Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) on Netflix
General Jack D. Ripper orders a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union and cuts off Burpelson Air Force Base. President Merkin Muffley and General Buck Turgidson try to recall the bombers.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, who commands Burpelson Air Force Base, believes the Soviets are poisoning American water with fluoride. He issues an attack order to the B-52 bombers of the 843rd Bomb Wing, and only a three-letter code he holds can recall them. Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, Ripper's executive officer and a British exchange officer, sees that the order did not come from the Pentagon, and Ripper responds by locking the two of them in his office. In the War Room, President Merkin Muffley and General Buck Turgidson search for a way to bring the planes back; Muffley brings in Soviet Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky to warn Premier Dimitri Kisov, and the president's adviser, the former Nazi Dr. Strangelove, joins the discussion.
Cast
- Frank Berryas Lt. Dietrich
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Columbia Pictures agreed to finance the film only if Peter Sellers played at least four major roles, because the studio believed much of the success of Kubrick's Lolita came from Sellers playing a single character who assumes several identities.
- Sellers was expected to play B-52 commander Major T. J. "King" Kong and practiced the Texan accent from tapes recorded by screenwriter Terry Southern, but after shooting started he sprained his ankle and could no longer work in the cramped aircraft mockup.
- John Wayne was offered the role after Sellers was injured but never responded to Kubrick, and Dan Blocker of the Bonanza western television series was also approached, until Blocker's agent rejected the script as being "too pinko".
- Slim Pickens had never left the United States and had to hurry to get his first passport; he arrived on set and somebody said he had arrived in costume, not realizing the cowboy hat, fringed jacket and cowboy boots were how he always dressed.
- Kubrick argued that the rival nuclear thriller Fail Safe had been plagiarized from Peter George's Red Alert, to which he owned the creative rights. The suit was settled out of court, Columbia Pictures bought Fail Safe, and it opened eight months after Dr. Strangelove.
- Rumors claimed Dr. Strangelove was based on Henry Kissinger, but Sellers said "Strangelove was never modeled after Kissinger", insisting it was always Wernher von Braun; Kissinger noted in his memoirs that he was a little-known academic at the time.
