DR. STRANGELOVE AND THE WEIRD AND SCARRY 60S

Hello one and all. Hope each and every one of you had a great holiday season. The way I look at it, as years go, 2020 really sucked. That meant 2021 had nowhere to go but up. And yes sir, 2021 was a pretty fair year, at least compared to 20. But we aren’t even at the pre-covid levels of bad so I think things can only be better in 2022.  That’s what is known as taking a half full glass and topping it off.

I wasn’t going to write anything this week but then something came up that I thought was worth writing about. Sometimes, that’s just the way it is. First, the reason I wasn’t going to write. Since Christmas, my wife and I have been nursing a case of, what I affectionately call, the Creeping Crud. I am, for the most part, pretty healthy. I don’t get sick very often. But every two or three years my wife and I come down with this together, usually right around the holidays. One of the many unspoken joys of marriage is that you and your spouse share EVERYTHING! The Crud probably has a more mundane and clinical name like influenza, or the flu, but the Creeping Crud sounds so much more severe and dramatic. “Hey dude, I can’t come over. I feel like totally groady right now. Got a bad case of the Creeping Crud!” See?! It sounds better than “I got the flu, dude.” Also, if you really just don’t want to be bothered, tell people you have the Creeping Crud. I guarantee you won’t get so much as a text for the next 48 hours.

So, we had a quiet New Year’s Eve. The years 2020 and 2021 being what they were, I decided to watch a couple of movies about the end of the world. Straight from my youth. I started off with Ice Station Zebra, which is not a bad picture with a pretty good cast. Coming out in 1968, at the height of the Cold War, it was us against the commies who were hiding behind the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. Cold War, Iron Curtain, Berlin Wall! Anybody under the age of thirty-five probably doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Ask your Mommy and Daddy.

I finished 2021 watching Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Yes, that’s really the title of the movie, although it is generally referred to simply as Dr. Strangelove. Stanley Kubrick directed and co-wrote the screen play loosely based on a novel written by Peter George. Kubrick is more famously known, by today’s audiences, for films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut. Some movies are timeless. On the subject of Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey is such a movie, every bit as good today as it was the day it was released. Movies like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark will be entertaining audiences 100 years after they were made. Other movies, like Dr. Strangelove, are of a time. Like a mirror, they reflect the ethos of the time they were made. Kubrick started writing the screenplay in 1960, so he was making broad strokes and making comments on the politics of the time and not necessarily a specific moment. While topical at the time, Dr. Strangelove has lost some of its relevancy over the years, especially with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. That is to say, at 58 years, the movie has not aged well, at least not in terms of staying in the mainstream. Personally, I think it is an outstanding and witty satire on the military-industrial complex and well worth a first look. Or even a second or third, if you haven’t seen it in a while.

The movie came out in 1964, the early years of the Cold War, at a time when both sides were escalating their armaments and tensions were high. For perspective, you have to remember, the United States and the Soviet Union had almost gone to nuclear war just 15 months prior, during the Cuban missile crisis. In fact, the movie’s very first test screening was on November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Due to the sensitive nature of the movie’s subject matter and the assassination of President Kennedy, the premiere date was pushed back one month, and a line of dialogue was altered. The movie premiered on January 29, which was also eleven days before The Beatles first appeared on Ed Sullivan. The 1960s were a turbulent time in the history of our nation, a unique decade in which to grow up. It saw the birth of rock ‘n roll and some of the best music and best bands of all time came out of that decade. Some of these bands are still performing, almost sixty years later. The 60s witnessed the birth of the protest movement. They protested everything; the Vietnam War, women’s rights, black power, abortion… They smoked grass and took acid to expand their minds. They died in the rice paddies of Vietnam, the campus of Kent State University, and during a rock concert at Altamont. Certain iconic names came out of the decade, forever to be linked to the 60s; Kennedy, King, Manson, Ghandi, Castro, Ali, Hendrix, Armstrong…

I do not consider myself a child of the 60s. I was born in 1958. During the Cuban missile crisis, I was four years old. When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, I was eleven. No, I grew up in the 70s. but I remember the 60s. I remember helping my mother fold laundry the day that Kennedy was assassinated. I was five years old. The announcement came over the radio and she began to cry, and I couldn’t understand the reason. I had no clue who this man was. I remember hearing the bell ring at school signaling a take cover drill whereupon we hid under our desks, on our knees and elbows with our hands covering the back of our heads. The logic was, when the bombs dropped and the buildings were either incinerated or flattened flatter than paint on wood, at least the children would be spared?? I remember 10:00 AM on the last Friday of every month. The air raid sirens would sound off in their eerie, high-pitched warble, testing the air raid defense system. I remember my mom driving us to little league practice in her 1958 pink rambler station wagon. It was the soccer mom’s minivan of a different era. I remember hearing about a bunch of hippies that killed a pregnant actress and her friends in the Hollywood Hills. I remember, as the decade was drawing to a close, watching the news about the escalation in Vietnam and wondering if I was going to have to register for the draft. And I remember the first song that turned me on to rock and roll, becoming a fan forever. Let it Be by The Beatles.

