Dr. Strange or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb

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Movie
German title Dr. Strange or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb
In Austria:
Dr. Strange or instructional for beginners in the carefree love of nuclear weapons
Original title Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Country of production Great Britain ,
United States
original language English
Publishing year 1964
length 93 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (previously: 16)
Rod
Director Stanley Kubrick
script Stanley Kubrick,
Terry Southern ,
Peter Bryant
production Stanley Kubrick
music Laurie Johnson
camera Gilbert Taylor
cut Anthony Harvey
occupation
synchronization

Dr. As I learned the bomb to love: strange or (AKA: or Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb ) is a satirical film by Stanley Kubrick from the year 1964 through the Cold War and the nuclear deterrent . It is based on the novel Bei Rot: Alarm! The novel of the push button war (original title: Red Alert ) by Peter George . The film was released on January 29, 1964 in Great Britain and the United States and on April 10, 1964 in the Federal Republic of Germany .

action

The film describes how the insane US Air Force General Jack D. Ripper tries on his own to start a nuclear war against the Soviet Union by giving the order to attack the B-52 bombers under his control at the Burpelson air base . Ripper is convinced of a secret Soviet plan that he wants to forestall; allegedly the "valuable body fluids" of the people in the USA are to be broken down by fluoridation of the drinking water, among other things .

He has instructed his subordinates to defend the base under all circumstances, since "the Reds", possibly even disguised as American soldiers , could attack the base. In addition, he cut all telephone and data connections and had all radios collected to prevent the enemy from attempting to deceive.

At an emergency meeting in the Pentagon's War Room , General Buck Turgidson informed US President Muffley about the situation. The bombers were on their way and could not be recalled, the Soviet Union would certainly strike back . Turgidson therefore proposes that the President use all available nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union in order to achieve complete victory. You could keep your own losses at 25 million deaths, which compared to 150 million if you act hesitantly, could still be considered a success.

Muffley is appalled at this suggestion. He does not want to "go down in history as the greatest mass murderer since Adolf Hitler ". So he brings the Soviet ambassador to the command center and contacts the Moscow Kremlin . The ambassador explains to those present that the Soviet Union has constructed and activated a world destruction machine that would automatically and inexorably answer a nuclear attack by destroying all life on earth with an atomic fallout . Inevitably, both governments are now using all means to cope with the dire situation.

President Muffley recaptures the air force base. Commandant Jack D. Ripper shoots himself in the toilet for fear of being tortured to reveal the recall code. The British exchange officer, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, managed to find out the recall code for the bombers. After various difficulties, he finally manages to get a connection to the Pentagon and pass on the code. All bombers then turn back. Only one machine with the nickname The Leper Colony (" The Leper Colony ") under the command of Major "King" Kong cannot receive the return order: the bomber was shot at by the Soviet air defense , the radio and tank are damaged.

The Leper Colony is losing fuel and can no longer reach its primary target (reported to the Soviet air defense against General Turgidson's protest). After calculating the remaining range, the crew therefore decides on one of the alternative destinations shown in the mission documents. Since the aircraft flies so low that it cannot be detected by the enemy radar , the Soviet air defense is unable to intercept it. The Leper Colony therefore carries out the attack - but now the release mechanism for the bomb is on strike. Major Kong climbs into the bomb bay himself and manages to fix the problem, but the bomb comes off while he is still sitting on it. In a sequence that has become famous, Kong then flies towards the target - sitting astride the bomb, with a cry of joy, waving his cowboy hat.

The foreseeable end of the previous civilization caused only a brief dismay at the US headquarters. Dr. Strange, a German scientist who is now working for the American government makes a suggestion how the survival of a small part of the American nation could be secured in mine tunnels. In order to ensure military superiority even after the 100-year project, Dr. Strange a breeding program for humans that u. a. provides for polygynous partnerships with ten women per man. For this purpose, an electronic brain should select the most capable and genetically optimal participants. The prospect of being elected to the program met with great approval from the - all male - politicians and the military. Dr. Strange gets up from his wheelchair and shouts: "My guide, I can go again!"

