Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Trivia / DrStrangelove

Go To

1* AccidentallyCorrectWriting: Many parts of the B-52 were closely guarded secrets at the time of the film's production, including how the interior looked. Production designers came up with the interior sets by looking at photos and guessing how much space would be available and installing equipment they thought it should have based on publicly available information of other bombers. It turned out they were eerily close to the mark and US government officials panicked, thinking someone had leaked design details.
2* ActingForTwo: Or rather three, with Creator/PeterSellers as Captain Mandrake, President Muffley, and Dr. Strangelove. It was originally meant to be ''four'', but Sellers had a strong aversion to playing the fourth role and a supposedly/conveniently sprained ankle prevented him from getting into and out of the B-52 set, so Slim Pickens was added to the cast to play "King" Kong instead.
3* ActingInTheDark:
4** Slim Pickens was not told that the movie was a comedy during filming and played his part straight. He's still hilarious, because Slim Pickens is ''just that funny'', intentionally or not.
5** A slight variant with Creator/GeorgeCScott. While Creator/StanleyKubrick wanted the character of Turgidson to be completely ridiculous, Scott wasn't comfortable playing the role that way and wanted him to be a tragic character instead...in a ''comedy''. Kubrick got what he knew the film needed by telling Scott to [[LargeHam ham it up]] for "practice" takes prior to the "real" takes, and then using all the "practice" takes in the final film. Scott was not happy, and vowed never to work with Kubrick again, although he did concede that the director's ruse was [[ActuallyPrettyFunny cleverly done]].
6* ActorInspiredElement: Dr. Strangelove's glove is from Creator/StanleyKubrick's personal collection. Creator/PeterSellers had seen Kubrick wearing them to handle hot lights on the set and thought they looked sinister. He wore one on his right hand (the one not under his control) to add to Strangelove's evil vibe and Nazi background.
7* ActorSharedBackground: Like Group-Captain Mandrake, Creator/PeterSellers was in the RAF, although he was never a pilot due to his poor eyesight. His ability to impersonate officers led to his portrayal of Mandrake.
8* BackedByThePentagon: Not in this case.
9* CastTheExpert: Group Captain Lionel Mandrake was the easiest of Creator/PeterSellers' three roles to play, as he had actually served in the RAF.
10* CastTheRunnerUp:
11** Creator/PeterSellers was originally asked to play Maj. T.J. "King" Kong, and practiced intensely with the American screenwriter to get the UsefulNotes/{{American Accent|s}} right. After the first day of shooting, he sprained his ankle, and could no longer work in the cramped airplane set. So they recast the role with Slim Pickens.
12** According to some accounts, Sellers was also invited to play the part of General Buck Turgidson, but turned it down because it was too physically demanding.
13* {{Corpsing}}: If you look carefully, you can see Peter Bull (the Russian ambassador) shaking with barely controlled mirth and biting his own lip as Sellers fights with his EvilHand.
14* CreatorsOddball: The only full blown comedy in Stanley Kubrick's filmography, albeit a dark one. While ''Film/AClockworkOrange'' and ''Film/FullMetalJacket'' have comedic elements sprinkled in, they're both considered dramas. Also one of only three films of his currently not owned by Creator/WarnerBrothers. [[note]] The only ones that aren't are ''Fear and Desire'', which is in the public domain, this by Creator/ColumbiaPictures, and ''Film/{{Spartacus}}'' by Creator/{{Universal}}. Everything else until ''Film/AClockworkOrange'' was acquired by Warner Bros in the 80s and beginning with Orange spent the rest of his career exclusively at Warner. [[/note]]
15* {{Defictionalization}}: In probably the most disturbing example of defictionalization, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_%28nuclear_war%29 Dead Hand]] system constructed by the Soviets in the '80s is essentially a real-life version of the DoomsdayDevice.
16* DisownedAdaptation: Author Peter George, who wrote ''Red Alert'', detested the conversion of his book to a satire, but wrote a tie-in novelization of the film anyway.
