09
It's very similar, isn't it? Yeah, but yeah, yeah.
29:12
And that is that on the beginning of Doctor Strangelove,
29:15
we've been to Burbleson Base, the Pentagon and the War Room,
29:17
met our main characters. So we should probably talk a bit
29:20
more about the biggest character of all, the guy behind
29:23
everything. Yeah.
29:24
Definitely. The director.
29:32
The director of Doctor Strangelove was the inimitable
29:34
Stanley Kubrick. This was his seventh feature
29:37
film, having already made the name for himself with titles
29:40
like The Killing, Paths of Glory, Spartacus and Lolita.
29:44
Switching to pitch black comedy about nuclear annihilation,
29:47
though, that was new territory even for the big fella.
29:49
Yes. So, Matt, how was Kubrick's work
29:52
here as director? I mean, as you're saying, it
29:54
takes some balls to make a comedy bound nuclear
29:57
annihilation just two years after the Cuban missile crisis,
30:01
that scenario look to be unavoidable and that's in very,
30:04
very recent memory. So for Cubic to look at them go,
30:07
I can make that funny, you know, that takes some nerve.
30:10
You know. I'm sure that's how he put it as
30:13
well. That's exactly what he said.
30:15
Yeah, amazing. And it's really brief because he
30:18
never pulls back from it. The film literally ends with the
30:20
end of the world, and he doesn't give any false hope.
30:23
Everything that happens in this is frighteningly plausible
30:26
because Cubic knows how to tiptoe that line between comedy
30:29
and horrible reality. The amount of time do you laugh
30:31
at this and then go, oh, you know what?
30:33
I shouldn't laugh because that's so believable.
30:35
Like a drunk Russian President. We've seen that in our lifetime.
30:38
Like what is to stop at an American general just going mad
30:41
and launching The Jets? Nothing apparently.
30:44
And for Cubic to look at all that and go, I'm not going to
30:47
actually shoot the psycho comedy.
30:48
This isn't going to be mailed books.
30:49
It's going to be stark black and white, the feel of a
30:51
documentary. He knows how far to let certain
30:54
performances go before pulling the back in.
30:56
Zero hand holding for the audience.
30:58
Just incredibly bare film making.
31:01
Yeah, I think it is as well. You know what?
31:03
He made classics by this point, Kubrick.
31:04
So he was highly thought of. But I think it's with
31:06
Strangelove, when he became the filmmaker.
31:08
We mean when we talk about him today.
31:10
Yeah, This is the point where his identity went from Stanley
31:12
Kubrick, talented filmmaker, to Kubrick like extraordinary
31:16
filmmaker. Yeah.
31:18
And this is Kubrick. It's most outrageous, I think,
31:20
certainly then to take the fear of nuclear war, something that
31:23
was keeping people awake at night in 1964, and turn it into
31:26
a comedy. That's mad.
31:28
It does take guts, like you said, Matt, and not just any
31:30
comedy. It's a total force.
31:32
It's like ludicrous, but that's the point.
31:34
He's basically saying the whole system is designed to protect us
31:38
is so crazy and absurd that the only response you can have is to
31:42
laugh at it. As we often see about Kubrick
31:44
films. That's a timeless theme,
31:46
unfortunately, and we get what you get from Kubrick.
31:49
Every frame composed like to the millimetre, every acting
31:52
performance hits the kind of North Kubrick once the writings
31:55
out there especially for the time.
31:56
And somehow it all comes together into that one like
31:59
unified vision. And that's obviously Kubrick
32:01
controlling all that. And we only really get 3
32:04
locations which are mainly Ripa's office, the war room and
32:08
the B52. B52, yeah.
32:10
And I find the way that he cuts between them pretty interesting
32:12
because sometimes we're cut from the war room to the bomber crew
32:14
plan to like, end civilization in a serious way to increase
32:17
tension. Sometimes we'll cut from Ripa's
32:19
office to a bonkers telephone call in the war room in a way
32:22
that's really funny and to module shifting tones with the
32:26
control Kubrick does. I think that's just someone who
32:28
understands how cinema works. He just kind of gets it in
32:31
Strangelove. It's comedy, satire, and I think
32:34
what Kubrick gets is that the make it work.
32:36
He's making a point, lots of points, but he doesn't tell us
32:38
what to think really. He just shows us the craziness
32:41
and lets us draw our own conclusions.
32:43
I don't think anyone's portrayed as evil really, that portrayed
32:46
as believe us in something that doesn't really work.
32:49
If anything, that's more unsettling than a normal villain
32:50
would be, because it's probably more realistic.
32:53
And I think this, along with Full Metal Jacket, is surely
32:56
Kubrick's most just entertaining film.
32:59
It's only out and out comedy. And the fact that it also
33:02
thought it was one of the most powerful pieces of political
33:04
satire Hollywood's ever done. I think this film is one of the
33:07
reasons that we call them, like, a master filmmaker.
33:09
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this one on the
33:11
surface looks like he's the least pretentious film, but at
33:14
the same time, it's probably his most pretentious film when you
33:17
dive into it and figure out what made him kind of the director
33:20
that he is. And this is the one, like you
33:22
said, John, I think this is 1 where he puts his foot down and
33:25
said this is not a studio film, this is a Stanley Kubrick film.
33:27
I'm going to have complete control over absolutely
33:30
everything on this and I'm not here to make any friends.
33:33
It's really, really good to you do, but it is just very hard
33:36
handed and very, very confident and V steamroller on his way
33:40
through this and for it to be a comedy as well and from to make
33:43
his mark and figure out what kind of a filmmaker he wants to
33:45
be through a satirical comedy is outrageously good and
33:49
outrageously brave. I mean, I can't think of another
33:51
director either that's done a near perfect film in every
33:55
genre. And they all just have these
33:57
kind of different themes running through them all.
33:59
But they have a horror, a satirical comedy, a war film.
34:02
I mean, I would love to have seen Stanley Kubrick's Weston.
34:04
That's the only. One he was missing.
34:06
That would have just been absolutely incredible.
34:08
But this, he's got something to say.
34:10
It's not just fluffed. It's got a real kind of depth
34:13
and a grounding and a weight, and it's just as terrifying and
34:16
just as sad as it is hilarious. It's really sad when you get to
34:21
the end of it. You know what Book gives that
34:22
speech about how good the pilot is, and we've trained them, and
34:24
this is what he's trained to do. And he's like, does he have a
34:26
chance? And he's like, oh, shit, yeah,
34:28
actually, we're all screwed. Because, yeah, he does get that
34:31
feeling of like, well, this isn't funny anymore.
34:34
And he takes it, that next step and keeps pushing it and keeps
34:36
pushing it. I mean, you've got Kong on the
34:37
bomb, which is, again, really sad.
34:39
RIP By losing his mind completely is really sad.
34:42
And Kubrick's just got complete control over everything.
34:45
So that's the kind of filmmaker he was.
34:46
And he really finds his voice in this.
34:48
Nobody's going to tell him to shut up.
34:49
This is where he learned how to shout.
34:51
And you can really say it. Yeah, it's a good point, Westie.
34:54
I agree. There was like a kind of
34:55
underlying sadness to everything, I think.
34:58
Oh yeah, yeah. Definitely.
34:59
Which gives it seriousness and makes it timeless and makes it
35:03
really work. And he knew that this is comedy
35:05
chess, this is. Nice and the produced on Cubic's
35:10
last three films had been James B Harris.
35:12
Harris said that Cubic had become obsessed with the Cold
35:15
War paranoia about nuclear war and knew he wanted his next film
35:18
to be based on that in research, and he read about 50 books on
35:22
the subject and spoke to the Institute for Strategic Studies
35:25
in the Ted. Alistair Buchan told him to read
35:27
Red Alert, a novel by Peter George.
35:30
Nice. Yeah, the Institute for
35:32
Strategic Studies is a security and defence like think tank
35:34
that's based in London. It's still going today.
35:37
Wow. Oh, really?
35:38
Yeah, OK. And the Nobel Prize, when I
35:40
called Thomas Schelling, he'd written an article for the
35:42
Observer where he praised the book Red Alert, and he said that
35:45
Kubik spoke to him about it as well.
35:47
So, OK, doing the research, it's not like Stanley, is it all over
35:50
it? Yeah, just the 50 bucks.
35:53
Yeah, just imagine the Zucker brothers just reading about
35:56
every single aviation rule and all the airplanes in the world
35:59
just to make airplane. It's not going to happen, is it?
36:02
That's the difference I think. And Cubic was impressed with Red
36:05
Alert and bought the film rights for three and a half, $1000.
36:08
The book was a thriller actually, but Cubic decided to
36:11
make it as a dark comedy instead.
36:13
And that's when Terry Southern came in as his Co writer.
36:16
And when James House left his producer to become a director,
36:19
Cubic took on the role of producer himself.
36:21
Wow. Of course he did.
36:22
Of course. He did so thorough, he'd learn
36:26
every instrument just to make spiral tap with me.
36:29
Probably would, That's why I didn't do a musical.
36:33
The orchestra. Starry violin next.
36:37
But Terry Southern coming in apparently led to a rift between
36:39
Kubrick and Peter George and turning into a satire.
36:41
Some say let the James Howard leaving the project, although
36:44
some say they did want to become a director as well.
36:47
Right, OK. He's got to fall out with
36:48
someone, Kubrick, hasn't he? So yeah.
36:50
Of course, Kubrick film if he hasn't.
36:51
Yeah, I wouldn't put heads with him.
36:53
You break your neck, wouldn't you?
36:56
So when Harris left Strangelove, the production company, 7 Art
36:59
Productions went with him. Cubic approached Columbia
37:02
Pictures instead, and they agreed to put up the $1.8
37:04
million budget on one condition Peter Sellers had to play. 4
37:08
roles. Outrageous stipulation.
37:11
Yeah, that's ridiculous. Too many?
37:14
It's possible. It's crazy it came from Lolita
37:17
though, didn't it? Where sellers played two roles.
37:19
Yeah, Columbia thought that was why it was a success, but Krupic
37:22
just agreed. Yeah, 4 parts.
37:24
Why not? Yeah, double it up.
37:25
Why? Not.
37:26
Yeah, it wasn't a challenge. Exactly.
37:29
Sellers played another part in some production decisions with
37:33
the film set mostly in the US Kubrick had planned to shoot
37:35
there and had been looking at locations, and once Seller was
37:38
cast, though, he told Kubrick he couldn't leave London as he was
37:41
in the middle of a divorce. This was why Kubrick switched to
37:43
film in the Chapman Studios in London.
37:45
Yeah, and how that was the name of Seller's first wife.
37:48
He was divorcing, right? And then, just after Strangelove
37:50
came out, he married Britain Egland.
37:52
Oh, yes, yeah. Yeah, they got married 10 days
37:54
after meeting each other. Wow.
37:56
Wow. I mean, you, wouldn't you?
37:58
The Brit Eklund. Yeah, it's Brit Eklund.
37:59
Five days for me. I married.
38:00
Peter Sellers after 10 days. He's fucking hilarious.
38:05
And obviously after Strangelove Kubet, they filmed all of his
38:07
movies in England as well. Moved here, didn't he?
38:09
That's right. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
38:11
Good. Point after 2001, yeah.
38:13
Anthony Harvey had been the editor on Law Leader and Kubik
38:16
brought him back to work on Doctor Strangelove.
38:18
He said he came to work with Kubik by just calling him up and
38:21
ask him if he could work with him.
38:23
This is really though he said Kubik interrogated him like MI 5
38:27
and asked him what kind of hours do you work, What time do you go
38:29
to bed, Are you married, Do you go on holiday?
38:32
Harvey said Kubik wanted somebody who's going to be there
38:34
seven days a week, 22 hours a day, 20.
38:37
Two hours a day. Wow.
38:39
Two hours sleep, that's all you need.
38:42
What time you want to bed doesn't matter, Stanley, you're
38:44
going to get us up anyway. Yeah.
38:46
I would just say whatever time you say, yeah, come on, America,
38:49
whatever kind of dog you like. But sort of interview with
38:52
Anthony Harvey about Strangelove.
38:54
And he said that Kubik would suck him like every day.
38:57
He'd say go home and don't come back.
38:59
And then the next morning he'd just be like, oh, hi, Tony.
39:01
As if nothing could happen. Oh, hey, Mark.
39:07
And Anthony Harvey, he wanted to be a director as well.
39:09
He did the line in winter. Oh, Peter or two or?
39:12
Katharine Hepburn Film. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I've seen
39:14
that, yeah. Well, before we finish on
39:15
Stanley Kubrick's director, well, I mean, we never finished
39:17
on Kubrick's director, obviously of.
39:19
Course we're not just starting. But we do have our first ATRM
39:22
patron question. OK.
39:23
So as well as all those benefits we mentioned earlier, if you're
39:26
saying to become an ATRM patron, we'll answer your questions on
39:29
the show as well. Mm hmm.
39:30
We have one now on Kubrick and War.
39:33
OK, so Dana Hennessy is here. Hello, Danaan.
39:36
How you doing on? Danaan asks.
39:39
Many directors showcase the horrors of war, but few point
39:41
out the absurdity of it like Kubrick.
39:43
Passive Glory and Doctor Strangelove are a beautiful
39:46
double feature for this. Are there any other films you
39:48
would recommend in this vein? Nice question from Danaan.
39:51
Yeah, good one. What do you think, Matt?
39:53
I've got three. I mean, the first one just
39:55
doesn't need a recommendation for me.
39:57
Everyone should watch it anyway. But I do think there's absurdity
39:59
2, Apocalypse Now, that line. Who's the commanding officer
40:03
here, ain't you? I mean, that just sums it all
40:06
up. No one knows what's going on in
40:08
that film. No one knows who's in charge.
40:09
You know, Kilgore's there to do surfing and that's it.
40:12
Such absurdity to that so. Do we kill Go?
40:15
Yeah, go on. You know that smell?
40:19
That gasoline smell. That might be our best
40:25
impression between us. Definitely is any excuse to roll
40:29
that out a little bit. I'd also say 3 Kings, the George
40:33
Clooney film, because that one set in Iraq.
40:36
And I mean, the Americans know why they're there.
40:38
And it's certainly not to help the people of Kuwait.
40:40
It's for the gold, it's for the oil.
40:41
Such as absurd. David O Russell as well, isn't
40:43
it? David O Russell And then the
40:45
last one, maybe not so much the film, but definitely the TV
40:47
series. MASH course.
40:49
Oh yeah. Nice, yeah.
40:50
So I really emphasize the absurd comedy and that.
40:53
Yeah. MASH as well, yeah.
40:55
Yeah, well, I didn't say is Pastor Glory shows the absurdity
40:58
of war like in Drama and Tragedy and Strange Love more with
41:00
comedy. And then Full Metal Jacket by
41:02
Kubik kind of does a bit of both.
41:04
So maybe a triple feature I think.
41:06
Yeah, definitely. Further films in that style.
41:08
Yeah Marsh is an obvious 1. Robert Altman did the film and
41:11
taking a field hospital in the Korean War.
41:13
He finds a dark comedy in that catch 22 as well, of course.
41:17
Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah, not as good as a novel by
41:19
some way, but the whole premise is about the insanity of
41:22
military logic. Yeah, and more recently I think
41:24
4 Line Science was a pretty good satire about would be terrorists
41:28
make you laugh at something you feel maybe you shouldn't.
41:31
Definitely. Yeah.
41:32
And in the loop to think of it spin off that's a more modern
41:34
one about the lead up to the Iraq war.
41:36
Yeah, funny and infuriating in equal measure to me, that one.
41:39
Gandolfini is wonderful in that film.
41:41
Yeah, very good. Yeah.
41:43
I've got a few, yeah. I mean, it's few that we've
41:45
actually covered on the classic Apocalypse Now.
41:47
We've covered, not said that, one bridge on the River Kwai
41:50
course. I think that shows, yeah, a real
41:52
absurdity. Madness, Madness.
41:54
It's madness. It's actually said there, you
41:56
know, so kind of sums it all up. More recently, I think Georgia
41:59
Rabbit kind of hit the nail on the head.
42:01
Yeah. Yeah.
42:02
If you're looking at Nazi Germany through the eyes of a
42:04
child and just see how ludicrous that all seems.
42:06
And again, really hard hitting. Well, a couple that hark back a
42:09
little bit. Kelly's heroes.
42:11
Oh, great film. The violence is secondary to
42:14
this real oddball mission, if you excuse the puns.
42:17
So that's one worth checking out.
42:19
And again, good Morning Vietnam. I think that really points out
42:21
the madness within Vietnam through the eyes of a DJ, which
42:24
again, Robin Williams absolutely nails that every, every single
42:27
day of the week. What a great, great film.
42:29
Well, for his work on Doctor Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick was
42:31
nominated for Best Director at the Oscars and the film was
42:33
nominated for Best Picture. Lost out to the same film for
42:36
both. If you know what the classic.
42:39
Oliver, it'll be some musical on it.
42:41
You know, 1,000,000 Miles Away, My Fair Lady.
42:45
OK, George Kukor, best director, right.
42:47
OK, so no major awards for Kubrick, for Doctor Strangelove,
42:50
but you did make one of the all time acclaimed Hollywood satires
42:53
and for Us and Taking the unthinkable and making it pretty
42:56
hilarious, some great direction. Yeah.
42:58
Impeccable. Some of the best the cast.
43:06
There's a large cast of characters in Doctor
43:08
Strangelove, but largely dominated by only a handful of
43:11
actors. We've already talked about
43:13
stealing here in this General Ripper, and now we're going to
43:15
discuss George C Scott, General Turgeons in Slim picking his
43:18
Major Kong in more detail, but not before we get into the man
43:21
who plays not one, not 2, but three of the main characters.
43:26
Yep, definitely. So Peter Sellers plays 3 roles
43:29
and Dr. Strangelove, President Merkin Muffley, the Commander in
43:32
chief trying to avert catastrophe, Group Captain
43:34
Lionel Mandrake, the stiff upper lip British officer trapped with
43:37
a madman, and Dr. Strangelove himself, the wheelchair bound
43:41
former Nazi scientist whose mechanical arm has a mind of its
43:44
own. Yes.
43:45
Three different characters, three different looks, three
43:47
different accents. Westie.
43:48
Yeah. What do you make of Peter
43:50
Sellers triple threat? It's three different actors,
43:52
isn't it? You might think so.
43:55
It feels like it. It definitely feels like it.
43:58
And if you didn't really know, you kind of couldn't guess.
44:01
I think it's just absolutely impeccable.
44:03
He totally makes the film. I think if Sellers isn't in this
44:06
film, we're in deep, deep trouble.
44:08
Yeah. He pulls it apart and puts,
44:10
stitches it back together again. Every character that he plays is
44:13
just as good as the last and each one seems to have a depth,
44:16
seems to have an emotion, seems to have a history, seems to have
44:19
a reason to exist. And they're all played just so
44:22
beautifully. And he just gives his absolute
44:25
all in this film. And I feel he did give his
44:27
absolute all in this film, even the later on in life when he had
44:31
heart disease and he was in the hospital and he actually said to
44:33
his wife at the time, I think this is down to Stanley Cooper.
44:35
I think this is down to Doctor Strange.
44:36
Love the amount of pressure that he was under to nail all of
44:39
these rules. And a lot of that pressure was
44:41
why he didn't play the 4th role as well.
44:43
So again, you can just see that. But watching this film, I mean,
44:46
just the improv is some of the very best I've seen.