The final sequence shows - musically accompanied by the jazz piece We'll meet again by the singer Vera Lynn - the destruction of human civilization by atom bomb explosions .

background

Template: Red Alert

Dr. Strange is based on the novel Red Alert , which author Peter George published in 1958 under the pseudonym Peter Bryant. In Germany, the book has so far only been published as a booklet novel, namely in 1961 under the title Bei Rot: Alarm! as Utopia science fiction No. 300. Peter George then worked with Kubrick and the satirist Terry Southern on the script for Dr. Strange . Red Alert is much more sober than Dr. Strange - the figure of Dr. For example, it doesn't look strange at all. It was Southern who brought the satirical and black humor elements into the script.

Until shortly before the bomb is dropped, the plot is practically the same as in the film, but then it develops completely differently. In the book, for example, a badly damaged B-52 drops its hydrogen bomb (which nobody rides on), but it misses its target; it is also so damaged that only its nuclear warhead detonates. In contrast to the film plot, this does not result in the automatic ignition of the world destruction machine, since according to the book it can only be ignited manually. The ICBM complex is not destroyed, and the nearby city remains virtually unscathed. After the Soviet marshal agreed to renounce the destruction of an American city granted to him by the American president to make amends, the book ends with the president's realization that, with the imminent deployment of American ICBMs, a war between the two superpowers would be pointless, there this would result in the immediate extinction of the two world powers. The general who gave his squadron the order to attack wanted to forestall what he believed was an imminent attack by the Soviets before they could deploy their ICBMs.

In the same year and by the same studio ( Columbia ), the film Fail-Safe by Sidney Lumet , based on the novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick , was released. Fail-Safe deals with the same topic as Dr. Strangelove - an accidental nuclear war - but without the black humor and satirical elements of Dr. Strangelove .

Cast and characters

The star of the film is Peter Sellers . He plays three roles, improvising some of the dialogues:

  • Group Captain Lionel Mandrake , a sensible, well-meaning British exchange officer
  • Merkin Muffley , the American President, humble, level-headed and obviously easily overwhelmed
  • Dr. Strange , a German scientist - his original name is Strangelove (strange love) . This figure appears to be based on Herman Kahn , John von Neumann , Wernher von Braun , Edward Teller, and then Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara . Sidney Gottlieb is also said to have been a model for this protagonist ; both are handicapped, Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers) is in a wheelchair. Gottlieb had a clubfoot and was involved in Operation Paperclip ; the name of the film character alludes to John Gittinger's research on strange forms of eroticism in what was then San Francisco .
  • Sellers were originally supposed to play the role of Major Kong ; because of an alleged leg injury, he did not take it. Sellers are rumored to have faked the injury (as suggested in the biographical film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers ).

Act in other leading roles:

  • Sterling Hayden as the paranoid General Jack D. Ripper , whose name alludes to the serial killer Jack the Ripper . General Thomas S. Power is said to have been the model .
  • Slim Pickens as Major Kong , captain of the all-important bad luck bomber, played a Texan showcase cowboy full of patriotic convictions.
  • George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson , who as a US Air Force General wants to flee to the front and pursue everything available. This figure is very likely based on Curtis E. LeMay , then head of the strategic bomber fleet.
  • Tracy Reed embodies Miss Scott , General Turgidsons secretary and mistress, the only female character in this film.
  • James Earl Jones made his acting debut in this film as a bomb shooter.