17* DistancedFromCurrentEvents: The release date was slightly delayed after JFK's assassination due to the story involving a fictional president:
18** In the scene where Major Kong reads the description of a survival kit's contents out loud, he originally says "Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in ''Dallas'' with all that stuff!" ''Dallas'' was redubbed to ''Vegas'' because of the connotations carried by ''Dallas'' in a post JFK-assassination America. It actually worked out well, as ''Vegas'' makes more sense in this context, especially today -- no-one would think of Dallas as a "party destination" any more, but Vegas is still the king of "What happens here stays here".
19** The original ending was to have everyone in the war room end up in a pie fight (don't ask). The President would be knocked down from the impact of the pie [[PieInTheFace hitting him]], with Gen. Turgidson saying "Gentlemen! Our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime!" Despite it being filmed before the assassination... (That wasn't why the scene was deleted, though -- they just [[{{Corpsing}} couldn't film it with the necessary "gravity."]] It didn't help that the set was so utterly coated in whipped cream that there was no way to reset it afterwards.)
20* DuelingMovies: ''Film/FailSafe'', a dead serious take on this FailsafeFailure premise, was also released in 1964 (and by [[Creator/ColumbiaPictures the same studio]] to boot). The straight film is good (though it performed poorly at the box-office), but Kubrick's film has become iconic. Kubrick delayed the release of ''Fail Safe'' by filing a plagiarism lawsuit, which went nowhere, but did get ''Dr. Strangelove'' to theatres first, which was the entire point.
21* EnforcedMethodActing:
22** Kubrick wanted a "cowboy" actor to pilot the Leper Colony nuclear bomber, but all the ones he contacted refused because of the anti-war source material. So he finally decided to contact Slim Pickens, show him nothing but his parts, and never told him he was making a comedy, implying that his character was the hero of the film, "heroically" ''delivering the bomb that ends the world.'' Pickens was okay with it in the long run, spinning the publicity into a highly successful career.
23** On the other hand, Creator/GeorgeCScott wanted to play General Turgidson as a dignified WellIntentionedExtremist, so Kubrick tricked him by telling him to do a few over the top takes as "practice" and that they would never be put into the real movie. ''Kubrick used all of them.'' Scott eventually admitted it was better that way and that [[ActuallyPrettyFunny he couldn't help but admire Kubrick's audacity]], but nonetheless he vowed never to work with the director again.
24* ExecutiveMeddling: The geniuses at Columbia Pictures were for some reason under the impression that the only reason ''Film/{{Lolita}}'' was a success was the gimmick of Peter Sellers playing multiple roles. They would only greenlight ''Dr. Strangelove'' on the condition that Kubrick agree to cast Sellers in ''at least'' four roles. This is especially strange since in ''Film/{{Lolita}}'', Sellers does not actually play multiple roles. He plays a single elusive character who also pretends to be two additional persons. On the other hand, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools it certainly didn't hurt the film and Peter Sellers playing three roles is one of the most acclaimed parts of the film.]]
25* FakeNationality: Played straight with British-born Creator/PeterSellers as the American President Merkin Muffley, and with British-born [[ActingforTwo Peter Sellers]] as the eponymous German scientist (also played straight with British-born Tracy Reed as the American secretary Miss Franklin). Averted, however, with British-born [[RuleofThree Peter Sellers]] as the British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake.
26* HarpoDoesSomethingFunny: Many of the scenes with Peter Sellers were improvised, most famously the phone conversation with the Soviet premier and "Mein Führer, I can walk!" This is especially impressive when you consider this was a movie by Creator/StanleyKubrick, one of the most infamously controlling directors of all time.
27* IronyAsSheIsCast:
28** Creator/SterlingHayden, who plays a paranoiac who fears communists, was himself an American Communist Party member at one time.
29* JewsPlayingNazis: The half-Jewish Creator/PeterSellers plays an ex-Nazi who still obviously follows their ideals.
30* LoopingLines: There is a noticable scene where Major Kong is saying "Dallas" but you hear "Vegas", in order to [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents put some distance]] from the recent assassination of JFK in Dallas.
