Director: Stanley Kubrick Cinematographer: Gilbert Taylor
Showcasing Kubrick’s uncanny ability to mix drama and the grotesque, Dr. Strangelove is a sharp satire on Cold War paranoia and the pathology of sexual frustration. The story concerns an unhinged US Air Force general (Sterling Hayden) who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. It also follows the President of the United States, his advisers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer as they try to recall the bombers to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. It separately follows the crew of one B-52 bomber as they try to deliver their payload. Along with Hayden the film also features great work from George C. Scott and Peter Sellers, who plays three pivotal parts. A radical and provocative gamble, the film is one of Kubrick’s most brilliantly realised productions and still considered one of the greatest comedies ever made.
Blu-ray
Stanley Kubrick Collection (Lolita / Dr. Strangelove / 2001: A Space Odyssey / A Clockwork Orange / Barry Lyndon / The Shining / Full Metal Jacket) DVD
Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (BFI Film Classics) Paperback
SteelBook [Blu-ray]
Calling Dr. Strangelove: The Anatomy and Influence of the Kubrick Masterpiece (Paperback)
Lists:
- No. 45 on The Pendragon Society’s 1000 Greatest Films of All-Time (2018)
- No. 5 on Sight & Sound Top Ten Director’s Poll (2002)
CAST
- Peter Sellers as:
- Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, a British RAF exchange officer
- President Merkin Muffley, the President of the United States
- Dr. Strangelove, the wheelchair-using nuclear war expert and former Nazi
- George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson, the USAF Chief of Staff
- Sterling Hayden as Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, a paranoid SAC commander
- Keenan Wynn as Colonel Bat Guano, the Army officer who finds Mandrake and the dead Ripper
- Slim Pickens as Major T. J. “King” Kong, the B-52 Stratofortress bomber’s commander and pilot
- Peter Bull as Soviet Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski
- James Earl Jones as Lieutenant Lothar Zogg, the B-52’s bombardier
- Tracy Reed as Miss Scott, General Turgidson’s secretary and mistress, the film’s only female character. Reed also appears as “Miss Foreign Affairs,” the centrefold in the June 1962 issue of Playboy magazine that Major Kong (Slim Pickens) is perusing just before he is notified of the radio message ordering “Wing Attack – Plan R” by Lt. “Goldie” Goldberg (Paul Tamarin).
- Shane Rimmer as Capt. Ace Owens, the co-pilot of the B-52
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Produced by Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick,Terry Southern, Peter George
Music by Laurie Johnson
Cinematography Gilbert Taylor
Edited by Anthony Harvey
Running time 94 minutes
Country United Kingdom, United States
Language English