The script and its allusions

The film plays essentially in real time . At first it was supposed to be a serious discussion of the nuclear threat, but the more intensively Kubrick dealt with the matter, the more insane the subject seemed to him. By including comic authors, he succeeded in turning the oppressive mixture of actually imaginable madness in all its captivating logic and absurd comedy into a timeless inventory of human fantasies of omnipotence. The idea, considered at an earlier stage, to present the event as documentation of the destruction of the world found by aliens, was dropped by Kubrick. In 2001: A Space Odyssey , he had a similar idea, but removed the voiceover narrator shortly before the premiere.

The final sequence of the film shows footage of nuclear weapons tests , including Operation Crossroads (Baker) and Operation Castle (Bravo).

In the Original Version, General Turgidson asks when Dr. Strangely occurs: “Strangelove? What kind of a name is that? That ain't no herb name, is it, Stainesey? " ("Strangelove? What kind of name is that ? It's not a Kraut name, Stainesey, is it?"). The addressee replies: “He changed it when he became a citizen. Used to be Strange Love. " ("He changed his name when he became a citizen. It used to be called Strange Love.")

The strange behavior of Dr. Strange (the arm shoots up repeatedly in an uncontrolled manner in the Hitler salute and has to be laboriously tamed with the other arm) imitates an autonomous limb , as described in neuropathology .

The paranoia General Ripper is the allusion to the McCarthy era "communist" in the US widespread notions of infiltration of drinking water in damage to the American male potency. This was almost seamlessly linked to the concern about the so-called purity of blood propagated in the Nazi racial madness. Among the conspiracy theories there was also one that concerned the fluoridation of drinking water in the United States. For this reason, Ripper only drank distilled or rainwater mixed with pure alcohol in the film, which destroyed his mind and ultimately the world. Because of this fluoridation, in his opinion the “ Russkis ” only drink vodka .

The name of the "successful" bomber The Leper Colony refers to the film Der Kommandeur (1949), in which Gregory Peck, the new head of a US bomber squadron, summarizes the worst crew members in the B-17 bomber of the same name.

The treated in the film doomsday device (doomsday device) is related to the real Soviet 50- to 60-megaton detonation of the Zar bomb in 1961 on the island of Novaya Zemlya , the largest explosion of people ever caused. From the 1980s a system existed in the Soviet Union that comes close to the principle of the world annihilation machine, the “ dead hand ”.

Ken Adam was responsible for the design of the command center, where politicians and generals gather at the beginning of the film . He also took part in numerous James Bond films, where he designed, among other things, the villains' secret weapons and command centers. The motif of the command center with the huge monitors, the large round table and the characteristic lighting was often taken up in later films and series (mainly comedies and cartoons).

Apart from Mrs. Foreign Affairs , who appears on the Playboy cover and informs General Turgidson of General Ripper's attack order in the bedroom, the film is populated exclusively by men. Constant allusions (both visually and verbally) to suppressed instincts and omnipotence fantasies ensure that the action is sexually charged. The aerial refueling underlayed in the opening credits is such an allusion with the phallus-like shape of the boom. General Jack D. Ripper's name is reminiscent of the famous prostitute killer Jack the Ripper , and President Merkin Muffley's first name is slang for a pubic hair toupee. All protagonists seem to suppress their urges and develop different coping strategies for themselves. The theoretical constellation of ten women per man in the shelters occupies and interests the men in the command center more than logistical aspects of an evacuation. And when Dr. Strangely with the words “Mein Fuehrer , I can walk!” Raised out of his wheelchair, fantasies of omnipotence and impulse accumulation come together in a final apotheosis .

Originally, a different ending was planned: the officials were supposed to have a cake fight in the command center . The scene was also shot, but not included in the final version of the film. The film ends with Dr. Strangelove's exclamation "Mein Fuehrer, I can walk!" In the scene in which Major Kong reads the list of the emergency package contents, actor Slim Pickens originally said "Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with that stuff!" In early 1964, when the film was about to come out, this passage of text was thought to be inappropriate because US President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas just a few weeks earlier . The scene was dubbed, Kong is now talking about a nice weekend in Vegas . However, you can still read the word Dallas on his lips.

design

Ken Adam's production design is best known for the command center. Hardly anyone noticed that he also designed the interior of the aircraft, because it seems too realistic. One day he received a note from Kubrick telling him that the FBI might be interested in the sources Adam had consulted for his draft. In the United States, the interior of the B-52 bombers was a closely guarded secret; Adam had found out in a British aviation magazine what it looked like in such an airplane.