44:50
It's just absolutely impeccable, and he's just such a natural
44:55
talent, such a naturally funny man who just melds into each
44:59
role where you would expect to see Clueso and everything he
45:02
does. But everything's fresh.
45:04
Like, everything Sellers does is incredible.
45:06
Yeah, I cannot give any more praise or heap any more praise
45:09
on Peter Sellers for this film because without him, like I say,
45:13
it's nowhere near as good. And it's actually probably a
45:16
massive, massive bomb. Great point.
45:20
Yeah, Cooper owes a lot, a lot to Peter Sellers in this film.
45:24
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're right.
45:26
What can you say? It's one of the most praised
45:28
acting performances in all of Hollywood, I think.
45:30
Yeah. It's incredible.
45:32
I agree, Wesley. I think if someone came to this
45:33
with a zero film knowledge that would never realize we're
45:36
watching the same actor three times.
45:37
I don't think so either. No, I think I'd like show it to
45:40
the kids, be like, that's the same guy that no, it's not.
45:42
Yeah, you can't see him really. I think Mandrake's may be the
45:45
most natural, the three that like stereotypical British
45:48
politeness, trying to hide panic about what's going on.
45:50
Yeah, he's the most sellers, isn't he?
45:52
Definitely. Sellers was always great at that
45:54
kind of repressed Englishman. That's kind of what I think of
45:56
when I think of PS Sellers, and that's Mandrake.
45:58
Yeah, it seems with Sterling Hayden or Superb.
46:01
I like how over the top calm Mandrake is all the time.
46:03
With Ripper, the big tuning, the where he's like frozen with fear
46:07
and he's like Jack. I'd love to come over, but a
46:09
rather unfortunate situation has arisen because he can't move.
46:14
Stringing my legs gone. When he shoots the lock of the
46:17
door, he comes in, he's like, what kind of suit is that?
46:19
What do you mean shoot? Yeah, shoot, shoot.
46:24
Absolutely furious. He's probably got out of it.
46:28
I think Muffin's interesting because in the war room he's
46:30
kind of the straight man at that point.
46:32
Everyone around him is insane. Turgidson and Strangelove and
46:35
Alexi, the Russian ambassador, and he's just, it's like
46:37
reasonable kind of ineffective guy trying to keep everything
46:40
together. The cause of Dimitri, the
46:42
Russian premier, they're the highlights of the film for me.
46:44
It comes with the Peter Seller show at that point.
46:47
I mean, we don't get any shots of Dimitri, obviously, but I can
46:50
definitely see him in me. Ass.
46:51
I'm saying because. Taking a rule business just with
46:53
the cigar. Loud music.
46:55
Yeah, in a big room, yeah. Yeah, just furious, Yeah.
46:58
I love it you in the second call when Muffley's like now, Dmitri,
47:01
there's no point in getting hysterical always picture to
47:04
meet with a losing his mind on the other end of the go crying.
47:08
Yeah, it's the way his voice breaks though, when he says get
47:10
hysterical, he said there's no need to be getting hysterical,
47:13
but it's like you just said, kind of accents that hysterical.
47:16
It's so clever. It's so well done.
47:18
And then Strangelove himself, not in quite as much, but his
47:21
voice that hey the Nazi salute one of the definitive like mad
47:24
findest images him and Doc Brown I always think of.
47:27
Yeah, yeah, massively. It's the way he says computer.
47:30
Yeah, a computer. And what I like is that Sellers
47:36
managed to bring some kind of truth to each role.
47:39
He's never winging at the camera or anything like that.
47:41
I think Muffley and Mandrake do feel kind of grounded.
47:44
And even Strangelove, who is ludicrous, is amazingly based to
47:47
some extent on real people, which we'll talk about.
47:50
Yeah. But the whole thing, it's like a
47:51
historic comedy performance, for sure, yeah.
47:54
It's unbelievable, yeah. Yeah, I mean, 3 for the price of
47:57
1, which is great. And the key thing for me is
47:59
there's only one of these three that he's playing for laughs,
48:01
which is Strangelove. Yeah, Muffley and Mandrake are
48:04
so grounded and straight down the line.
48:06
I mean, Muffley, the absolute epitome of just a middle
48:09
manager, somebody who shouldn't have this amount of
48:11
responsibility because he can't handle it.
48:14
Doesn't know anything. We'll get to the phone call in
48:16
detail in a bit. But just when he just crumbles,
48:19
well, it's good that you're fine and I'm fine.
48:22
I agree with you. It's great to be fine.
48:24
Like that's the level he can work out and that's it.
48:28
And then you've got Mandrake, probably the most capable person
48:31
in the film and the epitome of that middle class British
48:34
officer. Evan has to be done by the
48:35
rules. And he's so as he been seen,
48:37
he's so unfailingly polite about everything.
48:40
That bit where he's listening to the songs, the radios.
48:42
And he said, oh, this alert isn't real.
48:44
And I'm going to tell Ripper this.
48:45
And he says, well, you're a Yusuf Plan R, In fact, you're
48:48
ordered to the entire wing. And then he clicks what Ripper's
48:51
done and he just goes, EW, EW. I see good.
48:57
The highest compliment I compare Sellers here is it never feels
49:00
like a gimmick. It feels like a gimmick.
49:02
The film doesn't work. It has to feel truthful.
49:04
Like you've been saying, John, when Muffley is talking to
49:06
Strange Love, I'm never thinking that Sellers talking to Sellers.
49:09
I'm thinking that's Muffley talking to Strangelove.
49:11
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think years before I
49:14
ever even saw Doctor Strangelove, the first thing I
49:16
knew about it, I think, was that Peter Sellers played three roles
49:18
in it. It's not kind of significant, I
49:19
think in like Hollywood. Yeah, so like we mentioned
49:22
before, Columbia had originally wanted Sellers to play 4 roles,
49:25
not 3. And the fourth role was actually
49:28
Major Kong, and we'll talk about that when we mentioned Slim
49:30
Pickens. But Kubrick was fine with
49:32
Sellers playing multiple roles as he knew he could do it from
49:35
Lolita. And Sellers was by far the
49:37
highest paid cast member. He got paid 1,000,000 for the
49:40
film, which was about 56% of the production budget.
49:44
There's a famous quote from Kubrick about Seller's salary.
49:46
He said I got 3 for the price of 6.
49:51
Yeah, great quote. There's also a good Kubrick
49:54
quote about Columbia saying that Stella has had to play multiple
49:56
roles. He called it a cross and
49:58
grotesque stipulation. I mean, over half the budgets,
50:03
insane, but you've got to say kind of paid off I think.
50:07
Absolutely, yeah, that would have been fine for me.
50:09
Yeah, and Sellers took some inspiration from real life as 3
50:13
roles. He said that President Muffley
50:15
was partly based on Adly Stevenson, who was the Democrat
50:18
candidate for the presidential elections in 1952 and 1956.
50:22
And Seller said that Muffley's Midwestern accent was based on
50:25
Stevenson. Yes, he lost to Eisenhower both
50:29
times for the President Adlai Stevenson, and he was the UN
50:32
ambassador during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
50:34
So a tie back into Kubrick's inspirations, I think.
50:38
That's right. Yeah, Adly Stephenson was bald,
50:41
and Cubic apparently wanted Sellers to actually shave his
50:43
head for Muffley. But Sellers refused, so instead,
50:46
makeup artist Stewart Freeborn made him a bald cup.
50:49
Yeah, Stewart Freeborn of Yoda fame.
50:51
Yoda fame. Yeah, but take a look at a
50:54
picture of our life Stevenson. If you don't know him, he does
50:56
look just like Merck and Muffley.
50:57
Right, right. And Stewart Freeborn looks like
51:00
Yoda, so. And that bowl cap really needs
51:04
to stand up because close-ups are like, if that doesn't work,
51:07
it's terrible for the film. And it looks great.
51:10
It looks like he's actually shaved his head to be honest.
51:12
It does look great. And when the first started
51:15
filming, Sellers played Muffy as having a cold, but Cubic wanted
51:18
him to be foiled for everybody else's craziness, so told
51:21
Sellers just played more straight.
51:23
Right. Yeah, he was playing it right up
51:25
at first, apparently, like blowing his nose and stuff, and
51:27
the crew came cracking up. But Kubrick didn't want that.
51:29
You want him to be the straight man?
51:30
Yeah, but there's still a scene or two, if you've noticed, where
51:32
we're seeing Muffy wipe his nose with a handkerchief.
51:34
Yes, that's a hangover from that earlier version.
51:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sellers had served in the RAF
51:39
during World War 2 and had a reputation for impersonating his
51:42
fellow officers. Of course he did said this was
51:44
directly, of course. This was the direct influence on
51:46
how he played Mandrake. He also improvised the line in
51:49
reverse office where Mandrick says the string in my leg is
51:52
gone and the line was supposed to be the thing in my leg is
51:55
gone, right? Yeah, when the film now
51:57
apparently Sterling Hayden started laughing, but Kubik was
51:59
like, keep going, keep going. So they did.
52:02
And that's the take that we see in the film, OK.
52:04
Yeah, because he says string, doesn't he?
52:05
Just string. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
52:07
String. We'll talk about the creation of
52:11
Doctor Strangelove as a character shortly, but for his
52:13
performance was in Doctor Strangelove, Peter Sellers was
52:15
nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars, the first time an actor
52:18
had been nominated for playing three different characters in
52:20
the same film. Right.
52:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was notable, but he lost
52:24
out to Rex Harrison, who played Professor Higgins in My Fair
52:27
Lady. Fair Lady.
52:28
Yeah, right. OK, just the one role for him.
52:30
Lazy. Lazy, my fair lazy.
52:35
So no Oscar about Peter Sellers, but a performance that has gone
52:38
down in history and for us some pretty legendary stuff from him
52:42
and Doctor Strangelove. Oh, it's incredible.
52:44
It's flawless. The second acting performance
52:49
we're going to discuss is George T Scott as General Buck
52:52
Turjudson, the bombastic, gum chewing, wall loving Chairman of
52:56
the Joint Chiefs. Turjudson has barely able to
52:58
contain his excitement of the prospect of World War 3.
53:02
So, Westie, what do you make of George T Scott here?
53:04
It's gloriously stupid and gloriously wonderful and so
53:08
bombastic. It's so ridiculous.
53:10
But it it holds up next to sellers and it shouldn't, and it
53:13
really does. Yeah, it's the gravy next to his
53:16
meat, but that's in the dish. It's just a really compliments.
53:19
It really sits on the side. Always food analogy for you.
53:22
Always. Because I'm always hungry.
53:27
And that's the point. But it works because everyone
53:29
eats food and everyone understands gravy and meat.
53:30
So there you go, That's what I'm talking about.
53:33
And he's got this real presence, these sexual frustration in
53:36
human form. Just when he's shot with that
53:38
low angle and some of the faces he pulls, he doesn't even need
53:41
dialogue A lot of the time. He's got these really funny
53:44
faces that he pulled. He's the reaction shot,
53:46
especially when we're going to talk about he's on the phone
53:48
with Dimitri and he's just reacting to what's being said.
53:50
It's like he hasn't got the intelligence to to articulate
53:54
it. He hasn't got the intelligence
53:55
to put it into words. It's just these looks of like,
53:58
can we get this over with? Because Miss Scott's at home for
54:00
me and I've got something I need to be doing here.
54:03
It's an amazing performance. When you take away ego and you
54:05
take away the seriousness of it and you have it played
54:08
ridiculous and see Scott does that and nails it.
54:11
He's just so watchable. It's fantastic, a great, great
54:14
performance. Yeah, Josh Lee, Scott Nolan
54:16
mainly is a great dramatic actor, isn't he?
54:18
Yeah. I first saw Miss Scrooge in A
54:20
Christmas Carol. Yeah.
54:21
And one of his big roles comes in Patton as well.
54:24
Yeah, serious war drama. So we know he's a powerhouse,
54:26
but then here, total comedy. And he's just superb.
54:30
I think the physicality of the performance is crazy.
54:33
The way that he moves, his gestures, that famous pratfall
54:36
that we'll talk about. Yeah.
54:38
My favorite bit is the first time Muffley's on the phone to
54:40
Dmitri, and there's a close up on Turgidson.
54:43
He's chewing his gum more intensely than I've ever seen
54:45
anyone chew gum. Yeah, that's so funny.
54:50
But it's when he's like just nudging.
54:51
He's like, I wish we had one of those doomsday machines.
54:53
That's why it's the end of the world.
54:58
He's like a cartoon character that come to life a bit and
55:00
never feels over the top. I mean it would be an end of the
55:03
film I guess, but not this one. Yeah.
55:05
What I love, I mean, Love's probably the wrong word, but
55:08
it's the enthusiasm turges and has for everything.
55:11
It's what you admire. When you explain the doomsday
55:14
scenario, he's like a kid at Christmas.
55:16
He comes alive at the prospect of nuclear war.
55:19
That line about the casualties? No more than 10 to 20 million
55:22
killed tops, depending on the breaks.
55:25
He says that would like a huge grin in his face.
55:27
It's funny but also pretty chilling because I don't find it
55:30
hard to imagine at all that they've been real life terjuns
55:33
since in positions of power over the years.
55:35
He's a man of 0 consequence. Yeah, definitely.
55:39
Yeah. I think Scott totally nails
55:40
that, like, out there tone that Kubrick's going for a great
55:44
comic performance for me, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I just completely
55:48
agree. I think it's tribute to him that
55:49
he goes up against Peter Sellers times 3 and still is just as
55:53
memorable. And a lesser act I think would
55:55
be overwhelmed by Peter Sellers, but George C Scott isn't.
55:59
And to me, it's why he's been saying he's a child in an adult
56:01
job, and that's how he views everything.
56:03
It's this prism of America's great, the military's great, and
56:06
everything's a game to him. Like that outburst when the
56:08
Russian ambassador comes in, He'll see everything.
56:11
He'll see. He'll see the big board.
56:13
Like just the fact he calls it the big board.
56:15
To the Big Board. He's tidying everything up off
56:18
the desk. He's just a kid when they ask
56:24
him, you know, is the pilot going to get through?
56:26
And he just goes off and on. Oh, big plane, like a 52 from
56:29
Bernard Chickens in the barnyard.
56:31
Yeah. And then he realizes, oh, yeah,
56:33
yeah, yes, we will bomb them. We will get through.
56:36
So, yeah, a brilliant comic performance that somehow manages
56:39
to keep up with Peter Sellers at his very, very best.
56:42
And that is no mean feat. Easier said than done.
56:45
To the character of Turgeonson was based on the chief of staff
56:48
of the Air Force at the time, General Curtis Lemay.
56:51
He was known for having extreme anti communist views and once
56:54
said that he wouldn't be afraid to start a nuclear war with the
56:56
Soviet Union if he was president.
56:59
Terrifying. Ridiculous.
57:01
Wow. And following from that Ripper,
57:03
he was largely based on General Thomas S Power, who succeeded
57:06
Curtis Lemay. And there's a famous story about
57:09
him where during a meeting about the possibility of war with
57:12
Russia, somebody said they should limit the nuclear attack
57:14
to military targets, not civilians in Russia.
57:16
And Power apparently said, why are we so concerned with saving
57:19
lives? The whole idea is to kill the
57:20
bastards. At the end.
57:22
If there's two Americans and one Russian left, we win.
57:28
Bloody hell. I mean, he had those real words.
57:30
And Doctor Strangelove doesn't seem so far fetched.
57:33
Definitely. Not no.
57:34
I mean, all the disclaimers attached to the film, you've got
57:37
a thing at least maybe hit a nerve somewhere.
57:39
Yeah, exactly. Kubrick had like the idea of
57:41
George C Scott is Tergenson and went to see him in a Central
57:44
Park version of The Merchant of Venice, where he played Shylock.
57:48
That would be incredible. Yeah, he approached him about
57:50
playing Tergenson after that and Scott agreed.
57:53
Yeah, well, exactly. I mean, he was like a
57:54
Shakespearean thespian at the time.
57:57
Get him in Doctor Strangelove. It's Matt.
57:59
How the? Flesh speech would have been
58:00
incredible. Oh yeah.
58:02
Yeah. But Jamesville Jones, he was
58:04
also in that version of Merchant of Venice, and that's how
58:06
Kubrick came across him and cast him as Zogg.
58:09
Yeah. Great voice on stage.
58:11
Oh. Booming.
58:13
That a time machine. I'll go back and watch that.
58:15
Definitely. Kubik and Scott did have a bit
58:20
of a tense relationship on the set of times, though.
58:22
They were both expert chess players, so Kubik brought a
58:25
chess bot to the set. He would play Scott and beat him
58:27
regularly. Kubik's wife, Christian, later
58:30
said this made Scott respect Kubik even more and gave Kubik
58:33
some control over him. Yeah, Tracy Reed said that Scott
58:37
would sit there like studying the board and take like 20
58:39
minutes to make a move, and then Kubic would just walk over, make
58:42
his move in a few seconds and then walk off again.
58:44
And Kuba beat him like every time.
58:47
Take him the piss. What a Dick.
58:49
Shore boarding. Scott wanted to play Turgerton
58:53
as what he called a dignified well-intentioned extremist, more
58:57
of a tragic figure than a buffoon, but Kubik wanted the
59:00
absurdity so there was some creative tension between them.
59:03
Kubik asked Scott to do over the top performances which would
59:05
help him warm up for the more serious performances, but he
59:08
used the over the top performances in the film.
59:11
That's amazing and ridiculous. I mean, how you lose a friend
59:15
one-on-one and trust because he didn't find out until the
59:18
premiere. That's right.
59:19
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
59:22
So Scott was filmed playing Turgy from this comedic and then
59:24
serious, even though Kubrick knew he'd probably never use the
59:27
serious 6. So played Scott for a fool.
59:30
Checkmate. Wow.
59:31
Checkmate. Yeah, every time.
59:33
Yeah, it's really under hand. But I mean, that's how you get
59:34
the film. It's all about the film, not
59:36
about the person. Yeah, for Kubrick, it certainly
59:38
is. Yeah.
59:38
And he did something similar with Slim Pickens, which we'll
59:40
get into as well. Yeah.
59:42
Yes, as was saying when Scott saw the finished film he was
59:44
furious because the exaggerated performances when there he said
59:48
he felt betrayed and felt never to work with Kubik again, which
59:51
he didn't sadly. Took it well then.
59:54
Yeah. But apparently in later years,
59:56
Scott did say that Kubik was right.
59:58
And I mean, he was, wasn't he? Oh, he's definitely right, yeah.
1:00:01
Like we said there, I mean the scene in the war room where
1:00:03
turgeons and trips and falls over mid sentence, that wasn't
1:00:06
in the script at all. George C Scott really tripped
1:00:08
over in one of his bumbling moments which is fantastic fail,
1:00:12
but he stayed in characters so well.
1:00:14
The Kubra kept it in the film. Totally works for me, I love it.
1:00:17
You wouldn't know, would you? Doesn't miss a beat.
1:00:19
You wouldn't know at all, Yeah. Like Matt said, it is really
1:00:21
childish. It's what a kid would do.
1:00:23
Yeah, carries on. You're pointing at the board.
1:00:25
Yeah. Well, George Lee Scott received
1:00:32
no Oscar nominations for Surgeon, and he famously refused
1:00:35
his Best Actor Oscar for Patton six years later, didn't he?
1:00:38
He did, yeah, Yeah. For us though, he took some
1:00:40
convincing, but a great comic performance from George C Scott
1:00:43
as General Turgeon. Brilliant.
1:00:45
Still would like to see them other takes.
