Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

synopsis Link to heading

The title character, Dr. Strangelove, riffs on the US government’s morally questionable use of Nazi scientists in programs such as nuclear weapons research. Dr. Strangelove, played by Peter Sellers, retains a thick German accent, and mistakenly calls the President “Mein Führer” on more than one occasion. His appearance echoes the villains of the Fritz Lang era in 1920s Germany whose sinister and evil characters were usually offset by some disability. Sellers improvised Dr. Strangelove’s lapse into the Nazi salute, borrowing one of Kubrick’s black gloves for the uncontrollable hand that makes the “Sieg Heil” gesture. Sellers found the director’s gloves that Kubrick perpetually wore to avoid direct contact with hot lights to be especially menacing. The thought of the new, post-war centrally controlled, underground, male-dominated society with its members specially selected from the population is evocative of Nazi visions and animates Dr. Strangelove at the end.

original screenplay Link to heading

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb original screenplay

few memorable quotes and stills from the best black comedy of all times Link to heading

★ Link to heading

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Condition red, sir. Yes. Jolly good idea, keeps the men on their toes

★ Link to heading

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, that’s all I’ve been told. It just came in on the Red Phone. My orders are for this base to be sealed tight, and that’s what I mean to do: seal it tight. Now, I want you to transmit plan R, R for Robert, to the wing. Plan R for Robert

★ Link to heading

General Jack D. Ripper: I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids

★ Link to heading

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: General Ripper, Sir, as an officer in Her Majesty’s Air Force, it is my clear duty, under the present circumstances, to issue the recall code, upon my own authority, and bring back the Wing. If you’ll excuse me, sir. [He finds the doors locked]

★ Link to heading

Major Kong: Primary target, the ICBM complex at Laputa. Target reference Yankee Golf Tango Three Six Zero. Thirty megaton nuclear device fused for airburst at ten thousand feet. Twenty megaton nuclear device will be used if first malfunctions. Otherwise proceed to secondary target, missile complex seven miles east of Barshaw. Target reference November Bravo X-Ray One Zero Eight. Fused airburst at ten, check, twelve thousand feet.

★ Link to heading

President Merkin Muffley: Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.

★ Link to heading

Dr. Strangelove: [in wheelchair] A moment please, Mr. President. [stomps one foot on the tile floor, pushes back from the table and begins wheeling towards the discussion between Muffley and DeSadeski] Under the authority granted me as director of weapons research and development, I commissioned last year a study of this project by the Bland corporation. Based on the findings of the report, my conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent, for reasons which, at this moment, must be all too obvious

★ Link to heading

President Merkin Muffley (to Kissoff): Hello?… Ah… I can’t hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?… Oh-ho, that’s much better… yeah… huh… yes… Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri… Clear and plain and coming through fine… I’m coming through fine, too, eh?… Good, then… well, then, as you say, we’re both coming through fine… Good… Well, it’s good that you’re fine and… and I’m fine… I agree with you, it’s great to be fine… a-ha-ha-ha-ha… Now then, Dmitri, you know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb… The Bomb, Dmitri… The hydrogen bomb!… Well now, what happened is… ah… one of our base commanders, he had a sort of… well, he went a little funny in the head… you know… just a little… funny. And, ah… he went and did a silly thing… Well, I’ll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes… to attack your country… Ah… Well, let me finish, Dmitri… Let me finish, Dmitri… Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?… Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dmitri?… Why do you think I’m calling you? Just to say hello?… Of course I like to speak to you!… Of course I like to say hello!… Not now, but anytime, Dmitri. I’m just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened… It’s a friendly call. Of course it’s a friendly call… Listen, if it wasn’t friendly… you probably wouldn’t have even got it… They will not reach their targets for at least another hour… I am… I am positive, Dmitri… Listen, I’ve been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick… Well, I’ll tell you. We’d like to give your air staff a complete run-down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes… Yes! I mean i-i-i-if we’re unable to recall the planes, then… I’d say that, ah… well, ah… we’re just gonna have to help you destroy them, Dmitri… I know they’re our boys… All right, well listen now. Who should we call?… Who should we call, Dmitri? The… wha-whe, the People… you, sorry, you faded away there… The People’s Central Air Defense Headquarters… Where is that, Dmitri?… In Omsk… Right… Yes… Oh, you’ll call them first, will you?… Uh-huh… Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dmitri?… Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Omsk information… Ah-ah-eh-uhm-hm… I’m sorry, too, Dmitri… I’m very sorry… All right, you’re sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well… I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri! Don’t say that you’re more sorry than I am, because I’m capable of being just as sorry as you are… So we’re both sorry, all right?… All right

★ Link to heading

843rd BOMB WING STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND: Peace is our profession

★ Link to heading

It would not be difficult mein Fuhrer! Nuclear reactors could, heh… I’m sorry. Mr. President. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plantlife. Animals could be bred and slaughtered. A quick survey would have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country. But I would guess… that ah, dwelling space for several hundred thousands of our people could easily be provided.

★ Link to heading

Well let’s see now ah, [searches within his lapel] cobalt thorium G. [notices circular slide rule in his gloved hand] aa… nn… Radioactive halflife of uh,… hmm.. I would think that uh… possibly uh… one hundred years. [On finishing his calculations, he pulls the slide rule roughly from his gloved hand, and returns it to within his jacket]

★ Link to heading

Dr. Strangelove: Sir! I have a plan! [standing up from his wheelchair]. Mein Fuehrer! I can walk!