50 Years Ago Today: “Dr. Strangelove”
On January 29, 1964, the movie Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Loved the Bomb was released into theaters. It is a classic movie and one of my favorite five films.
My father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force at the time. After several years stationed at Castle AFB in California where he was a pilot on B-52s, we were spending a year in Montgomery, Alabama where Dad attended the Air War College.
Yes, there is such an institution. No wonder Kubrick found fodder to make Dr. Strangelove, perhaps the greatest film satire of all time.
Later in 1964, my family was transferred to Minot AFB in North Dakota. That was real Dr. Strangelove territory, home to the B-52s that were constantly in the air, flying around the North Pole, ready to head toward Russia if message from HQ came in… just as the movie depicts.
Moreover there were dozens of underground ICBM missile installations dotting the barren terrain of North Dakota. Promoted to Colonel, my father had the authority to actually escort me down into one of them as well as visit several B-52s and the ground command center complete with huge illuminated world map with glowing dots, representing aircraft currently airborne — each armed with multiple nuclear warheads.
Did I mention Minot AFB was supposedly the 3rd most important target for a Soviet attack behind Washington D.C. and NORAD HQ in Colorado?
All in all, not the most ideal set of circumstances for my active imagination, knowing we were living at Ground Zero of what could at any moment turn into a nuclear Armageddon.
However when I finally saw Dr. Strangelove some years later, my upbringing had perfectly prepared me for the film’s brilliant gallows humor. It didn’t hurt that the movie was directed by one of the all-time greats in Kubrick and starred Peter Sellers, who is my favorite comic actor.
In honor of the movie, here is the original trailer. And like the film, it is wonderful:
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick & Terry Southern & Peter George, based on George’s book “Red Alert,” which, of course, I had read.
Any fans of Dr. Strangelove out there? If so, why not join me in comments to share your memories of seeing the film, any observations you have about it and even share some trivia. To wit:
Did you know Terry Southern was brought in as co-writer by Peter Sellers because Sellers was a big fan of Southern’s novel “The Magic Christian”, which later became a film (The Magic Christian (1969)), starring Sellers?
Plus this from Flavorwire: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Dr. Strangelove’.
UPDATE: Check out this documentary on the making of Dr. Strangelove:
HT to Stephany Folsom for the link. Excited to interview Stephany whose original screenplay “1969 A SPACE ODYSSEY or: HOW KUBRICK LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LAND ON THE MOON” made the 2013 Black List. You may follow Stephany on Twitter: @StephanyFolsom.
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