History Film / DrStrangelove

* HopeSpot: Just when a nuclear holocaust seemed to be averted because Major Kong's bomb dropping mechanism got stuck, here he comes to fix it manually...

* CoolGuns: General Ripper carries a Browning M1919 in his golf bag. He also has a Lancaster Pistol on his gun wall.

!!This film includes examples of:

In 2023 it was announced that this film would be [[https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66186362 adapted into stage for London West End]] by Creator/ArmandoIannucci, set to open in Autumn 2024, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the film.

** Lampshaded by Creator/RogerEbert in his essay on the film:

** The Russians successfully shoot down four of the bombers by the time the Americans successfully enter the air base and find the encryption code, enabling communication with the remaining bombers and the issuing of the recall command. All bombers turn around except for one: it was not shot down by Russian air defenses, but only damaged, and the damage destroyed its radio equipment, making communication with it impossible. The Americans urge the Russians to concentrate all their air defenses around the bomber's primary and secondary targets. However, unbeknownst to both sides, the damaged aircraft is also losing fuel, and diverts to the nearest target of opportunity. At this final moment, it seems the world may still be saved: the electronics fail and the bomb fails to eject. However, the aircrew manages to repair the system in the nick of time, and the bomb falls on the Russian base and explodes... resulting in the end of the world.

* TheArtifact: A pastry table seen in one scene refers to the original ending, a colossal [[FoodFight pie fight]], which was {{deleted|Scene}} from the film's final cut for being too farcical. The fact that a joke was made about the President being "struck down in his prime" by one of the pies didn't help its cause since the JFK assassination had just taken place.

* {{Understatement}}: General Turgidson gets several of these in quick succession when he informs the President of the United States that General Ripper, a lower-echelon American military commander, has ordered a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union without the approval or knowledge of the White House or the Pentagon.
** When the President asks how General Ripper could possibly order such an attack, Buck says:
--->"Although I hate to judge before all the facts are in, it's beginning to look like General Ripper exceeded his authority."
** The President questions how the Human Reliability Tests didn't catch General Ripper's burgeoning psychosis:
--->"Well, I don't think it's quite fair to condemn the whole program because of a single slip-up, sir."
** Buck advocates following General Ripper's lead and to launch an all-out nuclear attack on Russia:
--->"Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops."
** Earlier when the President is talking with the Soviet Premier, he attempts to describe what Ripper did.

* InUniverseFactoidFailure: The Soviets build a doomsday device in response to an article in ''The New York Times'' that said the US was building a doomsday device. Dr. Strangelove clarifies that the American device was just a concept that was rejected for being impractical.

* InUniverseFactoidFailure: The Soviets build a doomsday device in response to an article in ''The New York Times''.

* DownerEnding: Despite the best efforts of both the Americans and Russians, Major Kong's bomber doesn't receive the recall order since their radio equipment was damaged in a missile strike and, with their fuel running low, they decide to bomb a closer target of opportunity, instead of one of their assigned targets where the Russians are watching for them. This triggers the Russians' Doomsday Machine, which will render the Earth's surface uninhabitable for nearly a hundred years and force what's left of humanity to live underground until then. The final scene is a montage of nuclear detonations accompanied by the song "[[Music/VeraLynn We'll Meet Again]]," implying that even long after we're all dead, whoever comes next will ''still'' be finding disgustingly stupid and petty reasons to kill each other. [[BlackComedy And yet, it still remains hilarious.]]

* TheArtifact: A pastry table seen in one scene refers to the original ending, a colossal [[FoodFight pie fight]], which was {{deleted|Scene}} from the film's finale cut for being too farcical. The fact that a joke was made about the President being "struck down in his prime" by one of the pies didn't help its cause since the JFK assassination had just taken place.

One day during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General [[GeneralRipper Jack D. Ripper]] (Creator/SterlingHayden) goes a little funny in the head and does a silly thing; he orders all the B-52 bombers under his command to carry out a surprise, first-strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, then puts his entire air base into lockdown, ordering all outside communications cut, all radios confiscated (so that Communist infiltrators can't receive outside commands) and all troops to immediately fire upon anyone who tries to enter the base, even if they appear to be fellow Americans (because they will surely be those wily Communists in disguise). Ripper's aide, British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Creator/PeterSellers), tries to talk sense into him but shortly realizes that the general has gone right out of his pointy little head, believing that only he stands in the way of a Communist plot to contaminate Americans' "precious bodily fluids" via fluoridated water.

At the Pentagon, U.S. President Merkin Muffley ([[ActingForTwo also Peter Sellers ]]) holds an emergency meeting in the War Room with his top advisors. While the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Buck Turgidson (Creator/GeorgeCScott), views the crisis as an opportunity to hit the Russkies where they live once and for all, the President's [[GeniusCripple wheelchair-bound]], [[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons ex-Nazi]] [[MadScientist science advisor]], Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers again), and the Soviet ambassador (Peter Bull) both warn Muffley that any attack on the USSR will trigger [[DoomsdayDevice the Doomsday Machine]]: a computer programmed to [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum detonate buried cobalt bombs that will kill nearly all life on Earth's surface with their radiation over the course of months]] if the Soviet Union is attacked (or if any attempt is made to disable the Doomsday Machine). So the President gets on the hotline and desperately attempts to convince the drunken Soviet premier that the imminent attack is merely a silly mistake while the military tries to call the bombers back.

*** When Ambassador DeSadesky gives a number to reach Premier Kissov with an explanation that implies that the Premier is with his mistress rather than at the office, Turgidson calls Kissov "a degenerate atheist commie".

* DeathByAdaptation:
** Life on Earth as we know it! In the novel ''Red Alert'', the lone bomber fails to destroy its target and nuclear catastrophe is averted.
** Ripper's novel counterpart also doesn't commit suicide; he escapes at the controls of a plane.

In 2023 it was announced that this film would be [[https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66186362 adapted into stage for London West End]] by Creator/ArmandoIanucci, set to open in Autumn 2024, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the film.

* EitherOrTitle: A well-known [[TheJoyOfX (and well-parodied)]] example.

* LongTitle: The film's full title, ''Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb''.

** Soviet Premier Kissoff, whose name invokes "kissing."

* IgnoredEpiphany: Both the Americans and the Soviets implemented doomsday schemes which have accidentally resulted in the end of all life on the planet. An emergency plan is quickly conceived to send a few people underground to live in mineshafts for a 100 years to prevent the extinction of the human race until the radiation disperses. However, rather than realizing humanity will be lucky if it survives at all, and that it was the geopolitical and ideological competition and paranoia which led to this in the first place, both sides almost ''immediately'' begin making plans to "out-breed" the other while they wait underground in the mines, and make plans to stash away weapons for the inevitable war which will occur when they emerge.