1:00:47
Oh, I'd love to, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:00:51
The final cast member we're discussing in depth is Slim
1:00:53
Pickens, his major, TJ King Kong, the B52 Bomber Commander
1:00:58
who takes it orders with patriotic gusto.
1:01:00
He ends the film riding a nuclear bomb like a rodeo ball
1:01:03
in one of cinema's most iconic images.
1:01:06
Yeah. So, Matt, what do you make of
1:01:07
Slim Pickens as Kong? I mean, this character, I think
1:01:11
he sums up the ridiculous nature of the film and of war because
1:01:14
he's in command of a plane with a nuclear bomb.
1:01:17
And as we've been saying, he's barely paying attention to
1:01:19
anything, just reading Playboy instead.
1:01:21
Yeah. And you know, one of the
1:01:23
recurring themes of the film is characters that are in charge of
1:01:26
things they should not be in charge of.
1:01:28
And that's very true of Kong. And the scary thing about him is
1:01:31
he's not necessarily an idiot. He's actually pretty capable at
1:01:34
his job, as we'll see, and his men really trust him.
1:01:37
But you don't want a man who when he gets the orders to bomb
1:01:40
Russia, just goes right, Best get that Stetson on then Yeehaw,
1:01:44
he will go it like goes into with the victory all that he
1:01:47
does. But yes, and pickets is great
1:01:49
doing that. Yeah, Slim Pickens.
1:01:52
I mean, everyone remembers Sellers multiple roles, rightly.
1:01:55
Yeah, there's loads of people. I remember Scott's comedic turn.
1:01:58
But Pickens, I think, live as a role just as important.
1:02:00
Yeah. The difference is he's, like,
1:02:02
totally sincere. Yeah.
1:02:03
Pickens isn't playing Kong for laughs.
1:02:05
And we'll talk about why when Kong is giving orders or
1:02:08
rallying the crew in a cowboy hat.
1:02:10
There's no irony in the performance.
1:02:12
He, like, believes in the mission.
1:02:13
He thinks he's doing his duty. And like lots of other things,
1:02:15
that makes it funnier and also quite a bit more unsettling as
1:02:19
well. Yeah.
1:02:20
And that final image, writing the bomb down, waving his hat,
1:02:23
whooping, like, either the rodeo, it's absurd and
1:02:26
horrifying and somehow kind of heroic all at once.
1:02:29
Yeah. It's become one of the defining
1:02:31
images of Kubrick's career, of Hollywood generally, of the
1:02:34
whole nuclear war. You are generally.
1:02:36
And picking sells it. So if you're coming in and
1:02:38
leaving a film as enduring an image as that, you've done all
1:02:41
right, I think. Good job, Yeah.
1:02:43
I think he just plays the everyman that you would expect,
1:02:45
that all American hero. But a confused 1.
1:02:48
You know, if he just follows the rules, if he does whatever the
1:02:51
guys at the top say, then he's going to become a hero.
1:02:53
He's going to do the right thing.
1:02:55
He can't do the wrong thing in the eyes of his country, in the
1:02:57
eyes of his superiors. And I think that's the scary
1:02:59
thing, that people are just that kind of machine.
1:03:03
Like I just focused on getting the job done.
1:03:05
Irregardless of that, he's going to have to wipe himself out
1:03:08
because of it. Irregardless, the plane is going
1:03:09
to run out of fuel. Just that real blind ambition is
1:03:12
fucking terrifying to me. Just the way this is played by
1:03:15
Pickings is absolutely fantastic because he does play it down the
1:03:18
line. He does play that speech as if
1:03:20
he means it. Just the celebration of riding
1:03:23
that nuke down is the yes, I've done it, yes, someone is going
1:03:26
to be proud of us. It's like he hasn't got a
1:03:28
thought of his own. He hasn't gotten a motivation of
1:03:30
his own. He hasn't got a moral compass or
1:03:32
an ego. He cares about the guys in the
1:03:34
plane, but not enough to turn around.
1:03:36
I think it's just an American every man of the time with that
1:03:39
warmonger in mind. And it's great where he got his
1:03:42
name from as well. Do you know that?
1:03:43
No, no. So he's a rodeo clown and he was
1:03:45
going to continue in the rodeos, and then someone turned to him.
1:03:48
You might as well be a nightmare because if you stay in the
1:03:49
rodeo, there's going to be Slim Pickens.
1:03:51
Beautiful. His name is Slim Pickens and
1:03:55
became an actor, which I think is fantastic.
1:03:57
Yeah, so good in this. Love him.
1:03:58
I think he's great but a terrifying character.
1:04:01
Very. Much like Kilgo I think.
1:04:04
You could do the impression again.
1:04:05
Not doing it again, not. Doing it again.
1:04:10
And the character of Major Kong was based on Alvin, Tex
1:04:13
Johnston. Johnston was the chief test
1:04:15
pilot for Bell Aircraft and Boeing in the 1940s and 50s, and
1:04:18
like Kong, he flew wearing cowboy boots in the Stetson.
1:04:22
Amazing. Yeah, what's insane is how lots
1:04:25
of the most insane things in this film were like, true, Yeah.
1:04:28
Yeah, yeah. You mentioned earlier that it's
1:04:30
important that Slim Pickens is in the film.
1:04:32
He wasn't the first person cast his Kong.
1:04:33
No, that was Peter Sellers. Wasn't it mad?
1:04:36
It was so yes. Sellers originally contracted to
1:04:40
play 4 roles including Major Cog, but from the start he
1:04:43
wasn't keen on that 4th role. Before production started, he
1:04:47
sent Cubic a telegram which said, Dear Stanley, I'm very
1:04:50
sorry to tell you that I'm having serious difficulty with
1:04:52
the various roles. Now hear this.
1:04:55
There was no way, repeat no way I can play the Texas pilot Major
1:04:58
King Kong. I have a complete block against
1:05:01
that accent. Terry Southern, the Co writer,
1:05:03
He was Texan, so he recorded all of Kong's dialogue on tape for
1:05:07
Sellers to practice against. That helped, and Sellers did
1:05:10
manage one day filming as Kong. Yeah, there's behind the scenes
1:05:13
shots of sellers in Costumers Kong.
1:05:15
There's no footage though. It will be interesting to hear
1:05:17
sellers doing that accent I think.
1:05:19
Really. Would, yeah.
1:05:19
Yeah. And then during filming, Sellers
1:05:22
had an accident. He fell from a ladder in the B52
1:05:25
set and sprained his ankle. It was already a physically
1:05:27
demanding role and doctors told Cubic there was just no way
1:05:30
Sellers could play a Kong. Cubic must have been very
1:05:33
dubious about that accident. I bet you little chancer.
1:05:40
I don't think that was the case. I think it was more of an
1:05:42
anxiety thing, a lot of pressure on sellers.
1:05:44
So I don't think that injury was particularly true.
1:05:47
I wouldn't be surprised yet. Yeah.
1:05:49
Cubic thought wanted to keep the Texan persona and send a
1:05:52
telegram asking John Wayne if he wanted to play a conference, but
1:05:55
he didn't reply. He also asked Dan Blocker who
1:06:02
was the star of Bonanza, but his agent replied and said thanks a
1:06:05
lot, but the material is too pink.
1:06:07
Or for Dan, or anyone else we know, for that matter.
1:06:10
Right. Yeah, 2 pinko means 2 left wing.
1:06:12
Basically, Yeah. And there's no way John Wayne's
1:06:15
doing it. He was right wing as hell,
1:06:17
wasn't he? He wasn't having this like.
1:06:19
He probably wouldn't have known the difference.
1:06:20
I'll do it whenever I gotta write a bomb.
1:06:22
Of course I'll do. It.
1:06:25
We had lung cancer. We have to take one of your
1:06:27
lungs out joints. I take them both out.
1:06:28
I don't fucking need them. And that was said Slim Pickens
1:06:34
had started in rodeo, working for 20 years as a rodeo clown
1:06:37
before moving into movies, and he'd been in several westerns,
1:06:40
including One Eyed Jackson 1961. And that's what brought him to
1:06:43
the attention of Kubrick. One Eyed Jacks, starring and
1:06:47
directed by Marlon Brando. His only director credit?
1:06:51
Yes, that's right. Yeah.
1:06:52
Right. But the first person in touch to
1:06:53
direct that film was Kubrick, really.
1:06:55
He pulled out to direct Lolita. Oh, right.
1:06:58
Well, yes, there was some kind of link back to that.
1:06:59
Crossover there. Yeah.
1:07:01
Nice. Doctor Strangelove was shot in
1:07:02
London and Pickens had never travelled outside of the US It
1:07:05
took over a month to apply for and get a passport to travel to
1:07:08
England, so his scenes were the last ones to be shot.
1:07:11
And Kubrick apparently didn't tell Pickens that they were
1:07:14
making a comedy, which is what we've been talking about all the
1:07:16
way through. She's only shown the script for
1:07:18
the scenes he was in and Kubrick hadn't played the part
1:07:20
absolutely straight and had everyone else on that B52 know
1:07:24
that Pickens was playing it straight and he had no idea
1:07:26
again. If that's him playing it
1:07:29
straight, imagine him doing it. A comedy, Yeah, Would have been
1:07:32
off the scale. Yeah, you.
1:07:35
Can kind of see though he's really taking it seriously and
1:07:37
he was pretty upset as well. They would have been lining up
1:07:39
at the premiere as to punch, yeah.
1:07:41
Yeah, yeah, I think Slim Pickens was like a real life cowboy,
1:07:46
basically. James Dale Jones said that he
1:07:48
thought Pickens was playing a method and staying in character
1:07:50
all the time. And then he just realized, Oh
1:07:52
no, that's just him. That's how he's doing it, yeah.
1:07:55
And according to Reconstructing Strangelove, The Making of
1:07:58
Doctor Strangelove book by Mick Broderick, there was some
1:08:01
interesting casting choices for some other roles too.
1:08:04
The part of the Russian ambassador Alexi de Sadisky was
1:08:07
first offered to Noël Coward and then Theodore J Flicker, who was
1:08:10
a playwright and actor best known for improvisational
1:08:13
comedy. They said no.
1:08:14
So Peter Bull was cast and he was a British actor who already
1:08:17
had a Hollywood creed going back to the 1930s.
1:08:20
Yeah, he was in order to stuff Peter Bull, the African Queen
1:08:23
probably is most well known. I think he's good, is the
1:08:26
ambassador. He's really good.
1:08:27
I. Thought he was Russian.
1:08:28
Yeah, I thought he was Russian. Yeah.
1:08:30
Exact sense. Fantastic.
1:08:32
You. Have no fresh fish?
1:08:33
Yeah, yeah. Well, that book Reconstructing
1:08:37
Strangelove, it also says that Paul Newman, Orson Welles and
1:08:40
Burt Lancaster were considered by Kubrick as cast members,
1:08:43
although it doesn't say who the would play.
1:08:44
Right. Wells is the ambassador surely
1:08:47
imposing presence? Definitely.
1:08:49
You can speculate whoever you want to our love Paul Newman in
1:08:53
this Newman and John Wayne. Oh, this is turning out to be
1:08:57
incredible. Well, Slim Pickens received no
1:09:00
award recognition for his performance as Major Kong, but
1:09:02
with the image of him riding the bomb, the destruction become one
1:09:05
of cinemas most famous. He left his mark with Doctor
1:09:08
Strangelove. Absolutely, yeah.
1:09:10
Definitely did, yeah. So that's our main cast.
1:09:12
We've talked about Sterling Hayden and Tracy Reed in the
1:09:15
opening and in depth now about Peter Sellers, triple role,
1:09:18
George T, Scott Turgidson and Slim Pickens, his Kong, big
1:09:21
performances across the board, huge.
1:09:23
That's the real big board. That's the big board.
1:09:25
Yeah, and I'm happy to see it. And they're pretty great
1:09:28
ensemble comedy cast. They're all brilliant.
1:09:31
Yeah, one of the best, I think the middle.
1:09:39
Into the middle of Doctor Strangelove and things are
1:09:41
escalating rapidly. We're going to be talking about
1:09:43
Mandrake's increasingly desperate situation with rib
1:09:46
eyes. Burbleson Bears comes under
1:09:47
attack. But first it's the Russians.
1:09:50
And a pretty memorable phone call, isn't it?
1:09:52
Yeah. So we're back in the raw room
1:09:55
and attempting to avert disaster.
1:09:57
President Muffley calls Soviet Premier Kesov, attempting to
1:10:00
explain that one of his generals has launched a nuclear strike.
1:10:03
At the same time, we see the mysterious Dr. Strangelove
1:10:06
himself make his first appearance.
1:10:09
After you're taking the call, how's it go down?
1:10:12
Sorry, Jonathan, hear you, but mostly there.
1:10:13
Can you turn the music down? This is absolute fucking genius
1:10:19
on every level. And I mean, I know for a fact
1:10:22
that Sellers reads the first two or three lines that are actually
1:10:25
in the script and then he just riffs for 10 minutes.
1:10:27
And he did that every single take.
1:10:29
And this you can see. But it is so fresh and it is so
1:10:32
funny and it is so relatable. And it's just like somebody
1:10:37
apologising to the wife or the best friend that they've let
1:10:40
down. I'm late for tea.
1:10:41
I've got to sort this out. I know you're upset.
1:10:43
Well, I'm upset. Well, we're both upset.
1:10:45
Are you all right? Well, I'm all right.
1:10:47
Yes, I know it's fine when you can see the cogs whirring.
1:10:49
But when he goes down a certain Ave. and he keeps going and
1:10:52
keeps going and keeps going, it's so good.
1:10:54
It's like I'm E actually threatening and being like I'm
1:10:57
not ringing you just to talk, just to hear you.
1:10:59
Well, of course I want to hear you.
1:11:00
Of course I like to talk normally.
1:11:01
But this I can't. So many, I mean you could just
1:11:04
sit here and just quote the whole thing is how good it is.
1:11:07
But it's also the direction from Kubrick here because it's non
1:11:11
existent and he puts this in A2 shot that is so important,
1:11:16
really, really important to have Peter Ball on the left hand side
1:11:19
of that frame, not reacting to a thing, just holding it straight,
1:11:24
which gives sellers room to Sprint.
1:11:26
And he's kind of holding it and have that two shot held me, I
1:11:29
would just be on sellers close up, nothing else in the frame,
1:11:33
him just delivering it. And it would not be half as
1:11:35
funny. Yeah, it wouldn't work half as
1:11:37
well. And you've got to hold that two
1:11:39
shot. And what does he do from that
1:11:40
two shot? He goes to a single, but he goes
1:11:42
to Scott. Yeah, absolutely brilliant.
1:11:44
The way he opens it as well. The way the whole conversation,
1:11:47
you know how we've always had this discussion that something
1:11:49
might go wrong with the bomb? Bomb Dmitri.
1:11:55
It's so funny. This is so fucking brilliant.
1:11:58
If you just listen to how good his delivery is and listen to
1:12:01
where he goes with them, I don't think I'll ever get sick of
1:12:04
watching that scene. It's all here and it's all
1:12:06
sellers and it's all magic. Hello Dmitri.
1:12:10
It is just insane. Hello, Dmitri.
1:12:13
Let me finish now, Dmitri, just. The way he says to meet me.
1:12:17
Every time you say his Dmitri, I laugh.
1:12:19
You Dmitri. One of the most famous phone
1:12:22
calls in movies, surely? It's got to be.
1:12:24
Yeah. Absolutely, the way it gets
1:12:26
played I would only see or hear one side of it.
1:12:28
Works really well. Mostly is like really polite and
1:12:30
desperate not to inflamed things when he's talking about Ripper
1:12:34
and he's like he ordered this plane too attack your country.
1:12:38
You like gulps, doesn't he? Yeah, he gulps.
1:12:41
And the way this ends as well, with the whole explanation of
1:12:43
the Doomsday Machine, Yeah, the annihilation of all the humans
1:12:47
and all the animals on the planet, He's like, yeah, yeah,
1:12:49
right. And then there's just that hard
1:12:51
cut. It's so good.
1:12:52
It's just a great team. Salazi, it's just he's
1:12:54
incredible. Yeah, Pamela Carter worked in
1:12:57
the continuity department on the film as a script supervisor, and
1:13:01
she said the first call between Dimitri and Kisoff was scripted
1:13:04
in full, but Sellers would usually ignore it.
1:13:06
For each take, he did the first sign of scripted and then
1:13:09
improvised in the next 10 minutes.
1:13:11
I mean, Kubik never lets anyone improvise usually, does he?
1:13:14
No. So shows how highly he thought
1:13:15
of Sellers. Yeah.
1:13:16
So if it's like, I'm fine, you're fine, everybody's fine.
1:13:19
That's all just made-up by Sellers.
1:13:23
Now then, Dimitri. Then after this, we finally meet
1:13:28
him, we finally meet the man of the title, and it's crazy when
1:13:31
you think about because his character introduction is
1:13:34
halfway through the film and it's not a long film.
1:13:36
No, it's not. At no point you've gone Who's
1:13:38
Doctor Strangelove, by the way. Yeah, I can't wait for this guy.
1:13:42
It's just so random, and I think that's tribute to the mastery of
1:13:45
the torn Aku because because that first reveal, it should
1:13:48
sink the film because when he swings around in that chair,
1:13:51
he's like a Bond villain. Yeah, yes.
1:13:53
And like, who's this? He's clearly a Nazi and no one
1:13:56
comments on it. Everyone's like, yeah, that's
1:13:58
just Doctor Strangelove. That's what he looks like.
1:14:00
That's him. That's fine.
1:14:01
And he's such a visually arresting character.
1:14:04
I mean, that haircut, he's like an early version of Bart and
1:14:07
Finger crossed with David Lynch. He's got that kind of look to
1:14:09
him. The accent is outrageous.
1:14:12
Like when he says giant convex of computers.
1:14:15
Just love that. That's.
1:14:18
Amazing. We can already see he's having
1:14:21
the battle with his own hand that he can't control because he
1:14:23
desperately wants to give the sick heil.
1:14:25
And it's the same as what we've been saying in the phone
1:14:28
conversation. It's when you could wait to
1:14:29
Turgeon every time you say, yeah, who's this guy?
1:14:33
Like offering his come around. Gee, I wish we had one of them
1:14:35
doomsday machines again. He's just a child absorber.
1:14:38
Well, I want one because that sounds good.
1:14:40
And it's the balance of the film in in this one scene, because
1:14:43
everything they're talking about is utterly terrifying and it's
1:14:46
all in the hands of the most inept and unsuitable people he
1:14:49
could think of. Yeah.
1:14:50
Yeah, this is where it all starts to get really weird.
1:14:53
Yeah, like Alexi explains the doomsday device that will
1:14:55
destroy your life on Earth. And watching it now, I think it
1:14:58
feels kind of ahead of its time, this scene.
1:15:00
Massively. The way that Alexi talks about
1:15:02
his source for the Americans creating their own doomsday
1:15:04
device being these, like, sketchy newspapers, it's fake
1:15:07
news, yeah. Essentially leading to very
1:15:09
questionable policies, which sounds pretty familiar.
1:15:11
And I mean, there's a timeless point here I made about how I
1:15:14
think misinformation works at these really high levels of
1:15:18
power. And that's something that
1:15:19
probably hasn't changed since either.
1:15:21
Yeah. And the lighting on the war room
1:15:23
set is just fantastic. Oh, look for lightning, yeah.
1:15:25
So backlit as well, isn't it? So it's got that interrogation
1:15:28
kind of vibes. You're always on that back foot.
1:15:31
Yeah, it's really, really great. It's fantastic, his name.