If you read further and haven’t seen Dr. Strangelove, there will be one or two spoilers, but nothing too large or consequential, I hope. The plot is based around an American General, Jack Ripper, who believes a popular conspiracy theory of the time, that fluoridated water is a Soviet plot. To put it mildly, he goes cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and orders his entire airwing to attack the Soviet Union with their nuclear arsenal. This represents more than two dozen B52 bombers, carrying multiple warheads, attacking multiple Russian targets. It is the General’s opinion that, once the President and Joint Chiefs of Staff realize that the bombers cannot be recalled, they will have no choice but to order an all-out attack on the Soviet Union. Peter Sellers is hilarious as Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, an attaché from the British Air Force, stationed on the base, as he tries to talk the General down and convince him to recall the bombers. It is one of three roles that Sellers plays in the movie. It was a low budget movie to begin with and his salary took up over half the budget. Kubrick joked that “hey I got three for the price of six.” Sellers was originally slated to play the part of Major Kong as well. Because of a leg injury early in production, and the fact he had difficulty with the required Texas accent, that role eventually went to Slim Pickens. Although it was first turned down by John Wayne and Dan Blocker. Frankly, I cannot imagine anyone else in that role. If you have seen the movie, and remember the end, you know what I mean. Interestingly, Pickens was mostly known for dramatic roles in westerns and had never done a comedy. In fact, Kubrick had to convince him that Strangelove was a serious war drama and Pickens was only shown pages for his scenes to maintain the illusion/lie. Upon arriving on the set for the first day of filming, Pickens was wearing cowboy clothes; jeans, boots, and fringed jacket, and talking in that down-home Texas drawl of Major Kong. His fellow actors, none of whom had ever worked with Pickens, thought he was going a little over-the-top in his method acting process. As it turned, out that was the way Slim Pickens talked and dressed. He Was simply Slim being Slim.

The film shifts between three focal points. There is the office of General Ripper which is now under attack by U.S. Marines. The President has ordered the attack in an effort to capture Ripper and order him to recall the bombers, which only he can do. There is the cramped and claustrophobic interior of the B52 bomber, piloted by Slim Pickens’ Major Kong. And lastly, there is the war room. It is here that the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are hunkered down trying to determine the best course of action. Peter Sellers plays President Merkin Muffley. The name alone, suggests a limp wristed apologist, which Muffley is. When I’m writing, a lot of the time I will auto dictate to my laptop. Every time I tried to dictate ****** Muffley’s name that is what I got. For the role, Sellers wore a skullcap and played the President as bald. It turns out that, and done intentionally I might add, the definition of Merkin is a wig for pubic hair. Don’t think we need one of those these days. Apparently, the adult language inhibitors were turned on in my settings, which is why I got ******. You learn something new every day.

Initially, Peter Sellers had played the part of Muffley as having a severe cold. This was an effort to enhance the character’s weakness. Apparently, he was a bit too good at it as several takes were ruined because of laughter from the crew. Eventually Kubrick convinced Sellers to drop the cold idea and play the character as more serious, although there are a few scenes in the movie where you can tell the President definitely has a cold. Kubrick was a big fan of Sellers, having worked with him on the film Lolita. To that extent, Kubrick allowed Sellers to explore each of the characters he played. A lot of the dialogue that Sellers comes up with, especially when playing the part of Dr. Strangelove, was adlibbed. In an effort at thorough transparency, the President invites the Russian ambassador to join them in the war room so that he can explain what has happened. The name of the ambassador is Alexi. There are several scenes with Peter Sellers as President Muffley talking to the ambassador. Every time he mentions the ambassador’s name, my Alexa device answered, “I don’t know that.” At first, I thought it was part of the movie. “Alexa, don’t listen to the movie!” The Ambassador delivers devastating news. The Soviet Union has come up with the ultimate doomsday device. In the event that a nuclear warhead is detonated on Russian soil this device will automatically arm itself and detonate multiple warheads along the Ural Mountains. The prevailing winds will pick up the radioactive fallout and cause it to circle the globe 93 times, effectively killing all life on planet. Furthermore, the device cannot be turned off, shut down, or deactivated, making it imperative that they stop the US bombers before they reach their targets. President Muffley asks the Ambassador why they would create such a horrible weapon. The ambassador explains that it was purely economics. The Soviet Union “could no longer afford to keep up with the cost of the arms race, the space race, the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled about more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us a mere fraction of what we would be spending on defense in a single year.” How strangely prophetic are these words twenty-seven years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Obviously, there is more to it than this, but the overall collapse of the Soviet economy was due, at least in part, to the USSR trying to keep up with the United States economic machine. So rather than try to keep up in an unwinnable arms race, it was cheaper to create a weapon that would wipe out all life on the planet. This is Dr. Strangelove at its best, examining the hypocrisy of the military mentality.