31* MidDevelopmentGenreShift: This was originally meant to be a straight drama, much like the original novel, but Creator/StanleyKubrick found the situations so ridiculous and over-the-top that he decided to [[PlayedForLaughs play it for]] [[BlackComedy dark laughs]].
32* OnSetInjury: Creator/PeterSellers was originally cast as Major Kong, until he injured his ankle while filming a take in the cockpit set.
33* OneTakeWonder: Kubrick kept multiple cameras on Sellers at all times so that he could get as much as he could in a single take.
34* RealSongThemeTune:
35** For its opening theme tune, the film uses a lush arrangement of the old standard "Try a Little Tenderness" over B-52 aerial refueling footage, turning it into machine porn.
36** Closing the film with stock footage of nuclear explosions overlaid with Music/VeraLynn singing "We'll Meet Again" is also quite memorable.
37* RecursiveAdaptation: Peter George wrote the original book, ''Red Alert'' and a novelization that was closer to the movie.
38* ReferencedBy:
39** Pablo Ferro provided the titles in a style identical to the handwritten ones used in the film for the 1984 Music/TalkingHeads ConcertFilm, ''Film/StopMakingSense''.
40** The song "Slim Pickens Does The Right Thing And Rides The Bomb To Hell" by Music/TheOffspring refers the RidingTheBomb scene in both its title and chorus. In context, the reference to the scene is a metaphor meaning WhileRomeBurns (Major Kong cheering while riding a free fall atomic bomb being compaired to manking partying while climatic disasters caused by global warming are imminent).
41** ''Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962'' by Creator/MaxHastings makes a couple of references to ''Doctor Strangelove'', and directly compares Curtis [=LeMay=], Head of the US Air Force, to "Buck" Turgidson.
42* SelfAdaptation: Peter George wrote the original novel, the movie's screenplay and its novelization.
43* SelfPlagiarism: It is well-known that Peter Sellers improvised much of his dialogue through the film, under Kubrick's supervision. During his one-sided, strangely mindless telephone conversation with Premier Kissoff, he seemed to have dipped into his memory of dialogue originally scripted by Creator/SpikeMilligan for an episode of ''Radio/TheGoonShow'' in which they both appeared at the start of their careers: [[http://thegoonshow.net/scripts_show.asp?title=s06e03_the_lost_emperor "The Lost Emperor"]], in their respective roles as the gormless idiot Eccles (Milligan) and neurotic boy scout Bluebottle (Sellers). Sellers' conversation with Kissoff begins:
44-->'''Muffley:''' Hello? Hello, Dimitri? Listen, I can't hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? Oh,that's much better. Yes. Fine, I can hear you now, Dimitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine. I'm coming through fine too, eh? Good, then. Well then, as you say, we're both coming through fine. Good. Well it's good that you're fine and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine.
45::While the dialogue from "The Lost Emperor", as scripted by Milligan, is as follows[=:=]
46-->'''Bluebottle:''' Eccles? How do you like being on guard?\
47'''Eccles:''' Fine, fine.\
48'''Bluebottle:''' Yes it is fine, I feel fine on guard.\
49'''Eccles:''' Yeah, so do I. I, I feel fine on guard. \
50'''Bluebottle:''' Yes, it is nice to feel fine, in't it Eccles?\
51'''Eccles:''' Yah.\
52'''Bluebottle:''' Yeah. Yes, it is fine.\
53''(After Some Time)''\
54'''Bluebottle:''' Yes it is good that we both, what is us, feeling fine, in't it?\
55'''Eccles:''' Yah, we both feel fine.\
56'''Bluebottle:''' Yes we are both...\
57'''Bluebottle & Eccles:''' Feeling fine.
58::...etc., etc. - repeated one or two times until Bluebottle, having thought about it too much, declares[=:=]
59-->'''Bluebottle:''' 'Ere!...I feel sick!
60::Though Milligan was credited eventually for the usage of "We'll Meet Again" over the closing credits (he was a fan of explosions), he has never been fully credited for his unintentional scripting of Sellers' improvised dialogue.
61* StarMakingRole:
62** For Peter Sellers, who had the good fortune of preceding this with ''Film/ThePinkPanther1963'', which merely set the springboard for him.