1:15:33
He's like Strangelove, that's not a crowd names, and he
1:15:35
actually gives his name in German and his name in German
1:15:38
translates to Strangelove, which is brilliant.
1:15:43
And Strangelove was based on quite a few real life
1:15:46
characters. The political scientist Henry
1:15:48
Kissinger was an influence, and so was Edward Teller, known as
1:15:51
the father of the hydrogen bomb. 2 American physicists Herman
1:15:55
Kahn and John Van Newman have been called influences as well,
1:15:58
but the main inspiration was Wernher von Braun, the former S
1:16:02
S officer and Nazi rocket scientist who worked with the
1:16:04
American government after the war.
1:16:06
Right. Yeah.
1:16:07
He went on to work with NASA. He was the chief architecture of
1:16:10
Saturn V, the worker that sends Apollo 11 to the moon.
1:16:12
Yes. Right.
1:16:13
And to create Strangelove's voice, Sellers took inspiration
1:16:16
from the film's special photographic effects consultant,
1:16:20
Asher Felig. He was from the Austro Hungarian
1:16:22
Empire, which is now Ukraine, and had a New York Hungarian
1:16:26
hybrid accent. Sellers recorded Felig talking
1:16:29
and then exaggerated it. Yeah, I was going to say, surely
1:16:33
didn't just talk like that. No, actually I felt like with
1:16:35
like a street photographer. I think he was better known as
1:16:37
Ouija. That was his nickname.
1:16:39
Oh yeah, yeah, I know. You mean?
1:16:41
Yeah, yeah, apparently he had a spooky like, Ouija board like,
1:16:43
ability to turn up with crime scenes before everyone else.
1:16:46
That's where you got the nickname I think.
1:16:47
Yeah. Right.
1:16:48
Isn't that where Jude Laws characters based on Road to
1:16:51
Petition? It is similar, yeah, yeah,
1:16:53
Britains most ridiculous law, yeah.
1:16:56
I don't think I've mentioned Jude Law without Wesley saying.
1:16:59
That would be favorite thing to say, and it's never ever left
1:17:02
in. Same.
1:17:04
I will, yes. And the one glove that Strange
1:17:07
Love wears? That came from Sellers as well.
1:17:09
He said that they'd seen Cubic handling some lights on the set
1:17:11
wearing black leather gloves, and that's if he could wear one
1:17:14
of them as the character. Although some reports say it was
1:17:16
actually Cubics idea. Yeah.
1:17:18
Oh, Michael Jackson's one glove for him as well.
1:17:22
Very similar kind of characters on there.
1:17:23
Let's be really. Similar.
1:17:25
Yeah. And Rod Van, the mad scientist
1:17:27
guy Metropolis, he was creates the robot Maria.
1:17:30
He wears one glove as well, which I think is surely a nod.
1:17:32
Right, Gotta be. And his hair is not unlike Doug
1:17:35
Brown's, who I mentioned. So it's not influencing mad
1:17:38
scientists all over the place. Is Luke in Return of the Jedi
1:17:41
based on Doctor Strange? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:17:45
Black glove and he's all in black, Yeah.
1:17:47
We should mention Bridget sells as well, No relation to Peter,
1:17:50
but she was the costume designer and aside from the globe, she
1:17:53
designed Doctor Strangelove's whole look, like the suit, the
1:17:55
sunglasses indoors, which is pretty distinctive, isn't it?
1:17:58
Yeah, I absolutely love that he pulls this accent off and then
1:18:01
said a Kubik that he can't do Texas.
1:18:03
I know. Yeah.
1:18:05
So we've had the phone calls, the Russian ambassador and
1:18:08
Doctor Strangelove's first proper appearance, the
1:18:10
diplomatic situations getting more desperate by the minute.
1:18:13
Time to check back in with Mandrick and River I think.
1:18:16
Let's see what's happening over there.
1:18:17
Let's do it. From the war room, we're heading
1:18:21
back to Burbleson Air Force Base, where things are a bit
1:18:24
tense. Yeah, the US armies arrived to
1:18:27
take control the situation and get the end code.
1:18:29
But RIP As men are firing on their own troops while Mandrake
1:18:32
is trapped in RIP as office, realizing just how far gone the
1:18:35
general really is. Yeah, Wesley, we're in the
1:18:37
office with the lads, we are. How does it play out?
1:18:40
Again, watching Sellers in this is such an influence on Mike
1:18:43
Myers and everything he's done. Yeah, especially this
1:18:46
performance here, because it's so understated and so clever and
1:18:50
so brilliant how he just slowly realizes that Ripper has lost
1:18:54
his mind completely and everything's kicking off around
1:18:57
them. It's all just this absolute
1:18:59
pandemonium. But it's just the discussion
1:19:01
here. He's like, Jack, have you heard
1:19:03
of fluoridation? He's like, yes, yes, yes, I've
1:19:05
heard of that. Do you know what it is?
1:19:06
No, that's just the mentality of them.
1:19:11
Like they've heard of stuff, but they don't know what it is.
1:19:13
Like the kind of they've heard of a nuclear bomb, but they
1:19:15
don't know what it does or what it is.
1:19:17
And this, again, is where the sexuality comes into it.
1:19:20
Because I think RIP out in the earlier scene that cigar just.
1:19:22
Massive cigar. Yeah, and it's just very phallic
1:19:25
and it's that low angle. And this is just pulling the
1:19:27
machine gun out of the golf clubs like it's recreational.
1:19:30
Have a machine. Yeah, it's taken everywhere.
1:19:33
And we realized that he's launched a nuclear war on Russia
1:19:37
because he's scared of the fluoridation in the water.
1:19:40
That's it. Which, to be fair, if this was
1:19:43
going to happen, that's what we're looking at.
1:19:44
We're looking at one person's mental well-being or mental
1:19:47
health or outlook. Potentially, yeah.
1:19:50
But that final line, come on, man, Drake, the Redcoats are
1:19:52
coming. Yeah, fucking brilliant.
1:19:55
Just madness. But again, so well played out by
1:19:57
Sellers. Yeah, this is where we start to
1:19:59
see what Kubrick can do with like tension.
1:20:02
Yeah, you've got Mandrake trapped in the office with
1:20:03
Ripper. While like a full scale battles
1:20:05
going on outside, it's a bit like a mini version of how
1:20:07
Ripper is essentially holding the whole world hostage.
1:20:10
Yeah, yeah, with these madness. Exactly.
1:20:12
Yeah. I mean, Sterling Hayden is
1:20:14
great. All the monologues about the flu
1:20:16
radiation and the bodily fluids, disgusting.
1:20:18
He delivers them with such, like, conviction as well.
1:20:21
Yeah. And my contrast between the
1:20:22
chaos outside and then these, like, almost civilized
1:20:25
conversations inside. I mean, we had conversations,
1:20:28
but Kubik handles all those tones really well.
1:20:30
I think the sound design's really good as well.
1:20:32
The gunfire and the explosions all dumping through the walls.
1:20:34
Yeah. I think like pretty much the
1:20:36
whole film, it's darkly comic, but also I find it really
1:20:40
unsettling and troubling because we're basically watching a man
1:20:43
trying to start World War Three and he's rambling about
1:20:45
communists putting chemicals in the water.
1:20:48
I mean, that game. I just see truth in it all the
1:20:50
way through the film from the start.
1:20:52
Yeah, yeah, totally. Truth in the madness, Yeah.
1:20:55
It's just laughing at fear, that's the whole thing.
1:20:57
It's even more terrifying, yeah. And then Ripper's forces get
1:21:02
overrun and they're at the door. And as Wesley said, there's a
1:21:05
lot of phallic imagery from Ripper early on of that huge
1:21:07
cigar. But here it's just so small and
1:21:10
he's a broken man. And it's remarkable from Stalin,
1:21:14
Hayden, he because he realized he isn't evil.
1:21:16
He's just as we've been saying, he's mentally broken and he's
1:21:19
had no one to help him and Mandrake even has a smidge in
1:21:21
his sympathy for him in this moment.
1:21:23
Right, he does. Yeah, absolutely.
1:21:24
Despite what he's done, but as throughout the film, it's the
1:21:27
way it can flip into really dark comedy here and it's just so
1:21:31
much would come some sellers like when Ripper brings up, you
1:21:34
know, where you're tortured by the Japanese, what did the duty
1:21:37
and he kind of fobs it off. Then he goes.
1:21:39
Strange thing is to make such bloody good cameras like on that
1:21:44
in that moment. Brilliant line.
1:21:46
Yeah, yeah. But then there's that brilliant
1:21:48
reaction you get from sellers when Ripper says, oh, they're
1:21:50
going to give me a good roof and over for that court.
1:21:52
And you can see the lights go on in Mandy XI is gone.
1:21:55
Oh, that's the way to go. If I can cheer him up, I can
1:21:58
keep on side. I can get the court.
1:21:59
I can solve this. And it's just that very British
1:22:02
cheeriness. I mean, Wesley's court right at
1:22:04
the top. Like, I'll take your jacket.
1:22:06
You're going for washing, brusher boy, You had a good
1:22:08
idea. That's what we need, Jack.
1:22:09
What? On the back of the neck and the
1:22:11
code. Yeah.
1:22:13
But then all for nothing. Bang Ripper takes himself out
1:22:16
and man rigs back to square one. But it's just the cheviness of
1:22:20
Mandrake. What if I play a guessing game
1:22:22
with you and I'll guess what the code is?
1:22:23
Bang. You've seen Feed Me Jack, Feed
1:22:25
me and I was feeding you Jack. I do think it's pretty shocking
1:22:31
when River kills himself. The bit where Mandrake does go
1:22:33
to open the door and it won't budget awful.
1:22:35
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's quite powerful.
1:22:37
In what? Seeing as well this guy would
1:22:39
rather die, you'd rather blow up the world, not admit he was
1:22:41
wrong. Yeah.
1:22:42
And that is a totally timeless point still to this day.
1:22:45
Exactly, Yeah. But I think it's around this
1:22:47
time as well in the B52 when they detect the missile tracking
1:22:49
them on the radar. And I don't know about you, but
1:22:52
I want them to get shot down every time I watch it.
1:22:54
Oh, definitely 100%. And Anthony Harvey's cross
1:22:57
cutting between the base and the bomber, That's all really good.
1:23:00
Yeah. And I think once we're left with
1:23:01
Mandrake in the office, looking through Ripper's notes and
1:23:03
trying to crack the code, I feel like totally locked in to what's
1:23:06
going to happen next. Yeah.
1:23:07
Yeah. Way more than I normally would
1:23:08
in the comedy. I think it's a tonal.
1:23:10
Switch again, isn't it? Yeah.
1:23:12
And that is the middle of Doctor Strangelove.
1:23:14
Phone calls with Soviet premiers, doomsday machines, and
1:23:17
a general who'd rather shoot himself than back down.
1:23:19
The diplomatic and military situations are both in chaos.
1:23:22
So let's talk about the people behind the scenes.
1:23:25
What to make some sense of it all?
1:23:26
Should we? Yeah, let's do it.
1:23:31
The crew. As we've been talking about,
1:23:36
Stanley Kubrick works very collaboratively on Doctor
1:23:38
Strangelove with his crew, and we're at the point now where
1:23:40
we're going to talk about some of those people.
1:23:43
Laurie Johnson has composed as one of them, and Gilbert
1:23:45
Taylor's director of photography is another.
1:23:47
But we're going to begin with the screenplay.
1:23:50
Yep, we are. So the credited screenwriters on
1:23:52
Doctor Strangelove are Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern and
1:23:55
Peter George. Kubrick had story credits going
1:23:58
back to his second feature Killer's Kiss.
1:24:00
I had Co written The Killing and Path of Glory.
1:24:03
Peter George wrote the Doctor Strangelove source novel Red
1:24:05
Alert. This was his and fellow novelist
1:24:07
Terry Southern's first screenplay credits.
1:24:11
Quite the trio Matt. The Holy Trinity.
1:24:14
How was their writing on Doctor Strangelove?
1:24:16
I mean, it's just a master class, isn't it, in going
1:24:19
between drama and comedy? Because you can look at the plot
1:24:22
and the plot is drum tight. Makes complete sense, but it's
1:24:25
not funny in the slightest. If anything, it's horrifying.
1:24:29
So to then add in the comic elements, and yes, a lot of that
1:24:32
comes through the performances, but it's also in the dialogue.
1:24:34
And it's the amount of dialogue that is funny but terrifying at
1:24:38
the same time. You know, Mr. President, I'm not
1:24:40
saying we wouldn't get a Hamus, but I do say it.
1:24:42
No more than 10 to 20 million killed tops depending on the
1:24:45
brakes. Like horribly plausible.
1:24:48
There's a genuine line said by genuine general but really funny
1:24:52
at the same time. And then adding the names in
1:24:55
this mean General Jack Ripper, Colonel Bat Guano.
1:24:57
Like if anyone doesn't know Guano is another name for bird
1:25:00
shit. You've literally got a character
1:25:02
called Batshit. These names shouldn't work.
1:25:04
There should be two OTT that should over balance evident, but
1:25:07
they don't. And the brilliance of the
1:25:09
writing is the comedy. You can't really like, breathe
1:25:13
and take a step back from it because it always chokes off the
1:25:16
comedy. Just when you think, oh, it's
1:25:17
all right, this is just going to be funny from now on, the right
1:25:20
man goes, actually, no, this is still really terrifying and you
1:25:22
should be scared as much as you're laughing.
1:25:25
Yeah, I mean, I don't think you make an all time classic without
1:25:27
having at least a very solid screenplay to base your film on.
1:25:31
Yeah. And that's the case.
1:25:32
Yeah. The concept coming from Red
1:25:33
Alert obviously is a very good one.
1:25:35
Nuclear anxiety was a big thing in the early 60s, so it taps
1:25:38
into that. I think it's applauded really
1:25:40
well, too. The story's engaging in the way
1:25:42
that we could between the three narratives like we talked about.
1:25:45
That's really well handled. But what I maybe find most
1:25:47
impressive are the amount of themes of the film.
1:25:50
It doesn't just bring up, but like addresses in quite a bit of
1:25:53
detail. 1st of this theme of power, or lack of it.
1:25:57
The whole narrative is about the powerlessness of powerful
1:25:59
people. And that contradiction comes up
1:26:01
all the way through. The opening crawl at the start
1:26:03
of the film tells us that the US Air Force's safeguard would
1:26:06
prevent catastrophic nuclear events occurring.
1:26:08
And then the whole plot proves that statement completely wrong.
1:26:11
I wonder if that's one of the reasons Cuba shoots in black and
1:26:13
white as well, creating a contrast visually too.
1:26:16
And there's a sexual theme throughout that.
1:26:17
We talked about the refuelling bombers in the opening
1:26:20
introduction to Turkets in with Miss Scott in the bikini and
1:26:22
heels. And it goes further.
1:26:24
Ripper tells us that he suspected communists had
1:26:26
contaminated the water supply because he couldn't perform
1:26:29
during the physical act of love. Those are his words.
1:26:32
I tend not to call it that. No, I mean I wouldn't.
1:26:36
I mean, he launches a nuclear strike on Russia because of
1:26:38
that. So that's some serious mail
1:26:40
insecurity. And then at the end, the whole
1:26:42
war room seems happy to accept the deaths of every living thing
1:26:45
on Earth as soon as Strangelove proposes that every man will get
1:26:48
10 women each to repopulate the planet.
1:26:50
So that's sexual themes everywhere once you start
1:26:52
looking. The idea being, I assume, that
1:26:55
sex makes the world go round or ends it in this case.
1:26:58
And the more obvious theme is around technology and how we're
1:27:01
going to become the victims of ourselves.
1:27:04
The bomb is technology, a doomsday device, his technology,
1:27:07
and the thing which prevents him stopping the attack is a broken
1:27:09
radio aboard the B52. So technology could be the death
1:27:13
of us all, it's saying. And that is definitely still
1:27:15
relevant. Yeah.
1:27:16
So exploring all these serious themes and doing it through a
1:27:19
non-stop comedy is impressive stuff and probably still
1:27:22
Hollywood's gold standard and political satirical writing.
1:27:26
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it strikes me that
1:27:28
Kubrick wasn't exactly laugh a minute.
1:27:32
Probably not. Probably not the funniest of men
1:27:34
that just jot down a few gags. So I'm going to make a film
1:27:37
about this. So I think it is very
1:27:39
opinionated in its themes. It does have one side of the
1:27:43
story and just saying how ludicrous all of this is.
1:27:45
But I do think it's very, very important to have someone like
1:27:48
Terry Southern there to create the satirical dialogue, to make
1:27:52
it funny and to make it make sense.
1:27:54
So you can see Kubrick and Peter George kind of laying down the
1:27:57
framework, Terry, something coming in and then just adding
1:27:59
this little bit of a light a touch on top of it, but keeping
1:28:02
their their opinions intact. And the whole thing about the
1:28:05
plot is that it's not, this is not a complicated story.
1:28:08
It's not a complicated film. No, it's 123.
1:28:11
That's it. But this is going to happen.
1:28:12
It is happening. It has happened.
1:28:14
And it's just everything that happens within them.
1:28:16
Three, you can't even break this down into three acts.
1:28:18
Really. This just feels like one act,
1:28:20
which I think is very brave to do.
1:28:22
Everyone can walk away from Doctor Strangelove knowing
1:28:24
exactly what they've seen and know exactly what it's about and
1:28:28
know that it's one person's opinion, but you find it very,
1:28:30
very hard to not agree with that opinion.
1:28:33
And I think a lot of that is down to the right.
1:28:34
Yeah, for sure. So after Cubic bought the rights
1:28:38
to Red Alert he asked Peter George if he wanted to Co write
1:28:40
that adaptation with him and the start of developing a screenplay
1:28:43
in 1962 that was called Edge of Doom.
1:28:46
And like the book, it was a serious thriller about the
1:28:48
threat of nuclear warfare. Yeah, the titles as well.
1:28:52
Like On the Edge of Destruction, The Delicate Balance of Terror,
1:28:56
Wonderful Bomb was one title. Wow.
1:28:58
Wonderful bomb. Yeah, Doctor Doomsday Or how to
1:29:02
start World War Three without even trying.
1:29:04
Nice. And Doctor Strangeloves secret
1:29:06
uses of Uranus. Wow.
1:29:08
Which I don't even want to know about to be honest.
1:29:11
Wow. OK, maybe that explains the end
1:29:13
of 2001, but we'll go, yeah. Maybe.
1:29:19
And Cubic later said that when he was right in the screenplay,
1:29:22
he found he kept having to change things so dilute them
1:29:24
because presenting them as serious was just too farcical.
1:29:27
He thought the best thing to do was to lean into the comedy and
1:29:30
change the Torn from thriller to satire.
1:29:33
Yeah, the most important creative decision of the whole
1:29:36
film, surely. By far one of the most important
1:29:38
creative decisions of Kubrick's career.
1:29:40
Possibly. I think so, yeah.
1:29:42
It really put them on the map. Imagine.
1:29:44
I mean just this. It takes some vision.
1:29:46
I like Imagine if threads was funny.
1:29:49
Exactly. Yeah, it is.
1:29:50
It takes real good. It's a real good see move that
1:29:53
say, well, that's not going to work, but it really does.
1:29:55
Yeah, and the decision to change the tone came in late 1962, and
1:29:59
that's when Cubic hired Terry Southern as Co writer.
1:30:02
Southern had a comedy novel published in 1959 called The
1:30:05
Magic Christian, about a billionaire.