George C. Scott plays the part of General Buck Turgidson. His character can best be described as a drunken General Patton on steroids. In the film he is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the principal military adviser to President Muffley. As such, he represents the military point of view and is completely against the idea of allowing the Russian Ambassador in the war room. When the ambassador makes his first appearance, General Turgidson attacks the man, accusing him of trying to take pictures of the ‘big board’. As the two men are rolling around on the floor president Muffley delivers an inanely appropriate line. “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the War Room.” Scott was another actor that came from a dramatic background. Kubrick wanted him to play the character as oversexed, over patriotic, over-the-top, which required Scott to do some pretty outlandish takes, many of which he was not comfortable with from an artistic standpoint. Kubrick convinced Scott that these were simply practice takes to loosen up the set and the crew. They would in no way ever be used in the movie. Of course, they were, which lead Scott to proclaim that he would never work with Kubrick again. Apparently both men frequently disagreed with each other about what was being shot on the set, and not just the scenes Scott was in. In a movie about the absurdity of the military-industrial machine and the need to win at all costs, even if it meant the end of the world, these two men had a surprisingly civilized way of solving their differences. They played chess. Both were accomplished chess players and, if they disagreed about the way a scene was being shot, quite often they would let a game of chess decide. It should be pointed out that Kubrick usually won these games. Even though they never again worked together, George C. Scott, years later, agreed that Kubrick’s direction had been the right way to go.

Peter Sellers’ third role in the film is of Dr. Strangelove, a wheelchair bound reformed Nazi scientist and scientific advisor to the President. He wears a single black glove on his right hand which appears to have a mind of its own as he is constantly trying to stop it from giving the Nazi salute and on two occasions, he accidentally calls the President mein Fuhrer. There is a lot of sexual innuendo in the movie that you may not pick up on the first time around but is blatantly obvious in later viewings. The President’s first name being the name of a pubic hair wig is a great example of this. Another example, although much more obvious, is when the war room realizes that they may not be able to stop this lone B52 which is still enroute for its target in the Soviet Union. Dr. Strangelove suggests they should gather a few hundred thousand of the ablest Americans and move them into underground mines, where they would be protected from the radioactive fallout. He says they will probably have to live there for about one hundred years and therefore should make sure that there is a proper ratio of ten women for every man so they can restock the human race when they re-emerge. He further suggests that we would have to forego monogamist lifestyles and, since the men are being asked to perform so frequently, the women should be selected based upon their sexual desirability. General Turgidson is firmly in favor of this plan and, in fact, suggests that they get on it immediately because the United States cannot afford a mineshaft gap. The military, still trying to figure out how to rule the world even after they destroy it.

Speaking of which, the War Room manages to recall all of the bombers except for one, which has had its radio shot out in a missile attack. Slim Pickens is the pilot, and I won’t give away the end if you haven’t seen it. There is something else I discovered in this re-watching of the movie after having not seen it, end-to-end, for about 30 years. As they are approaching their target major Kong (Slim Pickens) is running down the bombing checklist with his bombardier. It’s kind of a cool scene that you can call up on YouTube. The Bombardier, which I had not noticed before, is played by James Earl Jones in his motion picture debut. One final little thing about the movie. It has a great ending but it’s not the ending that was originally filmed. Originally the film was supposed to end with a huge pie fight in the war room. The scene was actually filmed and exists… somewhere. To my knowledge, and according to my research, it has only been shown once, at a special screening of Dr. Strangelove shortly after Kubrick’s death. If I had been able to find it, I would provide a link here. But it doesn’t appear to exist anywhere on the Internet. I tried to picture it in my mind and, while funny, I don’t think it does justice to the scene they actually used. Kubrick himself said the movie was supposed to be a satire, and the pie fight strayed too far into farce, which is why he dropped it.

That’s about all I have to say regards Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It’s well worth watching for the first time or rewatching if you haven’t seen it in a while. Honestly, the thing that got me to start writing about this was discovering James Earl Jones playing a minor part as bombardier Lt. Lothar Zogg. I love watching old movies that I haven’t seen in a while and discovering things about them that I had not noticed the first time around. In the case of Dr. Strangelove, as usual, I went online to do a lot of research. Usually, I start out just trying to make sure I’ve got spellings, dates, and timelines correct. I am a stickler when it comes to making my details accurate. I also try to get them from multiple sources to make sure I’m getting accurate commentary. That’s how it starts. But then, as I start reading up on the subject, I find all sorts of interesting things I never knew.

I could have written this as a standard movie review. “Hey, watch Dr. Strangelove. It’s really, really good!” But then I’m just an old geezer reminiscing about a 58-year-old film we’ve all seen at least once, with a bunch of other old geezers, all trying to remember our youth. This way, I learned something new, and am trying to pass that knowledge on to the rest of you. I like to bring something new to the conversation. I hope it gives you a reason to rewatch the movie and see what new you can find in it. If you haven’t seen it before, I hope it makes you say “Gee that does sound kind of interesting. Maybe I should check it out.” I went that little extra to add to the conversation and I hope you all appreciate it. This is how I swing for the fences.

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