The opening credits were designed by Pablo Ferro . For the American graphic designer it was the first work on an opening credits. Kubrick pointed out a mistake to him a few months after the film was released: Ferro wrote “Base on the book [...]” instead of “Based [...]” in the opening credits. ” Years later, he worked for Kubrick again at Uhrwerk Orange .

Film music

  • A classic interpretation of Try a Little Tenderness (originally recorded by Otis Redding ) is played in the opening scene, while the titles appear in the foreground and in the background a flight refueling of a B-52 bomber is performed. The scenery, underlined by the interpretation reminiscent of Hollywood romance, awakens memories of the love act of dragonflies and at the same time underlines the trivialization of the nuclear threat.
  • When Johnny Comes Marching Home , a song from the American Civil War celebrating the return of the survivors. An instrumental version accompanies the scenes that play in the B-52. (The melody is better known internationally through the children's song The Animals Went In Two By Two , which is about Noah's Ark .)
  • We'll Meet Again by Vera Lynn , an optimistic, sentimental song from World War II , accompanies the destruction of the earth by atomic bombs at the end of the film.

Influence and possible continuation

Dr. Strange was the subject of a Congressional debate in the 1960s . According to Adam, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as President of the United States in the early 1980s, he asked to be shown the War Room in the White House , which he believed to exist based on the film. The film was so etched into the cultural memories of many that the events were generally perceived as if they had actually happened. Ronald Reagan's question, however, was not as far removed from reality as it first appears: the English government had protected war rooms in London during the Second World War . These are now a popular tourist attraction.

Kubrick planned a sequel to the film in the 1990s, but only wanted to act as a producer, similar to what he had planned for AI - Artificial Intelligence . Terry Gilliam was supposed to direct. The preparations and shooting for AI and Eyes Wide Shut , however, postponed the project again and again, so that it no longer came about.

Like many other Kubrick films, Dr. Strangely often parodied, u. a. in The Simpsons , when Homer Simpson rides an atomic bomb.

synchronization

The German version was created in 1964 by Berliner Synchron GmbH under the direction of Klaus von Wahl . The dialogue book came from Fritz A. Koeniger .

role actor German Dubbing voice
Group Captain Mandrake Peter Sellers Friedrich Schoenfelder
US President Muffley Peter Sellers Harry Meyen
Doctor Strange Peter Sellers Siegmar Schneider
General Buck Turgidson George C. Scott Arnold Marquis
Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper Sterling Hayden Heinz Engelmann
Major "King" Kong Slim Pickens Werner Schwier
Colonel Bat Guano Keenan Wynn Konrad Wagner
Soviet ambassador DeSadesky Peter Bull Martin Hirthe
Lieutenant Lothar Zogg James Earl Jones Alexander Welbat
Mr. Staines Jack Creley Jürgen Thormann
Captain 'Ace' Owens Shane Rimmer Edgar Ott

Reviews

“Kubrick's evil nuclear war satire shows the military and political machinations consistently as the pandemonium of insanity. The grotesque stylization of the characters and locations exposes the 'balance of horror' as an unstable construct that can turn into a nightmare at any time through banal coincidences and human weaknesses. One of the most radical, bitter and most accurate films on the subject. "

- Lexicon of international film

“In the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis , which brought the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe in 1962, Stanley Kubrick - accompanied by protests from military circles - shot this extraordinarily good and extremely disrespectful war satire, which at the same time portrays the senseless arms race as a farce and also criticizes that Nazi scientists are in the service of the United States. Peter Sellers is President, Air Officer and Dr. Strange once more ' Jack of all trades '. "