1:30:07
He used his money to play elaborate pranks on people.
1:30:10
Peter Sellers gave the book to Kubik as a gift and Kubik
1:30:13
thought the tone similar to what he wanted for Strangelove, so
1:30:15
brought something in and he flew to London for two months and
1:30:18
worked directly with Kubik. Brilliant.
1:30:20
Yeah, I saw an interview with Southern son Niall, and he said
1:30:22
that Kubrick's brief to Terry was usually, what's the most
1:30:25
outrageous thing this current I can say and still be credible.
1:30:28
Nice. And that rings true with what we
1:30:30
see in the film, I think. Yeah.
1:30:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that book, The Magic
1:30:34
Christian, that was made into a film as well in 1969, also
1:30:37
starring Peter Sellers. Oh, really?
1:30:39
Yeah, and Ringo Starr, obviously.
1:30:42
That's why you've heard of it. I was thinking it sound
1:30:44
familiar. Yeah.
1:30:45
Ringo in the. Ringo.
1:30:47
I'm not going to run to that one like.
1:30:51
You have to be your completeness to watch that one, yeah.
1:30:54
So sudden coming in to rewrite the screenplay LED to a fallout
1:30:56
between Kubrick and Peter George.
1:30:58
In 1964, Life magazine published an article about Southern where
1:31:02
they called him Doctor Strangelove, principal author,
1:31:05
and George hit the roof. He wrote a letter to the
1:31:07
magazine and they published it in their edition the next month.
1:31:10
Yes, it was later said that George had written the original
1:31:12
novel and spent ten months on the script.
1:31:15
And Southern, in George's words, fittingly received a screenplay
1:31:18
credit in 3rd place behind Mr. Kubrick and myself.
1:31:21
Right. Always cause problems.
1:31:23
You screenplay credits doing that.
1:31:25
Always. Yeah, again, a massive lack of
1:31:27
communication across the board, I think.
1:31:29
Yeah. And despite George's objections
1:31:32
to the credits, there were some major changes from his book to
1:31:34
the film. The character of Doctor
1:31:36
Strangelove wasn't in the book at all.
1:31:38
He was added to the film after Southern was hired.
1:31:40
Right. I mean, that's a pretty big
1:31:41
change. Huge.
1:31:42
Yeah, the title character. He's earned that credit.
1:31:46
Exactly. Yeah, in earlier versions the
1:31:48
character was called von Klutz, which a little bit on the nose
1:31:51
maybe. Just a bit, yeah.
1:31:53
And other characters had their names changed from the book.
1:31:56
Major Howard became Mandrake, Brigadier Quinton became Jack D
1:32:00
Ripper, and in the novel the US President was unnamed and he
1:32:03
obviously becomes Merkin Muffley.
1:32:05
All ridiculous names in the film.
1:32:07
All ridiculous, yeah. Mandrake's also the name of one
1:32:10
of the defenders of the Earth, remember?
1:32:12
That it is. I remember that.
1:32:13
Defenders. Magician, wasn't he?
1:32:15
Yeah. Yeah, Mandrake, I always think
1:32:18
of that at some point when I say this film do.
1:32:21
You ever say defenders of the earth without saying defenders
1:32:24
straight after? Defenders.
1:32:26
Of the youth defenders, Kubrick took some elements from the
1:32:30
script from real life The idea of a doomsday machine had been
1:32:33
created by an American physicist called Herman Cahn.
1:32:36
Kubrick spoke to him and asked him how he'd build 1.
1:32:39
Can't give him the exact specifications he would use and
1:32:42
that's what's in the film. Really dangerous that.
1:32:45
Yeah, don't tell that to Kubrick of all people.
1:32:46
Yeah, because he will build 1. Yeah, these people were mad.
1:32:49
Yeah, I've got a good idea. If anyone attacks us, we'll just
1:32:52
destroy the whole world. So I'm good.
1:32:54
Yeah. This came out around the time of
1:32:57
the Cuban Missile Crisis as well, 1962.
1:32:59
That was obviously a big influence on the film.
1:33:02
Yeah, definitely. And General Ripper's theory
1:33:05
about fluidation was based on real life as well.
1:33:07
In the 1950s and 60s there was a political organization in the US
1:33:11
called the John Birch Society and they put out a conspiracy
1:33:14
theory about fluoride in the water being a communist plot to
1:33:17
weaken US children and as a result some U.S. states refused
1:33:21
to adopt fluidization of water. Ludicrous.
1:33:25
They're still around the day. The John Bush Society, of course
1:33:27
it is. Far right extremists,
1:33:29
apparently, so that's not a new thing either.
1:33:32
No. Before we move on from the
1:33:35
writing, we have yet another ATR M Patron question.
1:33:38
It's on the screenplay and Lou Pellegrino is here to ask it.
1:33:41
Hello, Lou. Hello, Lou.
1:33:42
So Lou asks Dr. Strangelove is such a brilliant satire of the
1:33:46
Cold War arms race. What geopolitical topics today
1:33:49
are most ripe for Strangelove esque satires?
1:33:52
Why these topics? And who would you choose to
1:33:54
direct the films? Right?
1:33:56
Lot to unpack there, Matt. Wow, isn't it just?
1:33:59
Come on Matt, it's not like you to get geopolitical.
1:34:01
I know love a bit of geopolitics, me, you know, it's
1:34:04
a great question. But the problem is I think we're
1:34:07
living in an age that is beyond satire.
1:34:08
You know, like, how do you satirize Trump and everything
1:34:11
he's doing? He's doing fine himself.
1:34:13
Exactly, like you could satirize George W Bush because he was a
1:34:18
buffoon. So they are the targets.
1:34:21
I don't know if you could, but who would like to say try?
1:34:23
I mean, the obvious answer is Armando Iannucci.
1:34:26
But The thing is, if you ever see an interview with him, he
1:34:28
gets us all the time. Would you ever bring back The
1:34:30
Thick of It? And he always says I can't.
1:34:33
Politics is beyond satire, you know, I can't satirize these
1:34:35
people. Well, I think that's the issue.
1:34:37
I think other than him, I mean, the corn spring to mind because
1:34:40
they've also had a very straight face support to comedy.
1:34:42
And actually, I think Burn After Eden is a really underrated
1:34:45
satire of government ineptitude in red tape and paranoia.
1:34:48
So I don't know if you can't satirize anything these days,
1:34:51
but that's who I'd like to see try.
1:34:54
Yeah, I mean, there's probably no shortage of material in terms
1:34:56
of subjects for satire AI in the tech industry, probably right
1:35:01
for the Kubik treatment. I don't love that.
1:35:03
Yeah. Like billionaire tech broad with
1:35:04
what seems like God complexes, governments that don't seem to
1:35:07
understand the technology they're trying to regulate, and
1:35:09
stakes that I think we might not grasp until it's too late.
1:35:12
Yeah. Well, the original script, the
1:35:13
Kubit rule for AI might have had some satire in it until
1:35:16
Spielberg got hold of it. I wouldn't be surprised.
1:35:18
Yeah, maybe, yeah. Climate change will be another
1:35:20
easy target. I think social media meddling
1:35:22
with elections, like obviously being undermined by dudes making
1:35:26
memes, it's unbelievable. I think Kubik would love to get
1:35:28
into all that. As for director, yeah, you're
1:35:30
right. Matt or Mando Ianucci seems a
1:35:32
safe choice. Like The Death of Stalin proved
1:35:34
you can do that. Yeah, political satire, but I'd
1:35:37
go for Bong Joon Hope. Oh nice.
1:35:39
Parasite make some satirical points about class and status
1:35:43
Does, yes. And I think he's got the Kubik
1:35:45
madness as well, so he'd be great.
1:35:47
Yeah. I'm not 1,000,000 miles away
1:35:48
from you actually, John. To be fair, I haven't got
1:35:50
Ianucci in there, but there is a few that I think could be just
1:35:54
so that people could understand what they're about a little bit
1:35:57
more. I mean, you'd have like the US
1:35:59
versus China, you know, the strategic competition, AI and
1:36:01
tech as you've spoke about trade and tariffs.
1:36:04
Like we get someone like Fincher involved in that lovely societal
1:36:08
polarization, you know, streets versus the elites, all of that
1:36:11
kind of bringing all that together.
1:36:13
And I think if you get someone like Ken Loach addressing that
1:36:15
to that kind of scale would be really interesting.
1:36:18
Then you'd really show people, you know, what was really going
1:36:20
on there with the top 1%. I think it would open a lot of
1:36:23
eyes as he tries to do, but give that boy more money and give him
1:36:25
a platform, please. And the big one for me is this
1:36:28
question of identity. Who are we?
1:36:30
You've got your online identity. There's a lot of things going on
1:36:33
with gender, with sexual orientation.
1:36:35
You and I think someone like Nicholas Wind and Wren getting
1:36:37
hold of that, making it really kind of neon and gritty, I think
1:36:41
because he would really understand from that point of
1:36:43
view what it means. Yeah, a few great ones there,
1:36:45
Westie. Yeah, nice of.
1:36:47
Course they work writing Doctor Strangelove, Stanley Kuber,
1:36:49
Peter George and Terry Southern were nominated for Best adapted
1:36:52
screenplay at the Oscars, and they lost out to Edward on hold
1:36:55
for Beckett historical drama. Right.
1:36:57
Yes. OK, no Oscar then.
1:36:59
But as far as we're concerned, some brilliant satirical writing
1:37:02
on Doctor Strangelove that makes some timeless points and still
1:37:05
holds up to the next century. Yeah.
1:37:07
Yeah, some of the very best, very understated, very
1:37:09
important. From the writing, we're moving
1:37:13
on to the music and the composer on Doctor Strangelove in Laurie
1:37:16
Johnson, a Brit, This was his 12th feature.
1:37:19
Before this, he'd had a collaboration with a couple of
1:37:21
British directors at the time in Jay Lee Thompson and Gilbert
1:37:24
Gunn. The most famous film he worked
1:37:26
on being the crime drama Tiger Bay in 1959.
1:37:29
Right, a composer with Craig's Matt.
1:37:32
How was the music on Doctor Strangelove?
1:37:35
I think it's really, really clever because it's minimal, but
1:37:38
when it's a, you really notice it because it's making a point
1:37:42
and it's either adding to the comic nature of the film or it's
1:37:45
pulling it back from going too far.
1:37:46
So you've got to try a little tenderness over the side of the
1:37:49
pains. We feel it, which gives it that
1:37:51
romantic edge which Cubic is aiming for.
1:37:53
We'll Meet Again at the end of the Planet is darkly, darkly
1:37:56
funny and ironic. But then the other use of it is
1:38:00
when we keep cutting back to the B52 and it's got the military
1:38:03
drum beat underneath it when Johnny comes marching on that
1:38:05
tune and that completely like punctures the comedy and
1:38:09
replaces it with tension. Yes, we've been nothing, but
1:38:11
these guys are deadly serious and they're going to drop an
1:38:13
atomic bomb and start World War 3, and that's what that music
1:38:16
tells you. So it's minimal like say there's
1:38:19
not loads of it, but that's because Cubic just wanted for
1:38:22
very, very specific reasons. Yeah, he does.
1:38:24
I think the music's really interesting, or rather it's
1:38:26
uses, because there's actually very little of it.
1:38:29
Yeah, yeah. Once you get past the opening
1:38:31
credits, the film is mostly silent in terms of music.
1:38:34
There's no score underneath the dialogue scenes in the war room
1:38:36
or in Ripa's office. That's obviously deliberate
1:38:39
choice. It makes those places feel more
1:38:41
real, more like a documentary almost.
1:38:43
That's the intention, I think. But it also does mean, like
1:38:46
you're saying, Mark, that when the music comes in, it's more
1:38:49
noticeable. Yeah.
1:38:50
When Johnny comes marching home, that arrangement in the score
1:38:53
that scores almost all the B52 sequences.
1:38:55
And that's such a specific choice, gives those scenes this,
1:38:58
like, heroic, yeah, patriotic quality.
1:39:01
But I think it's done ironically as well.
1:39:03
It definitely is, Yeah. And we'll obviously get the same
1:39:05
at the end with VRLN, which we'll talk about.
1:39:07
So I think Johnson's work, yeah, is mostly about arrangement and
1:39:10
placement rather than original compositions.
1:39:13
It is. And he does that really well.
1:39:15
That restraint gives Kubrick what he wants.
1:39:16
I think this idea of like less is more.
1:39:19
Think the themes and the narrative are the most important
1:39:21
things to Kubrick, and the way the music's handled is there
1:39:24
just to back that up. Yeah, it's very much for the
1:39:26
audience. I think the music and this, this
1:39:29
is the way you think and this is the way you're supposed to
1:39:30
think. The whole when Johnny comes
1:39:32
marching home for the B52's, it's like it almost drowns out
1:39:35
their sense of intelligence. They can't think of anything
1:39:38
else but this beat. That's what they're marching do,
1:39:40
and they're not going to stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:39:42
Again, reminds me of like the Mickey Mouse theme tune at the
1:39:44
end of Full Metal Jacket. That's awesome, yeah.
1:39:47
He's always got these needle drops at the end of his films,
1:39:50
these real moments where he adds these great relevant tunes that
1:39:55
you just think that shouldn't really fit, but it really does,
1:39:58
and it's really sparing. He doesn't reinforce any scenes
1:40:01
or any character or any motivation or any emotion.
1:40:04
But again, to level it like a documentary, it almost bookends.
1:40:07
You've got a song at the start, then a song at the end and
1:40:10
something in the middle just to kind of set the tone.
1:40:12
It's a real lesson in restraint and necessity, The music in this
1:40:15
film. Absolutely.
1:40:16
Yeah. And Laurie Johnson was a
1:40:18
classically trained English composer who'd studied at the
1:40:21
Royal College of Music under famous composers like Ralph
1:40:24
Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells.
1:40:26
And by 1964, he'd already conducted Bernard Herman's
1:40:29
scores for Hitchcock's Vertigo North by Northwestern Psycho,
1:40:33
and won an Ivan Novello Award in 1959 for the stage musical Look
1:40:37
Up Your Daughters and had scored British films like Tiger Bear.
1:40:41
And he was working in London at the time Cubic was prepping Dr.
1:40:44
Strangelove, which is how Cubic came across him.
1:40:47
He also wrote the theme music to some classic British TV like
1:40:50
This Is Your Life All Right and The Avengers Great.
1:40:54
Oh amazing. This is your life.
1:40:56
That music always used to freak me out.
1:40:58
Is it massive? So bombastic.
1:41:02
This is your life you piece of shit.
1:41:07
And interestingly, one of the Jay Lee Thompson films you'd
1:41:09
scored had been I Aim at the Stars in 1960, right?
1:41:12
That was a biopic based on when I von Braun.
1:41:15
They were German rocket designer we talked about and that played
1:41:18
a part in Kubrick hiring him. Oh, maybe yeah.
1:41:21
Possibly. And like I said earlier about
1:41:23
the boot ending and then putting one in the middle, I mean,
1:41:25
Johnson creates 3 key pieces in here for the three acts of the
1:41:28
film, of the three motivations of the film.
1:41:30
So you've got the instrumental arrangement of Try a Little
1:41:32
Tenderness for the opening the bomb Run, which will get various
1:41:36
arrangements of the American Civil War song When Johnny Comes
1:41:39
Marching Home, as we've talked about, which plays during the
1:41:41
B52 sequences and adds a real seriousness to that.
1:41:44
And he did an arrangement of Vera Lin's We'll Meet Again,
1:41:47
which plays over the closing nuclear explosion montage, which
1:41:50
I think is very, very clever because that was a real message
1:41:54
of hope in World War 2. They would play that as the left
1:41:57
to families that we'll meet again.
1:41:58
It's going to be OK. This plane over the end of it's
1:42:01
like #1. Yeah.
1:42:03
That's all point, I think. Yeah.
1:42:05
Yeah. Amazing.
1:42:05
But the use of When Johnny Comes Marching Home, that's really
1:42:08
interesting. I think that was written in 1863
1:42:10
during the American Civil War. Like you said, I was just
1:42:13
talking about the war hero. But then it was rewritten in
1:42:15
1867 as Johnny I Hardly Knew You, and then it became a
1:42:19
popular anti war song. I think that's why Kubrick used
1:42:22
it, creating this contrast of kind of pro war and anti war at
1:42:25
the same time, which is just brilliant.
1:42:27
Yeah, really, really good. And at the end of the recording
1:42:30
sessions, Cube Victor Johnson. It was the best soundtrack to
1:42:33
any of his films, and Johnson later said Cubic was one of the
1:42:36
three greatest talents in the entertainment industry he'd
1:42:39
worked with alongside Peter Sellers and Bernard Herman.
1:42:42
That's a trio, but my favorite soundtrack.
1:42:45
There's hardly any music, none of it's new, and Archer was all
1:42:48
the tracks. Of course you loved it.
1:42:51
Well done, Laurie, Well done. Yeah, perfect.
1:42:53
Yeah. Laurie Johnson wasn't nominated
1:42:57
for any major awards for his work on Doctor Strangelove, but
1:42:59
that place from Kubrick is big and for us, a good example of
1:43:03
restraint and thematic music in a film.
1:43:05
Yeah, very, very much. It's not what you use, it's how
1:43:08
you use it and where it is. Now we're getting into the
1:43:13
visuals, and the director of photography on Doctor
1:43:15
Strangelove was Gilbert Taylor. Yeah.
1:43:17
By this point, he was a highly regarded Hollywood DP with over
1:43:20
30 films under his belt, including Seven Days to Noon,
1:43:23
High Treason and A Woman in a Dressing Gown.
1:43:26
Right. An experienced head here, then,
1:43:28
Westie. Yeah.
1:43:29
How does Doctor Strangelove look?
1:43:32
Absolutely shocked that. You didn't put a Hard Day's
1:43:34
Night in there. What was that before?
1:43:35
I thought was after this. Just before I think they came
1:43:38
out the same time. So yeah, he knows what he's
1:43:39
doing. Incredible cinematographer
1:43:41
because he's really, he's standing up to Kubrick and he
1:43:44
does a lot and he has to because Kubrick's coming in with a lot
1:43:47
of ideas. He's trying to tell Taylor what
1:43:49
to do and how to do his job, and he knows what he's doing at this
1:43:52
point. I mean, the lighting in the wall
1:43:54
room, the source lighting in that is incredible.
1:43:57
So well done. The lighting, even in Ripper's
1:44:00
office, is fantastic. When they shoot the windows out
1:44:02
and it goes completely black, they just leave it the way it
1:44:05
is. The source lighting is just
1:44:06
incredibly well done. Yeah, the black and white in
1:44:08
this looks absolutely fantastic. There's a really lovely tone all
1:44:12
the way through. And the storming of the base is
1:44:16
absolutely amazing. It's some of the best combat
1:44:19
footage that you'll see. Yeah.
1:44:21
And not a lot of people know that this was actually Gilbert
1:44:23
Taylor and Stanley Kubrick in army fatigues with an R reflex
1:44:27
each. And they said, you go with that
1:44:29
squad, I'm going with this one. And we're just going to shoot
1:44:31
the footage. Well, as we see it as it goes.
1:44:33
And that was just them two just in the middle, said Stanley was
1:44:36
a good cameraman. I was a good cameraman.
1:44:38
So we just went in there, the two of them.
1:44:39
So it's them two, and they're just lovely, basically battling
1:44:41
to get the best shots they can. Now, what's even Private Ryan?
1:44:44
It's exactly the same. Yeah.