63** Slim Pickens acknowledged that his career surged like never before due to his involvement in this movie. It certainly didn't hurt either that since Kubrick, Sellers, and Scott were all reticent to do interviews that the duty then fell on Pickens to appear on [[Series/TheTonightShowStarringJohnnyCarson The Tonight Show]] to promote the movie.
64--->"After Dr. Strangelove, the roles, the dressing rooms, and the checks all started gettin' bigger."
65* StillbornFranchise: In 1995, Creator/StanleyKubrick enlisted Terry Southern to script a sequel titled ''Son of Strangelove''. Kubrick had Creator/TerryGilliam in mind to direct. The script was never completed, but index cards laying out the story's basic structure were found among Southern's papers after his October 1995 death; it was set largely in underground bunkers, where Dr. Strangelove had taken refuge with a group of women. In 2013 Gilliam commented, "I was told after Kubrick died - by someone who had been dealing with him - that he had been interested in trying to do another Strangelove with me directing. I never knew about that until after he died but I would have loved to."
66* ThrowItIn:
67** Much of Creator/PeterSellers' dialogue was improvised (Kubrick had three cameras on Sellers at all times to take full advantage of this), including the hotline telephone conversation. Similarly, Strangelove's EvilHand's rampage at the end was largely improvisation (it was also Sellers' idea that it should be gloved). Keep in mind that Kubrick was the most insane [[ControlFreak perfectionist]] in the history of filmmaking. And Sellers got to ad-lib.
68** During the shootout in Ripper's office, Peter Seller's line was "I've got this thing in my leg." When he said it, it sounded like "This ''string'' in my leg's gone." Naturally, it was kept in.
69** At one point, George C. Scott is emphatically trying to convince the president (Sellers) to launch an attack when he suddenly trips and collapses to the ground before quickly picking himself up and continuing the scene. It fit so well with the deliberate ridiculousness of the rest of the movie that Kubrick left it in.
70** The end of the movie, where Strangelove stands up and yells ''"MEIN FÜHRER, I CAN WALK!"'' was actually an improv done by Peter Sellers, who got caught up in the moment, ''forgot that his character was paralyzed'', and accidentally stood up as he was about to deliver his response to the ongoing argument around him. Instead of cutting the scene, decided to do an improv, delivering the final, iconic line before the bombs fall and the credits roll.
71** Pablo Ferro used his own handwriting as a mockup of the titles, but Kubrick liked them so much that he told Pablo to use them as they were.
72* {{Trope Maker|s}}:
73** RidingTheBomb
74* TroubledProduction: First, while shooting aerial footage over Greenland, the crew accidentally caught a secret US military base on camera. Their plane was forced to land and they were suspected of being Soviet spies.
75** Secondly, Peter Sellers was initially cast as Major Kong until he injured his ankle on the set so the role was recast with Slim Pickens now playing Kong... which delayed production by a month since Pickens had never in his life traveled outside of the United States so he had to file for a passport and deal with the necessary paperwork and waiting times.
76* UrExample:
77** TheWarRoom
78* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
79** Creator/JohnWayne was considered for the part of Major Kong, but never replied. It's possible that it was because he considered the movie too "leftist."
80** In one version of the script, aliens from outer space observed all of the action.
81** Merkin Muffley originally had a bad cold and a slightly effeminate manner. Peter Sellers played this up so hilariously that the cast kept cracking up during filming. Stanley Kubrick decided to make him [[OnlySaneMan a foil for everyone else's craziness instead]], and re-shot the scenes with Sellers now playing the role straight, serving as an oasis of reason amidst all the madness.
82** As mentioned before, the film originally ended with a huge pie fight, but Kubrick found it too farcical and cut it. So far the footage has only been screened once at London's National Film Theatre after Kubrick's death.
83* WorkingTitle: ''The Edge of Doom'', ''The Delicate Balance of Terror'' and ''Dr. Doomsday or: How to Start World War III Without Even Trying'', ''Dr. Strangelove's Secret Uses of [[UranusIsShowing Uranus]]'', and ''Wonderful Bomb''.

Top