- prisma.de

“A macabre grotesque that balances between joke and paralyzing horror and that only loses its effect where it clearly decides in favor of the joke. The figure of Dr. Strange, in which the former German rocket experts are apparently to be satirized, is not really convincing. It is all too caricatured and discredited the Eggheads in general by fascist accents . Otherwise, however, Kubrick succeeds in making laughter go up in horror through a sophisticated staging, to make it clear how a perfect machine is at the mercy of - possibly - narrow-minded loners. "

- Dieter Krusche, Jürgen Labenski, Josef Nagel

Awards

Academy Awards 1965

British Academy Film Awards 1965

  • Award in the Best Film category
  • Award for Best British Film
  • Award for Best British Production Design ( Ken Adam )
  • Received the United Nations Award
  • Nomination for Best British Actor (Peter Sellers)
  • Nomination for Best British Cinematography (Stanley Kubrick, Peter George, Terry Southern)
  • Nomination for Best Foreign Actor (Sterling Hayden)

Stanley Kubrick won a. a. the Writer's Guild of America Award for Best American Comedy , the Director's Award at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards , the Danish Bodil for the best European film, the Sindacato Nazionale Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani and the French Étoile de Cristal for the best foreign film (Prix International); for the directing award of the Directors Guild of America he was nominated.

In 2003, the Federal Agency for Civic Education, in collaboration with numerous filmmakers, created a film canon for work in schools and included this film in their list. The American Film Institute sees the work among the 100 best American films (26th place). In the updated 2007 edition, the film is ranked 39th. In 1989 he was accepted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress .

Current reference to the film

In the context of Donald Trump's presidency , current comparisons have been drawn between the President's short messages and the film satire. In particular, the tweets in which Trump threatens to cover North Korea with fire and anger and suggest that his atomic button is larger and more functional bring back memories of the film. Trump's unpredictability arouses fears that he could single-handedly trigger a nuclear war, similar to what is shown in the film.

literature

Web links

Commons : Dr. Strange, or How I Learned to Love the Bomb  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dr. Strange, or How I Learned to Love the Bomb - Age Rating . IMDb
  2. ↑ Dr. Strange, or How I Learned to Love the Bomb - Release Info . IMDb
  3. ↑ Hans Schmid: Charitable brainwashing. Psychopaths, Psychiatrists, and Psychonauts , Part 2. Telepolis
  4. ↑ Daniela Ovadia: Tormented by the ghost hand. In: Spiegel Online , December 17, 2006
  5. ↑ Hans Scheugl: Sexuality and Neurosis in Film. The cinema myths from Griffith to Warhol. Approved, unabridged paperback edition. Heyne Verlag, Munich 1978 (Heyne book 7074), ISBN 3-453-00899-5 , p. 145
  6. ↑ a b c Inside: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (2000) by David Naylor, Columbia Tristar Pictures
  7. ↑ Dr. Strange, or how I learned to love the bomb. In: synchrondatenbank.de. December 18, 2007, accessed May 27, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Dr. Strange or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 2, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Dr. Strange or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  10. ↑ Dr. Strange or How I learned to love the bomb - trailer, review, pictures and information about the film. In: prisma.de. August 3, 2006, accessed May 19, 2016 .
  11. ^ Dieter Krusche, Jürgen Labenski, Josef Nagel: Reclams film guide. 13th, revised edition. Verlag Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-010676-1 , p. 212
  12. ^ President Strange and the Bomb
  13. ↑ Atomic bomb mood - 53 years ago today, Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strange or: How I learned to love the bomb" came into German cinemas. He is more topical than ever.
  14. ↑ Donald Trump is 'obviously insane' and could be a character from Dr Strangelove, says filmmaker Errol Morris
  15. ↑ Could Trump single- handedly start the nuclear war?