1:44:46
There's some homages to that. There's a silhouetted machine
1:44:48
gun from the German position shooting down on the boards that
1:44:51
again, is completely ripped from this.
1:44:53
Thanks. Spielberg's watches.
1:44:54
My oh, people don't really notice that bit in Strangelove.
1:44:57
And when Gilbert Taylor was first approached to BDP on it,
1:45:01
he had to do all the flying sequences.
1:45:02
So everything that you see on the open and everything you see
1:45:04
the B52, that was all shot over Greenland and that was all shot
1:45:07
like before production. And Kubrick was like, he hated
1:45:10
the fly, so he wouldn't do it. And there was 1 moment where
1:45:13
Taylor's in one of the B52, so he's in one of the planes
1:45:16
bolting all of the cameras to the sides to get everything that
1:45:18
he wanted. And he heard this horrible
1:45:21
screech from the back. And he said it was the most
1:45:23
horrific thing he'd heard because they went Stanley's here
1:45:26
and he got on the plane. Like Darth Vader coming in.
1:45:30
Yeah, exactly. So it's Kubrick's a turns
1:45:32
around, he's Oh no. And Kubrick's talking to the
1:45:34
crew going these cameras are bolted down too tight.
1:45:36
Like you wanted a little bit of shake in the camera and killed
1:45:38
the tail. I was like, that's ridiculous.
1:45:40
I want these super steady. I want them bolted down really
1:45:43
strong. And Kubrick was going through
1:45:45
each crew members saying I want this, I want this, I want this.
1:45:47
So Taylor went up to the pilot and just went, can you turn 1 of
1:45:49
the engines on? So turned the engine on and
1:45:51
Kubrick bolded out the back of the plane thinking it was going
1:45:54
to take off. So he legged it.
1:45:56
And then then Taylor said he went around every position and
1:45:58
tightened all of the cameras back up because that's how he
1:46:00
wanted it done. But that's the kind of DP he
1:46:02
was. He knew what he wanted, and he
1:46:03
got them shots. And I think Kubrick would have
1:46:05
said, yeah, you know what, He was absolutely right to do that.
1:46:08
Not that he ever did. But you need someone like that
1:46:10
in a film like this to take it to the next level.
1:46:13
And I don't think Kubrick would admit it, but I think he learned
1:46:15
a lot from Gilbert Taylor in this film.
1:46:17
It's so beautifully shot, it's so elegantly shot and it really
1:46:21
adds to the whole piece. Yeah, I mean, he's been around a
1:46:24
wild Gilbert Taylor already, but a bit of a fresh challenge even
1:46:26
for him, I think, with the ramped up political satire.
1:46:29
Yeah, but he rises to it no problem.
1:46:31
I mean, this is the mid 60s, obviously.
1:46:33
So the decision to shoot in black and white is a very
1:46:35
deliberate 1. And I think they maybe do it for
1:46:37
a few reasons. It gives the film that
1:46:39
documentary or news reel kind of look that makes the events feel
1:46:42
like they could actually happen. I think there's a film noir feel
1:46:45
at times as well. Definitely that shot from below
1:46:47
closer. But Sterling Hayden and RIP his
1:46:49
office when he's smoking the cigar near the start, really
1:46:52
dramatic. He looks like a dictator or
1:46:54
something. Yeah.
1:46:55
And more practically, shooting in black and white I guess
1:46:57
lowers costs, which helps when your cast is charging free for
1:47:00
the price of sex. Exactly.
1:47:02
Yeah, and matches the footage they got of the refueling at the
1:47:04
start. Yes, that would have been a
1:47:05
black and white as well. Exactly.
1:47:07
Yeah. And what's impressive, I think,
1:47:09
is getting depth from shooting in black and white sometimes
1:47:11
seems to be a challenge for DPS. And they get lots of depth here,
1:47:14
especially in the war room. It seems to go on and up for
1:47:17
miles. Yeah, the famous shot of Doctor
1:47:19
Strangelove coming out the shadows as a good example.
1:47:22
He, like, emerges from darkness. Not just a great shot, but great
1:47:25
storytelling because it gives us his back story kind of visually
1:47:28
as well. Yeah.
1:47:29
And Taylor's Lightning and he's shooting creative choices adds
1:47:32
loads to that, of course. I mean, I just want to go back
1:47:35
to what I said in my first scene.
1:47:36
It's it's the use of space that cubic gets him to use here
1:47:39
because you think of that vast size of the war room and he's
1:47:42
very selective of when he does go into a close up or two shot
1:47:45
here. And I think that's so deliberate
1:47:47
because it's like the shining Nike, how many times in that
1:47:49
film do you see the torrents is just framed in that fast, empty
1:47:53
hotel because anything could then jump into frame and get
1:47:56
them. And here I think he's constantly
1:47:58
surrounded in characters with empty space because it makes
1:48:01
them look insignificant because we are in this situation.
1:48:04
Men are basically like tiny insects.
1:48:06
He is scrabbling around trying to save themselves.
1:48:09
But in the face of the bomb and insanity, we are powerless.
1:48:13
And that's what I think he's doing here.
1:48:15
And he's contrasting that with how cramped Kong's plane is
1:48:18
because they are the only people in control of their situation.
1:48:21
Lovely in the film, and it's right in front of them.
1:48:23
So it's all about how Cubic is putting across this main theme A
1:48:26
with the use of the DP, which I think is really, really
1:48:29
effective. Yeah, it seems like there's a
1:48:31
real lack of coverage on this. It feels like that, Yeah, it
1:48:34
does, Definitely, yeah. By 1963, when Doctor Strangelove
1:48:37
began production, Taylor was known as a master of documentary
1:48:40
style black and white cinematography.
1:48:42
He'd shot the Bolton brothers political thriller Seven Days to
1:48:45
Noon in 1950 and pioneered the use of bounced and reflected
1:48:49
light to create natural imagery. He'd also shot the special
1:48:52
effects cinematography on the Dam Busters where he had to work
1:48:55
with a lot of airplane based effects and I think you can see
1:48:57
a lot of that in this. Definitely a pretty good fit
1:49:00
here. Then he shot Repulsion as well.
1:49:02
Roman Polanski film in 1965. OK, one of the execs on now,
1:49:06
Michael Clinger. He described Taylor as one of
1:49:08
the most expensive cameramen in the business, of course.
1:49:12
Yeah, Cooper called him one for the price of six.
1:49:14
He didn't, really. And for the price of 10.
1:49:19
And Taylor said one of the reasons Cubic hide him was that
1:49:22
Cubic didn't like flying. So we need to someone who could
1:49:25
shoot a lot of the aerial footage of the Arctic for the
1:49:27
B52 sequences. Taylor had a lot of experience
1:49:30
with that on films, as we've been saying, like the dumb
1:49:32
Busters. So while Cubic was in pre
1:49:34
production, Taylor was in AB17 Flying Ford was over Iceland,
1:49:38
Greenland and northern Canada shooting all the aerial footage
1:49:41
we see if the B52 and he ended up covering about 28,000 miles.
1:49:46
Wow, yeah, then they shot the model of the B52 on top of that
1:49:49
footage using rear projection. Those aerial shots though,
1:49:52
there's loads of them. I think they look really good.
1:49:54
I like them a lot. Yeah, they look great.
1:49:56
I mean, the B52 stuff's a bit questionable.
1:49:58
It is, but I still quite like it though.
1:50:00
I still quite like it. I think Tarantino did that and
1:50:02
kill Bill. You know when the planes coming.
1:50:04
Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:50:06
It's. Got a similar kind of vibe to
1:50:07
it, yeah. Gilbert Taylor's wife, D
1:50:09
Vaughan, said that while they were shooting the aerial footage
1:50:12
over Greenland, Taylor and his camera crew accidentally filmed
1:50:15
a secret U.S. military base. 2 military planes that we had
1:50:19
alongside them and forced them down.
1:50:21
They weren't released until the military was convinced that
1:50:23
there weren't Soviet spies. A lot going hand in hand here,
1:50:27
isn't it? Yeah, that must be a tense few
1:50:29
hours that could be in the film that.
1:50:31
He could have been. Yeah, exactly.
1:50:32
Yeah, and apparently filming in the Arctic, the inside of the
1:50:35
plane was so cold that the walls would, like, burn your fingers
1:50:38
to touch them. Like the DeLorean?
1:50:44
And one time they opened the cameras and the film, it all
1:50:45
just turned to dust, it was that cold.
1:50:48
Nightmare. And Taylor also said there was
1:50:50
some tension between him and Kubik because Kubik was so
1:50:53
controlling. Cubic would shoot Polaroid
1:50:56
images of setups to show Taylor how we wanted it to look.
1:50:59
And Taylor said he'd ask, What do you think?
1:51:01
I'd say it's dreadful. And that's how we got on.
1:51:05
I sometimes felt as if his hand was the brush and I was the
1:51:08
paint coming off it. Oh, that's a great quote, yeah.
1:51:11
It is really good. Gilbert Taylor wasn't nominated
1:51:15
for any major awards for his work on Doctor Strangelove, but
1:51:17
his cinematography did help define the look of Cold War
1:51:20
cinema. Yeah, and of course he went on
1:51:22
to be DP on a little old film called Star Wars.
1:51:25
He didn't go on with your Lucas either.
1:51:27
No planes Elstree, there's your problem.
1:51:29
Yeah, exactly. Both Gilbert Taylor and Doctor
1:51:32
Strangelove, I think we agree, some great black and white
1:51:35
photography that handles the absurd and the pretty terrifying
1:51:38
equally well. Fantastic stuff.
1:51:40
It's a beautiful thing to look at, but arrow one thing to
1:51:43
experience. Yeah, so Kubik the master
1:51:45
puppeteer was pulling the strings as always, but he had
1:51:48
some great people working with him in his crew and in Terry
1:51:50
Southern and Peter George as Co writers, Laurie Johnson as
1:51:53
composer and Gilbert Taylor's DP.
1:51:56
Some outstanding work all across the crew.
1:51:59
Yeah, fantastic. Yep, the end.
1:52:07
It's time for the final active Doctor Strangelove, and
1:52:09
everything is a breaking point. We're going to be talking about
1:52:12
the climax, where the war room scrambles to prevent catastrophe
1:52:15
and we see the most iconic bomb drop in cinema.
1:52:18
But first, Mandrix trying to save the world with a phone
1:52:21
call. He is.
1:52:22
He is a defender of the Earth. So with General RIP are dead and
1:52:28
the recall code discovered, Mandrake needs to call the war
1:52:31
room and a Colonel Batguano, played by Keenan win.
1:52:34
Meanwhile, the B52 crew face their own crisis.
1:52:37
They're running out of fuel and need to change their target to
1:52:39
complete their mission. Yep, Matt, the fuse is burning.
1:52:43
How's it all going for you? I mean, it's going well for
1:52:46
Mandrake because he's, as I've been saying, the most capable
1:52:49
person in the entire film, and he's made a breakthrough.
1:52:52
He's got the code. He can save the day.
1:52:54
He just has to get through to the president.
1:52:56
But then Major, but Guano turns up and it's the point that Kubik
1:53:00
is making again and again and again.
1:53:02
This situation is bad enough as it is, and it's made worse
1:53:05
because the worst people are in charge of dealing with it.
1:53:08
And it's that blind military bureaucracy again in this guy,
1:53:12
the confrontation that these two have.
1:53:14
And Guano just comes out with, I think you're some kind of
1:53:17
deviated prevert. Like, what on earth are you
1:53:21
talking about? What is this madness?
1:53:24
And even when Mandrake finally convinces him, no, what I'm in
1:53:27
charge after RIP his death, the president will want to talk to
1:53:30
me. He doesn't have the right change
1:53:32
for the phone call. He can't make the collect call.
1:53:35
Operator, it's station. Can I make it a trunk call?
1:53:37
Oh, no, still don't have enough change.
1:53:39
It's just the amount of infuriating roadblocks to get
1:53:42
anything done here. It's like mankind.
1:53:44
We are our own worst enemies. For the sake of a few cents
1:53:48
worth of change, he can't get through to the president and
1:53:51
even suggest Nguano shoot the lock off the cork machine and
1:53:54
get some change like his immediate direction.
1:53:56
That's private property. No one apart from Mandrake has
1:54:00
any sense of what's actually at stake here.
1:54:02
You just want to read to the screen and strangle these people
1:54:05
and obviously the iconic line. You're going to have to answer
1:54:08
to the Coca-Cola Company. There's not going to be a
1:54:11
Coca-Cola Company to answer to unless.
1:54:14
You. Help Mandrake.
1:54:15
At this point it's an infuriating saying, but again,
1:54:18
it's just the madness of war. Yeah, for sure.
1:54:21
I think the whole Mandrake and Guano sequence, it's about
1:54:23
probably as absurdist as the film goes, which is saying
1:54:26
something. But what works is how it
1:54:28
reflects all that, like, political madness that we've
1:54:30
seen, where the system is designed to protect us, other
1:54:33
things that end up destroying us.
1:54:34
Commandrick's got the code. He knows how to stop everything,
1:54:37
but he can't get through because he doesn't have any spare
1:54:39
change. So that theme of technology
1:54:41
failing humanity again, and I think Sellers is still great.
1:54:44
I like it when Mandrake's telling Guano to shoot the core
1:54:47
machine and he's like, shoot it with a gun.
1:54:49
That's what the bullets are for you.
1:54:51
Twit and actually destroying technology to get the means to
1:54:56
get communications within human beings I think is really
1:54:59
important. So you have to destroy it to get
1:55:01
that back. And Keenan Wynn was a well known
1:55:04
character actor at the time he was cast.
1:55:06
He'd started on Broadway in the 30s before moving to Hollywood
1:55:09
and before Doctor Strangelove had been in Any Get Your Gun,
1:55:12
Royal Wedding, Touch of Evil and The Absent Minded Professor.
1:55:15
And he was later in Once Upon a Time in the rest of few years
1:55:18
after this. Oh, nice, yeah.
1:55:20
Yeah, I mean, Kubit presumably cast him because he wanted
1:55:23
someone who could play the role really straight.
1:55:25
A bit like with Sterling Hayden, I guess.
1:55:28
Yeah, so straight after that, we're back in the B52, We're
1:55:30
running out of fuel. We need to drop the bomb on
1:55:32
something. We're not just going to drop
1:55:34
this in the water, come too far to throw this in the drink and
1:55:37
they can't get to the primary. And this elements here where
1:55:40
there's humanity involved, there is a moral compass that is
1:55:44
available if you want to ditch it, if you want to stop, if you
1:55:47
want to turn around, if you want to just try and think, think
1:55:49
about the crew and think about Nope, we need to get this done.
1:55:53
And I think it's just so well played because they're like
1:55:57
looking for a target, They're looking for a justification,
1:55:59
They're looking for somewhere to drop this bomb.
1:56:01
And they're like, oh, well, we can't get to that one.
1:56:03
So what's next? Yeah, it's kind of when you.
1:56:05
It's another food analogy. I'm really sorry.
1:56:09
If you're going to get a take away and that one shot and
1:56:11
you're like, oh, which one? What's next to it?
1:56:13
Fancy a pizza? But I don't want to Domino's.
1:56:16
I don't want to go there. And it feels like that kind of
1:56:18
flicking through the just like, look on what they can drop the
1:56:21
bomb on, that one will do. It's not important.
1:56:24
What's important is that they drop this bomb on something is
1:56:27
that they achieve their orders, their commands.
1:56:30
It's a terrifying sequence, but one that you think, well, this
1:56:32
is now inevitable. How is this going to play out?
1:56:36
Well, yeah, the recall cord's gone out, but Kong's B52's got a
1:56:39
damage radio. So then I got the message and
1:56:41
now the leaking fuel. So there's some dramatic irony.
1:56:44
Yeah, there's now 2 reasons to should turn back and they still
1:56:46
don't. And the Congress decision to
1:56:49
change the target to a closer location, that's got meaning.
1:56:51
I think he's doing his job and following orders, but that's
1:56:54
kind of the problem when everyone just blindly follows
1:56:57
orders, no one stops the question whether the order
1:56:59
should be followed at all. In this case, they definitely
1:57:02
shouldn't. And I think considering it's
1:57:04
been a farcical comedy a lot, the 10 aboard the plane feels
1:57:07
pretty nerve wracking. Poop in mind just to shift us
1:57:10
through all these tones. Like effortlessly it seems like.
1:57:13
This whole sequence is just like Memphis Belle.
1:57:16
Yeah, that's made that a 2 hour film.
1:57:17
Exactly. So as I've been saying, the B50
1:57:20
twos first target is a ballistic missile complex at Laputa, which
1:57:24
is a fictional place with the name Laputa comes from Jonathan
1:57:27
Swift's Gulliver's Travels where it's a giant floating island
1:57:30
full of scientists and intellectuals who have power
1:57:32
over ordinary people, but it detached from reality.
1:57:35
The talker then changes to court Loss, another fictional Russian
1:57:38
place. Yes, Laputa was deliberately
1:57:41
named. Yeah, and Laputa also means
1:57:43
prostitute in Spanish, apparently.
1:57:45
So another sexual reference maybe?
1:57:48
OK. Yeah, maybe.
1:57:49
So that was the original primary.
1:57:51
Laputa was, yeah. Right, so Jack D Ripper wanted
1:57:53
to kill the prostitute. Wow, Lovely, Brilliant.
1:57:58
There you go. Very nice fighting meanings.
1:58:01
No one else is there, Westie. Well, that's what I'm here for.
1:58:06
So the recall cords out, but one plane remains and Major Kong is
1:58:09
determined to see his mission through.
1:58:12
Time for the climax, I think. Yep.
1:58:14
OK. The finale of Doctor Strangelove
1:58:18
delivers one of cinema's most famous images.
1:58:20
Mechanical failures above the B52 result in Kong manually
1:58:23
releasing the bomb and writing it to Earth like a rodeo bull.
1:58:27
Back in the war room, Doctor Strangelove takes centre stage
1:58:29
with his surreal vision for humanity.
1:58:31
Survival. Yeah.
1:58:32
So how was the climax play out with it?
1:58:35
It plays out in very tense sequence.
1:58:37
This. I think it's really well done
1:58:39
and Kong disappears. The technologies fail in them,
1:58:43
which should be a red flag of like, well, let's just not
1:58:45
bother then. Let's just leave it because how
1:58:50
many signs do we need that this is going wrong?
1:58:52
But this is a really believable sequence.
1:58:55
It really does right through and the tensions really well done.
1:58:58
And again, I find this to be a really sad scene.
1:59:01
Yeah. Because they've got a chance
1:59:03
here to stop it all from happening and there's this
1:59:05
constant malfunction from technology until there's a human
1:59:08
interaction. So it is hand in hand.
1:59:10
So we're not going to kill themselves unless we actually
1:59:12
push the button, which I think is what it's trying to say.
1:59:15
It's all there to be read in that way.
1:59:17
And it's Kubrick just saying, look, just stop.
1:59:20
It's not a heroic ending. It's not happy in any stretch of
1:59:23
the imagination. It's an absolute tragedy.
1:59:26
And it's really well played out because it's very tense, very
1:59:30
believable, very preventable and really sad.
1:59:34
I agree. I mean, Kong going to drop the
1:59:36
bomb with everything going wrong again.
1:59:38
It's like really tense. More than you'd probably expect
1:59:40
after everything we've watched so far.
1:59:42
I think you kind of forget that you're watching a comedy at
1:59:44
certain points, and this is one of them.
1:59:46
Definitely. But watching this for the first
1:59:47
time, people are probably waiting for something to happen
1:59:49
to stop the bomb being dropped. I think I probably was, because
1:59:52
that's what normally happens. Yeah.
