Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS, including “Atomic Cover-up” and “Memorial Day Massacre” which are still up at PBS.org. Before all that, he was a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for free.
This week we celebrate the 60th birthday of “Dr. Strangelove,” which debuted on January 29, 1964. The first preview screening had been set for Nov. 22, 1963, but....well, you know. The premiere was then pushed back a bit. Fortunately, Kubrick's president, the balding Merkin Muffley (one of three roles for Peter Sellers), was more Ike than JFK.
As a callow youth, I saw “Strangelove” in the theater and it instantly became my all-time favorite movie, and retained that position for many years. I would also say that it probably had the most influence on my career, since I went on to serve as editor of Nuclear Times, spent a month in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wrote about The Bomb for dozens of leading publications and then in three books, and most recently wrote and directed a PBS film titled “Atomic Cover-up.” So that’s…a lot.
Also, in a bit of homage, a photo taken by Kubrick turns up in my latest PBS film, “Memorial Day Massacre.”
So here are a few “Strangelove”-related highlights, including a couple of parodies.
Here's the original trailer which was killed and not seen for decades.
A Lego version of one scene:
Homer Simpson rides The Bomb, a la Slim Pickens.
The “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk” climax:
Parody trailer for a fun Oliver Stone re-make titled “Fluoridation.”
Peter Sellers covers The Beatles “She Loves You” in his Dr. S voice. Genius at work. “Yah, yah, she loves you.”
Kubrick on making the film, the script, Terry Southern, directing…. ”I was very pleased with the film.”
Gen. Turgidson calls for all-out attack to catch Russkies “with their pants down.”
Gen. Ripper informs Mandrake about those “precious bodily fluids.”
On the famously deleted final scene, the pie fight in the War Room. Probably a good thing that it was cut.
And a 45-minute “the making of” film.
Finally, yes, Johnny Cash covered the movie’s final number, the Vera Lynn classic, “We’ll Meet Again.”
Greg Mitchell’s books and films….
Films: Watch award-winning “Atomic Cover-up” at PBS site and via PBS apps now, or free from Kanopy, and see companion book at Amazon. Watch “Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried” at PBS site and via apps, also companion book at Amazon. Read about “The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair” or purchase the DVD here for yourself or your library.
Books include: Best-selling “The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Film JFK Tried to Kill.” Award-winners “The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics” and “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” A New York Times Notable Book, “Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas.”
Also, two acclaimed books with Robert Jay Lifton, “Hiroshima in America” and “Who Owns Death? Against Capital Punishment.” On the media and Iraq, “So Wrong for So Long,” with an preface by Bruce Springsteen. And in a different vein, “Vonnegut and Me,” “Journeys With Beethoven” and “Joy in Mudville: A Little League Memoir.”
Yes, I corrected, it's MERKIN Muffley, my bad, but then again, I've only seen the film ten times...
I saw the film twice in '64. Once at the post theater at Carlisle Barracks, PA, the home of the Army War College. The audience, consisting of Army officers, wives and their children, howled. Later the same year, I saw it in the civilian theater in downtown Carlisle. Smaller audience, probably all civilians. You could hear a pin drop.