1:59:53
Kubrick does the opposite, obviously.
1:59:55
And the moment the bomb goes, I think it's so well put together.
1:59:58
It is, as Kong goes to fix the release mechanism we're
2:00:00
listening to When Johnny Comes Marching Home, as we'll have all
2:00:03
the way through. Then the music cuts out
2:00:05
completely as the bomb drops. Yeah.
2:00:07
And that like 10 seconds or so as we approach the ground.
2:00:10
That's so like eerie and weird. It is, yeah.
2:00:14
Come like whooping and waving his heart.
2:00:15
It's another contrast of that humor and horror that Kubik's
2:00:19
been kind of doing all the way through and that sexual theme
2:00:22
we've had all the way through. I think Kubik's had that in
2:00:24
there to lead up to this shot because Kong's on this like
2:00:27
phallic shaped bomb and rides it to what's kind of like a nuclear
2:00:31
orgasm, which is like this huge idea.
2:00:33
Still 1 of Kubik's most famous images.
2:00:36
And I agree, Wesley, I'm not sure the ending is meant as
2:00:38
being 100% pessimistic because Kong wants to ride the bomb.
2:00:42
He's in control of the situation.
2:00:44
The message I take is similar to you.
2:00:45
We can prevent this if we want to, but do we want to?
2:00:49
I think that's the question the Kubik's asking.
2:00:51
Exactly. Yeah, it's the fact that this is
2:00:53
such a reversal of what this scene should be because in any
2:00:57
of the film, this is a thriller. And the point is, you're
2:00:59
thinking Kong needs to fix this problem, otherwise they're not
2:01:01
going to be able to drop the bomb.
2:01:02
They're not going to be able to destroy the enemy, and we are
2:01:04
not going to win. But he's thinking, I want them
2:01:07
to fail because if he succeeds, he's dropping the bomb.
2:01:09
And we don't want that here. And by the time you get to this
2:01:12
point, Cubic knows he can let the more surreal elements play
2:01:15
out. So that image of Kong riding
2:01:17
that bomb down all the way, as he said, John, another example
2:01:20
of the phallic imagery, does ye Hine away to his doom.
2:01:23
It's an incredible image. It really is.
2:01:26
Common Sequence was overseen by Wally Vivas, who had been the
2:01:29
head of Shepherd Studios special effects department since 1952
2:01:33
and was an expert in matte paint and backgrounds.
2:01:35
Slim Pickings was filmed on the bomb against blue screen and a
2:01:38
photograph that Gilbert Taylor's team had taken on the B17 was
2:01:42
composited to the background. Yes, when they filmed it, the
2:01:45
camera was slowly moved away from pickings in the bomb, and
2:01:48
then they manipulate the background image to get bigger
2:01:50
and bigger. So it looks like Kong's moving
2:01:52
away from us and towards the ground, right?
2:01:54
I mean, I'm not sure you can say it looks real even by 60
2:01:57
standards, but the image is so incredible I don't think we
2:01:59
care, do we? No, I think you're singing more.
2:02:02
What's in Kong's mind? Yeah, yeah, maybe.
2:02:05
I don't see him on top of that. I see him falling out of there
2:02:07
with it, but I don't see him riding it down in a heroic way.
2:02:10
I think that's what he wants to have and I think he just falls
2:02:12
out. Yeah, and shooting this scene in
2:02:14
the Bombay was one of the production's biggest technical
2:02:17
challenges. The set was designed by Ken Adam
2:02:20
and afterwards Built Cubic told me he wanted it to have working
2:02:23
bomb doors so he could film the bomb drop for real.
2:02:25
Obviously, Adam said these modifications would take weeks,
2:02:29
but Wally Vivas came up with the answer.
2:02:31
Pickens was again shot against a blue screen and the Bombay
2:02:34
background is a photograph. Vivas cut out the bomb doors so
2:02:37
when the bomb drops it looks like it's falling out of the
2:02:39
plane. Yeah.
2:02:40
When you know that, you can kind of tell because it's a little
2:02:43
bit uncanny valley. Doesn't look quite right.
2:02:45
Yeah. But again, I mean I'm not
2:02:47
bothered. Yeah, I don't care at this
2:02:49
point. And classic Kubrick, huge last
2:02:51
minute change request driving everyone mad.
2:02:54
Yeah, change it all. And more classic Kubrick Slim
2:02:57
Pickens said. The date over 100 takes of the
2:02:59
bomb fall scene, obviously. 100 takes.
2:03:04
How is it different? But we'll see that the two bombs
2:03:08
in the Bay have names written on them.
2:03:10
Hi there and Dear John. This was a practice that came
2:03:13
from World War 2 bombers. In the book, though, the second
2:03:16
bomb isn't called Dear John, it's called Malita.
2:03:19
How weird that. Really weird.
2:03:21
Really weird, yeah. I think Dear John was the name
2:03:24
of a horse Limpickens used to own.
2:03:26
That's where that came from. Right, OK.
2:03:28
But a bigger change to the book is that in the book, the bomb
2:03:31
isn't released, but the president thinks it is.
2:03:33
So he offers Atlantic City to the Russians, seeing they can
2:03:35
destroy it as revenge right as they're about to.
2:03:38
When it revealed the nuke on Russia never happened.
2:03:40
So it stopped like in the nick of time, right?
2:03:42
That's like the kind of more typical Hollywood ending I'm
2:03:45
talking about very much. Yeah, that's what I would
2:03:46
expect, Yeah. Yeah.
2:03:48
Springsteen on the soundtrack. Will they blow up the?
2:03:51
Chicken Man. And now we're back in the wall
2:03:54
room for how on earth are they going to come back from this?
2:03:57
And I think this is one of the most satirical points.
2:03:59
Like no one can repress their true nature here.
2:04:02
I mean, particularly Strangelove and Sellers, the physical
2:04:05
performance. He you're fighting his own arm,
2:04:07
biting his knuckle because he's so desperate to just give this
2:04:10
Sieg Heil. And he's talking about his plan
2:04:13
and what we're going to do. It would not be difficult, mind
2:04:16
Fuhrer. I'm sorry, Mr. President.
2:04:18
Yeah. He's so unable to suppress his
2:04:21
true nature. You know, it's like when he's
2:04:23
talking about the animals. Animals will be bred and
2:04:25
slaughtered. Like, really put the emphasis on
2:04:28
that. But it's the same with Turgeons
2:04:30
as well. Like, everyone's talking about
2:04:31
what the need to do to survive. But because he can't let go of
2:04:35
his constant, well view that it's was against them, It's was
2:04:38
against the oceans. And he's so fixated on this idea
2:04:41
of mine shafts, in the idea that the Russians might try to take
2:04:45
over theirs. Mr. President, we must not allow
2:04:48
a mine shaft gap. You're.
2:04:50
Just thinking, what are you going on about?
2:04:52
It's nuclear annihilation. Why are you reagent about mine
2:04:55
shafts? And you know, if these are the
2:04:57
best minds of mankind left, maybe we don't deserve to
2:05:00
survive at all. Yeah, I think he's been wanting
2:05:03
to go for the last hour and a half.
2:05:04
And this is where Sellers left loose.
2:05:06
He's off the chain, definitely. Yeah.
2:05:08
And strange, those plans for humanity to survive in
2:05:11
mineshafts. 10 women to every man selected for their sexual
2:05:14
characteristics, as he puts it. So just the hot ones, basically.
2:05:17
Yeah, It's insane. And also something I think could
2:05:20
definitely happen. Yeah.
2:05:22
And the Nazi coming back out with strangely, when the salute
2:05:25
and stuff like that. I think the point surely is that
2:05:27
fascist thinking isn't totally dead.
2:05:29
It's kind of been rebranded as the Cold War.
2:05:32
Yeah. And mine Fiorda.
2:05:33
I can. Valk is ridiculous.
2:05:36
But as the final line, it feels like a perfect like full stop
2:05:40
for the film. And I think Sellers should get
2:05:42
the final line as well. Yeah.
2:05:43
Oh, definitely. Well, yeah, absolutely.
2:05:45
It really hits on to me is that fascism isn't gone.
2:05:48
It isn't dead. It's now reborn.
2:05:50
Yeah. Because all of the ideas that he
2:05:51
wants to do, he wants to create the Aryan race, but underground,
2:05:54
he wants to create the perfect race.
2:05:55
Yeah. And restyle everything.
2:05:57
It was Hitler's dream. But he's just going to have to
2:05:58
do it underground now and rebuild the world in his vision,
2:06:01
which is why he stands up and says I can walk.
2:06:03
Fascism is back. Fascism is alive.
2:06:05
It exists. Yeah.
2:06:06
Yeah. So we're talking about Sellers
2:06:08
Improvised and a lot of these lines, obviously, and a lot of
2:06:10
it's a lot of his Strangelove's final monologue came from him.
2:06:13
The Nazi salute was his idea and mine furor, I can walk, as we've
2:06:17
mentioned, was his two, Kubrick said because Sellers told him he
2:06:20
couldn't promise to do the same take twice.
2:06:22
They had six cameras set up. We said it was 1 camera without
2:06:25
6 cameras set up to capture everything from every angle.
2:06:29
Turn the cameras on. Just let them go.
2:06:31
Surely if he wanted to. Yeah.
2:06:32
Incredible. Odd living.
2:06:34
Yeah. But there's quite a lot of cuts
2:06:35
in that whole sequence, if you notice, like, close-ups to
2:06:37
cutaways and stuff. Yeah.
2:06:38
Anthony Harvey said that was because there was a lot of
2:06:40
footage where you could see the cast in the background.
2:06:42
Try not to laugh. Yeah, I'm not surprised.
2:06:44
You had to cut around it, Yeah. Yeah, that must have been the
2:06:46
only time, but that's yeah, that's fine.
2:06:49
And the war room, you might have noticed, has a table of food
2:06:52
because Kubik originally planned to end the film with the custard
2:06:55
pie fight between the Russians and the Americans.
2:06:57
The film did it, and it was going to be 11 minutes long, but
2:07:00
Kubik could it. He later said it was because he
2:07:02
thought it was too farcical compared to the rest of the
2:07:04
film. Yeah, wouldn't have worked.
2:07:07
Yeah, Terry Southern said that Kubik called the cut of that
2:07:09
scene a disaster of Homeric proportions.
2:07:13
Trojan horse of a disaster. Wow, wow.
2:07:17
The scene has been screened before and how it plays out is
2:07:20
that Turgeon, Nor does Alexi taking pictures of the big
2:07:23
board. The big board with a spy camera.
2:07:25
Turgeon tackles him and Alexi throws a pie at him.
2:07:28
Turgeon ducks and it hits Muffy right in the face.
2:07:31
He falls into Turgeon's arms in a huge food fight.
2:07:34
Breaks out. Right.
2:07:35
Yeah, and it played out in fast motion as well.
2:07:37
Like Benny Hill or something. Oh, wow.
2:07:39
Oh. Did he sacks over the top of it?
2:07:42
Exactly, Yeah. Sounds dreadful.
2:07:45
But apparently Joshi Scott said that the pie fight wasn't filmed
2:07:47
by Kubrick, it was done by the assistant director Eric Rattray.
2:07:51
And Scott said the scene was terrific.
2:07:53
That's why Stanley could it, because the son of a bitch
2:07:56
didn't direct it. Beats him a chess a couple of
2:08:01
times. That's the son of a bitch.
2:08:04
The ending that we do get those pretty famous as well.
2:08:06
Kubrick leads us out with a montage of nuclear explosions as
2:08:09
the Doomsday Machine responds to the attack, presumably leading
2:08:12
to world annihilation. Or set to V Rollins wartime
2:08:15
classic. We'll meet again.
2:08:17
Yeah, a good way to end. I mean, a Blake way to end just
2:08:20
a bit. I mean, he doesn't let you off
2:08:22
the hook, does he? Here, Brick?
2:08:23
I mean, this is him saying this is how terrifying these
2:08:25
explosions are. And by the way, we've already
2:08:27
been doing them over and over and over again.
2:08:30
Yeah. Genie's out of the bottle and
2:08:32
it's not going back in, you know, humanity pretty much
2:08:35
completely wiped out. So how do you make that funny?
2:08:37
I mean, Stick will meet again over the top of it.
2:08:39
I mean, obviously that might play a slightly differently with
2:08:42
overseas audiences because obviously for us it's the
2:08:44
ultimate kind of bittersweet World War Two song.
2:08:47
Like, if you want a bit of hope, Yeah, it's a scary time, but
2:08:49
you'll see your loved ones again.
2:08:51
Yeah. Except here.
2:08:52
No, No hope whatsoever. This is, like, the ultimate
2:08:55
example of how to use the song ironically.
2:08:57
Yeah. Yeah, so Spike Milligan, the
2:08:59
Goon Show writer, was close friends with Peter Sellers.
2:09:01
He visited the set one day, and apparently it was his idea to
2:09:04
use Viralin's We'll Meet Again as a song that plays over the
2:09:07
explosion montage. The song was first recorded in
2:09:10
1939, just after Britain declared war on Germany, and it
2:09:13
became one of the most iconic World War 2 songs.
2:09:16
The version in the film, though, is a recording Linded in 1953.
2:09:20
It has more instrumentation and a bigger chorus.
2:09:22
Right. Yes, the forces, sweetheart, she
2:09:25
was known as during the war. And that song, Yeah, I think you
2:09:28
mentioned it before, Westie. It stood for like reunion and
2:09:31
better ideas coming ahead. So Kroger kind of takes that
2:09:33
feeling, that sentiment and literally just blows it up.
2:09:37
It's just absolute genius. We had to finish a film.
2:09:42
So the music came from Milligan, but Kubik wanted to use real
2:09:45
shots of nuclear explosions and it was made-up of real US
2:09:48
nuclear test footage, mainly from the late 40s and 50s
2:09:51
Pacific and desert tests that the government had released as
2:09:54
test material. So we see the Trinity test from
2:09:57
New Mexico in 1945, Operation Crossroads tested Bikini Atoll
2:10:02
in 1946, Operation Sandstone from 1948 in hydrogen bomb test
2:10:07
from Operation IV in the Pacific in 1952.
2:10:11
Nice. Yeah, so those tests were
2:10:13
heavily documented by the US military with hundreds of
2:10:15
cameras. Some of that footage went in
2:10:16
newsreel libraries, and that's where Kubrick got it from.
2:10:20
I mean, the US military probably getting it out there.
2:10:22
Look at us blowing their planet up.
2:10:24
Great. It's meant to be just a warning
2:10:26
isn't it's all Dick measuring? Yeah, pretty much.
2:10:29
Look what we can do. Yeah, OK.
2:10:31
And that takes us to the end of Doctor Strangelove.
2:10:33
We've watched the world end, essentially.
2:10:35
Mushroom clouds viral in, and an audacious ending, even for
2:10:38
Stanley. Yeah, a fitting finale to a
2:10:41
pretty strange film. Yeah, absolutely.
2:10:43
Strange as the word, yeah? Reception under wards.
2:10:51
So that is Doctor Strangelove, and it opened in cinemas on
2:10:54
January the 29th 1964. How did it do?
2:10:58
Well Matt, the stat's been locked in the war room crunchy
2:11:01
numbers all week and only General River.
2:11:03
He's willing to share the data, aren't you, Matt?
2:11:06
I am indeed. So a production budget of $1.8
2:11:09
million and on that Doctor Strangelove crossed over $9.1
2:11:13
million worldwide. A very healthy return for
2:11:16
Columbia Pictures and then at the Oscars, as we've been
2:11:19
seeing. The film was nominated for four
2:11:21
awards, Best Picture, Best Director for Cubic, Best actor
2:11:24
for Peter Sellers, Best Adapted Screenplay for Cubic, Peter
2:11:27
George and Toby Southern, but didn't win any of them.
2:11:30
As we've said, lost out to My Fair Lady Anne Beckett.
2:11:33
Yeah, healthy profit and four nominations for a black comedy
2:11:36
about nuclear war. So it did all right, I think.
2:11:39
Pretty good going, yeah, to be fair.
2:11:40
Wheeler came out with the most successful novel about nuclear
2:11:43
war called Fail Safe. This was option for a film
2:11:46
adaptation, so Kubrick and George sued, saying that Fail
2:11:49
Safe had plagiarized Red Alert. It didn't stop the release of
2:11:52
Fail Safe as a film, but did push it back.
2:11:55
It came out nine months after Doctor Screenglove yes, starring
2:11:59
Henry Fonda, Directed by Sidney Lumet, Fail Safe saw some high
2:12:02
quality involved. Oh yeah, and it was a.
2:12:04
Bit weird because it's part of the settlement.
2:12:06
Columbia agreed to buy Fail Safe as well.
2:12:08
So they produced Doctor Strangelove and Fail Safe,
2:12:11
right? Well, they didn't care.
2:12:12
They just want to make money on them.
2:12:13
Well, exactly. Yeah.
2:12:15
Drop a couple of bombs. Yeah.
2:12:17
Yeah. It's like damp.
2:12:18
ASP and. Volcano.
2:12:20
Armageddon and Deep Impact. There you go.
2:12:23
It's happened all the time. It happens all the time and the
2:12:25
first Test. Screen and of Doctor Strangelove
2:12:27
for the press was scheduled for. November 22nd, 1963 on that.
2:12:32
Day, though famously, President John F Kennedy was assassinated
2:12:35
in Dallas, and as a result, the premier of Doctor Strangelove
2:12:37
was delayed until late January 1964.
2:12:41
Yeah, surely you can't release this at the time of the biggest
2:12:44
political trauma in U.S. history, I don't think no.
2:12:47
The public. Probably not in the mood for a
2:12:48
political black comedy at that, I don't think.
2:12:51
No, definitely not. And some changes were made to
2:12:53
the film as well. In the first act, when Kong is
2:12:56
reading out the aircraft Survival kit, he.
2:12:57
Says a fellow could have. A pretty good weekend in Vegas
2:13:00
with all that stuff. The line originally said Dallas
2:13:03
and not Vegas. So Pickens was brought in to
2:13:05
overdub the line. But you can still see your
2:13:07
mouth, Dallas, in the film. You can.
2:13:09
Yeah. Yes, that had to change,
2:13:11
obviously. Yeah, definitely.
2:13:13
Yeah. And also the pie fight that we
2:13:15
talked. About that had a line after.
2:13:16
Muffley gets hit in the face and turgets and.
2:13:18
Catches him and says oh. The president cut down in the
2:13:21
prime of his life for a while. I mean, that line obviously
2:13:23
wouldn't have made it in. Definitely not.
2:13:25
Yeah. Columbia weren't confident about
2:13:27
the film before it came out and weren't sure how to market it.
2:13:30
The studio heads Abe Schneider. And more.
2:13:32
Rothman distanced themselves from the production and didn't
2:13:35
attend any screenings. And Terry Sudden said that
2:13:38
Rothman told him New York does not say anything funny about the
2:13:41
end of the world. Fair enough.
2:13:43
Yeah, I think that started the change with the trailer.
2:13:46
The trailer was done by Pablo Ferro.
2:13:48
We talked about doing the. Titles.
2:13:49
At the start it's quite well known.
2:13:50
It's got all these quick cuts and titles on the screen like a
2:13:53
xylophone. I think's in there.
2:13:54
It's fantastic if you've not seen it.
2:13:56
But Ferro's fingerprints are all over this film I think.
2:13:59
Big contribution to it's kind of visual identity with the titles
2:14:02
and all that stuff. And it has a famous post as
2:14:04
well. The French American satirical
2:14:06
artist Tommy Undre decided with illustrations.
2:14:09
Of B52 bombers and two leaders on either side of the globe
2:14:13
connected by a telephone line. The hotline.
2:14:15
Suspense. Comedy.
2:14:16
That's the tagline. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:14:18
It is a great post. I really like it.
2:14:20
Is. Yeah.
2:14:20
Yeah. Nice.
2:14:22
Under the critics, then, as usual, Roger.
2:14:24
Even up first, what did? Rog say about Doctor
2:14:26
Strangelove, do we think? Out of four, Oh I what?
2:14:28
A 04 out of four, surely? All full marks.
2:14:31
Of course it was the full 4 stars from Rog.
2:14:33
Yes, and he said. Filled with great comedic.
2:14:36
Performances and made from rudimentary.
2:14:37
Physical props. Dr. Strangelove becomes arguably
2:14:40
the best political satire of the century, proving that people
2:14:43
trying to be serious and failing are funnier than those trying to
2:14:46
be funny Yeah, true yeah best of the century High praise from Raj
2:14:51
bosley Crowther the New York Times had a more complicated.
2:14:53
Response. OK, he said.
2:14:55
Doctor Strangelove is beyond. Any question?
2:14:57
The most shattering sick joke I've ever come across.
2:15:00
One of the cleverest and most incisive satiric thrust at the
2:15:03
folly of the military ever put on screen, with parts almost
2:15:06
beyond compare. Yet I am troubled by its malefic
2:15:09
and sick contempt for virtually our whole defense establishment.
2:15:12
Right. Wow.
2:15:14
Yeah. I mean, that's exactly what it's
2:15:15
meant to be, isn't it? It's not a periodic film.
2:15:18
No, it works then. Exactly.
2:15:21
That's the point. Yeah.
2:15:22
I can't like that some people thought about like that.
2:15:24
Krupic ruffling feathers as usual, yeah.
2:15:26
Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
2:15:27
And then a retrospective review. Empire magazine gave the film
2:15:30
the full 5 stars out of five and.
2:15:32
Said the collapse. Of the Cold War.
2:15:34
May have left Kubrick satire and mutually assured Destruction
2:15:36
less relevant than it was, but it still features Peter Sellers
2:15:39
finest free performances as well as proving that the supposedly
2:15:42
humanist Kubrick was up for a laugh.
2:15:46
Yeah, with some stipulation, yeah, he did have a sense of
2:15:50
humour, I think, in some of his films.
2:15:52
Actually, yeah. And today I'm Rotten Tomatoes
2:15:55
doctor. Strangelove has an enormous 98%
2:15:58
approval rating from. Critics I was.
2:15:59
And 94%? From audiences and on IMDb it is
2:16:04
8.3 out of 10 which places at #83 on their IMDb top 250 and
2:16:09
that is one place below Braveheart and one above
2:16:12
Princess Mononoke. 3 films that maybe couldn't be more different
2:16:16
there. No, definitely.
2:16:18
That's where I would have put it.
2:16:22
This is your list Westy it is. So the response I thought a
2:16:27
strangelove. Was strong on this release, a
2:16:28
big box office return for Oscar noms and critical praise despite
2:16:32
some nervousness. And today, regardless, one of
2:16:35
the great satires, A film that's only growing reputation over the
2:16:38
decades. Oh yeah, definitely.
2:16:40
Yeah. Sequels and influence Doctor
2:16:48
Strangelove didn't spawn any direct sequels, although.
2:16:50
Maybe surprisingly, it wasn't for the lack of trying and even.
2:16:54
More surprisingly, Kubit was involved.
2:16:56
Some follow up efforts were made.
2:16:58
Weren't they much were? Terry Gilliam later said that in
2:17:02
the early 90s, Cubic had asked Terry Southern to start working
2:17:05
on a Strangelove. Sequel and he wanted Gilliam to
2:17:07
direct it. Southern didn't get further than
2:17:10
laying out a few index cards as plot points, but it was called
2:17:12
Son of Strangelove and would have been said after Doomsday in
2:17:15
the underground bunkers Strangelove talks about.
2:17:18
Yes, Terry Southern passed away in 1995, so it never happened.
2:17:22
Gillian said that he'd love to have done it though.
2:17:23
Our pet. I'd have loved to.
2:17:24
Have seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:17:26
It was Brazil. Presumably they made Kubrick 1.
2:17:28
Terry Gilliam. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:17:30
I would have thought so. The film's influence, however,
2:17:32
that does exist. How do we say?
2:17:34
Oh, I see. What's the legacy of Doctor
2:17:35
Strangelove? I mean, the legacy is that it's.
2:17:38
Incredibly popular film. It still works, it's still
2:17:40
relevant, and I think it's influenced a lot of.
2:17:43
Directors either directly or not directly, where especially
2:17:47
satire and comedy and where that's moved forward and the
2:17:49
blurring of the lines between the two.
2:17:51
You know, like you've mentioned there, I think Brazil doesn't
2:17:54
exist without Doctor Strangelove, to be honest.
2:17:56
But even stuff that you don't think it's going to be relevant
2:17:59
to. I mean, Spielberg was massively
2:18:01
influenced by Kubrick and would know that.
2:18:03
But to have this middle part influenced the opening sequence
2:18:06
of Saving Private Ryan, which people said is one of the best
2:18:08
opening sequences of all time. And then Schindler's List as
2:18:11
well. We had the way that shot the
2:18:12
black and white and that as a very, very distinct look to it.
2:18:16
The way it's lit, it's all very hard sources.
2:18:18
And I think Spielberg took a lot from this.
2:18:20
I mean, you could sit here and list all of the films that it's
2:18:22
influenced, but I think they'd be far too many and we just
2:18:24
don't have time. So I think as all Kubrick films
2:18:27
do, they've influenced countless filmmaker sense.
2:18:30
Yeah, yeah, the influence is massive, I think.
2:18:33
I mean, firstly, on Kubrick, like I said, I think this is the
2:18:36
film where he became the iconic director.
2:18:37
That he is now. And then he followed this up
2:18:39
with 2001. I mean, get out.
2:18:41
Yeah, forget about it. It's influence.
2:18:44
One of that films is huge. It wasn't the first ever satire,
2:18:46
but I think you can definitely see the influence of this.
2:18:48
On the likes of airplane. Like we talked about Blazing
2:18:51
Saddles, Brazil, Any comedy or satire that goes for, like,
2:18:54
surrealism? Yeah.
2:18:55
They're looking at Strangelove as an influence, surely.
2:18:57
Yeah. And just the war room, that
2:18:59
image of the huge round table heads of state sitting around at
2:19:03
a huge strategic board in the background, that's like the
2:19:06
classic image of politics as a game of life and death.
2:19:09
You see it in Bond films. Yeah.
2:19:11
Watchmen, the classic graphic novel that's got the exact same
2:19:13
image in it. And the same with the rodeo ride
2:19:16
bombshell at the end. We'll still see that in
2:19:18
satirical cartoons and the like. And we all know what that means.
2:19:21
Like gleeful war mongering. Yeah.
2:19:23
So, yeah, still the benchmark of Hollywood political satire.
2:19:26
I think influence has been around since 1964, probably
2:19:29
always will be. Yeah, similar.
2:19:31
Really. You think?
2:19:32
Any political SATA who lives in the shadow of this one?
2:19:34
I mean, we've mentioned them already, but it's no surprise.
2:19:37
Armando Ianichi adapted this for the stage with Steve Coogan in
2:19:41
the Peter Sellers roles because the ridiculous nature of this
2:19:45
and the politicians in this has definitely informed all of his
2:19:49
worth. To think of it, Death of Stalin,
2:19:50
Veep, they've all got Doctor Strangelove's DNA running right
2:19:53
through them. We've talked about the Bond
2:19:55
influence. Obviously Ken Adam did Doctor
2:19:57
know before this, But Even so, I think this gives him the
2:19:59
confidence to go even bigger for the Bond films he did after
2:20:02
that. And even though I'm psyched,
2:20:04
would just said like Michael Moore doing the what a wonderful
2:20:06
world over the 9/11 footage in Boland for Columbine.
2:20:09
He's definitely taken that from this.
2:20:12
And then obviously Sellers, not the first actor to take multiple
2:20:15
roles in the film, but I think he sets the bar of what you can
2:20:18
do when you do that. You know, no one's come close to
2:20:20
him doing that. So yeah, this one has a big, big
2:20:23
legacy. So from the mid 1960's the US
2:20:26
government started changing policy around the authorization
2:20:29
and launching nuclear missiles. But thankfully so that the added
2:20:33
electronic locks called permissive action links strict
2:20:36
the two person rules and psychological screening to make
2:20:39
it much harder for a single officer of launching nuclear
2:20:42
weapon like Ripper doesn't have all yeah, they said it was
2:20:45
nothing to do with Strangelove, but these changes in policy
2:20:48
apparently did stop being implemented right after the
2:20:50
film. Came out so a coincidence if
2:20:52
nothing else. Yeah, what a beautiful
2:20:54
coincidence. I'm so pleased it did happen.
2:20:57
And we mentioned the influence of the war room in.
2:21:00
Ken Adams, designer to become a template for real places as well
2:21:03
journalists. Have compared Vladimir Putin's
2:21:05
National Defence Management Centre, the circular table at
2:21:09
the 2009 G20 summit in FIFA's boardroom to the Strangelove
2:21:13
set. Have you seen the FIFA
2:21:15
boardroom? It's the war room.
2:21:17
It's crazy. Yeah, right.
2:21:19
I've actually seen that. What's?
2:21:20
On the table, love. It's a beauty.
2:21:24
That's the video pitch, yeah. I think behind the scenes
2:21:27
Saturday about the goals on. FIFA would be pretty interesting
2:21:30
as well. Yeah, that would be, yeah.
2:21:32
That's a good show. Yeah.
2:21:33
And also on real life politics. There's a famous story about
2:21:35
when Ronald Reagan became president in 1980.
2:21:37
One he apparently asked his chief of staff.
2:21:40
To show him the war room. And he had to say, yeah, that's
2:21:42
not real, Mr. President. Oh, wow.
2:21:45
Amazing. Yeah.
2:21:47
Put these guys in charge of the country.
2:21:48
Ronald Reagan, the actor. Who the hell?
2:21:50
Is John F Kennedy. So no sequel to Doctor?
2:21:55
Strangelove despite. Some work being.
2:21:57
Done. But the film's.
2:21:58
Influence has been pretty immeasurable.
2:22:00
Real changes in nuclear weapons policy, whether coincidental or
2:22:02
not. Reagan thinking the war room was
2:22:04
real to his design being echoed and everything from superhero
2:22:07
stories to FIFA. Yeah, but still we had to me,
2:22:10
Yeah. So the film's influence is
2:22:12
pretty difficult to overstate, I think.
2:22:14
Absolutely. The fact that it hasn't even
2:22:16
stopped, it's still influential now.
2:22:18
Yeah, exactly. All the right movies ranking and
2:22:25
we've done it. Doctor Strangelove.
2:22:27
Start to finish. We've learned how to stop
2:22:29
worrying in Love the Bomb, and now it's time for us.
2:22:32
To drop some bombs of our own as we each rate the film out of 10.
2:22:36
Matt, you chose the film, so do you want to kick us off your
2:22:39
summary and score for Doctor Strangelove, please?
2:22:42
Certainly. I mean, this is a very easy and
2:22:44
straightforward one, really an absolute one off of a film to
2:22:48
take such a terrifying. Subject not give any false hope
2:22:51
and if anything say yeah we are on the precipice of self
2:22:54
destruction all the time and no one is smart enough to stop it.
2:22:57
And then to make that so funny at the same time as quite the
2:23:00
balancing act and it's not lost one bit of power since.
2:23:03
And I think it's only Cubic could have pulled this off and
2:23:06
it's only pay the sellers could have given the performances that
2:23:09
this film needed to work. And another shout out to George
2:23:12
C Scott because he's so underrated in this as well.
2:23:14
Yeah. And ultimately, my very first
2:23:16
episode on this podcast was the Rankin Cubic episode.
2:23:19
And I said back then, that's right.
2:23:20
Yeah. Doctor Strangelove is probably
2:23:22
my favorite Cubic film. I mean, it's pretty much neck
2:23:24
and neck with The Shining very little in between.
2:23:27
Them I've just. Lived with this one a little bit
2:23:28
longer, so therefore it's just a very, very easy 10 for me.
2:23:32
Nice, lovely. Yeah.
2:23:34
Lots to cover with this one and like I said, it's one of the
2:23:36
most significant films in Kubricks career.
2:23:39
I think the writing. From Kubrick, Southern and
2:23:41
George, to call it Sharp undersells it.
2:23:43
The satire and the surreal comedy, the way it takes at the
2:23:46
time, the very real threat of nuclear war and finds humor in
2:23:49
it. That's all impressive.
2:23:51
I think the performances are all excellent.
2:23:53
I'm always surprised by George C Scott, but Peter Sellers is just
2:23:56
operating on some crazy God like level of comedy.
2:23:59
Yeah, yeah. 3 characters, all memorable, all different.
2:24:03
One of the great comedy performances it might be #1 wow.
2:24:07
And also a Ken Adams war room set.
2:24:09
One of the great pieces of production design.
2:24:11
An all time iconic image as his major Kong riding the bomb at
2:24:15
the end and Gilbert Taylor cinematography.
2:24:17
That black and white documentary style.
2:24:19
An inspired choice and I think that still holds up.
2:24:22
So one of the great satires in Kubrick proving that he could do
2:24:24
comedy as well as like everything else, it's not one
2:24:28
that I come back to all that much.
2:24:30
So I'm not going full marks, but it is an easy peasy. 9 hour 10
2:24:33
for me. Fair enough.
2:24:35
And Westy, your summary and score for Doctor Strangelove,
2:24:37
please. Yeah.
2:24:38
I mean, after everything that we've spoken about.
2:24:41
I think. What we haven't touched on is
2:24:43
that this is the film that came. Out That showed people just how
2:24:46
powerful cinema is. Yeah, it changed public opinion
2:24:49
on a lot of things and government's changed, policies
2:24:52
changed. Everyone kind of changed because
2:24:54
the source, somebody's opinion, and that opinion happened to be
2:24:57
absolutely spot on. I think it's a really important
2:24:59
film. I think it's a really funny
2:25:00
film. I think it's really relevant
2:25:02
film. I think it's one of the best
2:25:03
performances that I'll never get tired of from Peter Sellers and
2:25:06
George T Scott. I think they're absolutely
2:25:08
incredible. I don't come back to it often
2:25:11
because I know every time I come back to it, it's always going to
2:25:13
be a masterpiece. It's one of the best that
2:25:15
Kubrick's produced. It's one of the best comedies
2:25:18
ever made and it's his only comedy.
2:25:20
For that reason, it's got to be top marks for me.
2:25:22
It's absolutely fantastic film and if you've got this far in
2:25:25
the podcast and you still haven't seen it, do yourself a
2:25:27
favour. Absolute 10 out of 10 for me.
2:25:29
Full marks. We also put this out there to
2:25:31
our ACRM patrons to get their thoughts.
2:25:33
No comments from any rogue Air Force generals, thankfully.
2:25:37
Thankfully. Well, thankfully, but the
2:25:38
feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
2:25:40
So let's see what our page once had to say.
2:25:42
Should we? Yeah, let's do it.
2:25:43
So Tom Cole. Said one of those films my dad
2:25:46
loves and quotes a lot. I managed to catch it with him
2:25:48
at one of the local indie cinemas and it was amazing on
2:25:51
the big screen. Fantastic stuff, a solid 10 out
2:25:54
of 10. A film passed on to the
2:25:56
generations and staying on the big screen must have been great.
2:25:58
The war room, that size, Amazing.
2:26:01
Yeah, yeah. Be incredible, yeah, Julie
2:26:03
Bennett said. Completely relevant today and
2:26:05
entirely ahead of its time. Brilliant.
2:26:07
Casting. 10 for slim Pickens alone.
2:26:10
Wow, yeah, great. Pickens has pulled out the bag,
2:26:12
even though he didn't know exactly what was going on.
2:26:15
No, not really, but nice. Surprise when he sought, Yeah.
2:26:18
Really works for his character though, doesn't it?
2:26:21
And relevant today, I would. Agree with that I mean.
2:26:23
The Cold War isn't part of our politics.
2:26:24
Now, but these characters don't feel alien at all.
2:26:27
To me, not at all. I think the policies and the
2:26:29
politics and the the mentality is still exactly the same.
2:26:32
Yeah. That's why this is so important.
2:26:34
Yeah. And you and Campbell said.
2:26:35
Probably my favorite film of all time.
2:26:38
A combination of silly and clever that I love also.
2:26:41
Seen 4 Lions and the Life of Brian.
2:26:43
Superb performances, one of the most iconic sets ever made and
2:26:46
brave to make in the climate in the US at that time.
2:26:49
Up there with Casablanca for memorable dialogue.
2:26:52
Wow, great show. 4 lines and Life of Brian is like great
2:26:54
satires. I'm not sure it has quite as
2:26:56
many iconic lines as Casablanca. What does?
2:26:59
But the ones it has. Are just as huge.
2:27:01
Oh yeah, for very different reasons.
2:27:03
Yeah, so positive across the board, more paid runs and all
2:27:07
together. They rated the film as What do
2:27:09
you think? I would attend, I don't think.
2:27:11
It's going to get top, you know, But I might do because it's
2:27:14
Kubrick. I'm going to go like 9.8.
2:27:18
We don't work in point eights. I don't imagine if we did, I'd
2:27:21
be absolutely correct. I'm.
2:27:25
Going to go 10. Fuck it, go. 10 I'll back
2:27:27
myself. It's a 10.
2:27:30
You almost there, Wesley. It was 9.5.
2:27:32
Out of 10 I. Was going to say 9.5 as well,
2:27:35
but I thought I'd. Just be a bit of a tosser about
2:27:37
him. Go 980.
2:27:38
Well, to be personally backfired again.
2:27:42
In total, like you start a strange lobby, a combined 38.5
2:27:45
out of 40. Nice.
2:27:47
Wow. Dropping.
2:27:47
The bomb. Yeah, Next time out, Luke,
2:27:50
Westie and Matt are swapping the war room for the drawing room.
2:27:52
Yeah, every. Member of the.
2:27:54
Thrombie family has an MMO as you guys talk.
2:27:56
Ryan Johnson, Daniel Craig and their 21st century who done it.
2:28:00
Knives Out. Yeah, yes, same stuff.
2:28:03
A murder mystery with that cast should be a killer episode that
2:28:06
surely it compels me. Compels me.
2:28:10
That's very excited about this one.
2:28:12
Well, in the meantime, to find out more.
2:28:14
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2:28:30
Absolutely pointless doing anything else.
2:28:33
Absolutely just a waste of time doing fours and three and you
2:28:35
have to explain yourself as was said before you.
2:28:37
Might as well not do that. Just put straight 5.
2:28:39
Beautiful. There you go.
2:28:40
No arguments exactly. Socially, you can keep up with
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2:29:00
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2:29:13
It is. We're all off now to plan.
2:29:15
For the end of the world. Matt, I think you're hoping for
2:29:18
that 12:50 ratio, aren't you? I am, yeah.
2:29:21
Yeah, we're doughnuts. I'll come back next.
2:29:27
Thing for Knives Out. And as always, thanks for
2:29:29
listening. Thanks guys.
2:29:31
Thanks for listening guys. Take care.