LET'S KEEP WORRYING ABOUT THE BOMB, SHALL WE? (DR. STRANGELOVE)
THE LOWDOWN: Mad general; world war three; rogue bomber; doomsday machines; bodily fluids; Vera Lynn.
WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?: Making jokes about the end of the world is always going to be a difficult proposition, particularly since the end of the world almost happened a couple months before this movie was released. However,
Dr. Strangelove certainly caught the
zeitgeist of that whole Cuban Missiles Crisis. And it certainly wasn't the only one. A similar movie with the same theme (
Fail-Safe) was released a couple of months after Kubrick's.
History, for all the right reasons, has chosen to remember
Dr. Strangelove while
Fail-Safe became a footnote of movie reviews like this one.
Thomas Allen Nelson, among others, stressed the erotic/sexual contents of the movie in relation to the incoming end of the world. Basically, they see the film as one big climax preceded by heavy petting and foreplay. Here are some of Nelson's observation (and some of mine as well):
- One of the first scene inside the B52 sees Major Kong "reading" Playboy magazine. He is clearly not interested in the articles, as he focuses on the centerfold, one Miss Tracy Reid...
- ...The very same Tracy Reid who is lounging in a leisurely fashion at General Turgidson's place. Before leaving for the War Room, the General reassures his lady friend he'll be back shortly, so she'll just have to "start her countdown" and Turgidson'll be back before she can say "blast off"!
- The whole thing started with General Jack D. Ripper's failure to "entertain" a member of the fairer sex. General Ripper then interpreted this as a dastardly communist plot to "sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids".
- The phallic B52 bomber is engaged in a race against time to bomb its primary and/or secondary targets. Basically it's like a giant sperm looking to fertilise any egg come what may.
- Buck Turgidson: Nelson decodes his name as "Swolen Male Animal Who Is The Son of a Swolen Male Animal".
- President Merkin Muffley: a reference to female genitalia.
- While General Ripper starts WWII because of an erectile dysfunction, the impotent Dr. Strangelove suddenly recovers his legs just as the Doomsday Machine does its thing and exterminate every living thing on Earth. The tendecy of his right arm to give Hitler Salutes at the drop of a hat may also be interpreted as the good Doctor having a series of hard on as the end of the world is closing in.
- When discussing the mine shaft lives of potential survivors, Dr. Strangelove mentions a ratio of 1 man for every 6 women. Gen. Turgidson remarks if that would mean the end of monogamous relationships between humans. The good Doctor concurs.
- Major Kong's alternate target is a power complex in Laputa. A reference to Joanthan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, but also la puta in Spanish (i.e. the "whore").
- Finally, when Col. Guano meets with Group Captain Mandrake he fails to recognise his foreign military uniform and believes Mandrake to be a "prevert" and that Gen. Ripper killed himself because he found out.
For my part,
Dr. Strangelove is about a series of
actes manqués resulting in the end of the world. The only thing that actually works is the Doomsday Machine, but it's turned on due to a continuous series of mistakes and mishap. As the President and his chiefs of staff struggle desperately to recall the planes, Major Kong's B52 bomber suffers a number of technical issues making the recall impossible all the while preventing the bomb strike. Only Kong's obstinate determination to carry out his orders dooms humanity, as he refuses to acknowledge his difficulties and return home. Even if he and his men have "strong, personal feelings about
nuculur combat" he is not about to let gas leaks and troublesome bay doors deter his intentions to go "toe to toe with the Russkies". In his defense, though, Kong is working on the misapprehension that the Russians have struck America first (or else he wouldn't have had the "go" code for Plan R). Consider the following:
- As stated before, the entire scenario hinges on General Ripper's failure to perform sexually, leading to psychosis, leading to Wing Attack Plan R (for Robert).
- Once the go code has been issued, all planes switch to CRM-114, making it impossible to reach them without the three-letter code prefix. Very obviously, General Ripper is unwilling to divulge it.
- Gen. Ripper seals off the base and swtiches the phone lines down, making it impossible to reach him, except by forced entry. By the time Col. Guano and his men locate the general he has already shot himself in is private bathroom (the door is also difficult to open, as his body blocks the door). Ripper also locks the doors of his office, trapping Mandrake inside with him.
- Mandrake attempts several times to reason with Ripper, as time goes by however the General slips further and further into insanity (resulting in his suicide).
- In the War Room, General Turgidson brings the President up to speed on Plan R (it was devised to allow a retaliatory nuclear strike in case of a surprise attack on the Pentagon). Despite reassurances that what has already happened was not possible, Turgidson admits that the human element has failed in this case.
- President Muffley has some trouble reaching Premier Kissof on the phone. The Premier is not in his office but in some cheap hotel, most likely with a prostitute (he is also a bit drunk). The resulting conversation is a comedy classic.
- De Sadeski reveals the Doomsday Machine, the ultimate in deterrent capability. However the machine was not yet made public, making the "deterrent" aspects irrelevant.
- The Russians attempt to shoot down Major Kong's plane. They do not succeed. However, the missile blows up close enough to the plane to deal some damage. Namely, the CRM-114 is completely destroyed making the plane's recall very difficult indeed. There also some damage to the plane's gas tank.
- Mandrake attempts to reach the President on the phone (the only one left working is a pay phone), however he doesn't have enough change to make the call.
- Most of the planes are indeed recalled, except for Major Kong's (see above). So the Russians will have to shoot it down themelves. The Russians attempt to corelate a course based on the plane's primary and secondary targets. So far, so good, however....
- The gas leaks means that the plane cannot proceed to these targets and so select another. The Russians have trouble keeping up.
- The bomb bay doors are also damage, as well as the release mechanism. Things are looking good, except...Major Kong's on the case.
Keep it mind that the whole of Plan R is what actually seals humanity's fate, not the Doomsday Machine. According to Gen. Trugdison, Plan R was devised so that a lower echelon officer could order a retaliatory nuclear strike if the usual chain of command has been disrupted in a previous attack. Since the President is the only one in authority allowed to order nuclear attacks, Plan R infers that the traditional
civilian government of the U.S. has ceased to exist. In place, a
military junta of surviving officers have taken over and can thus strike back at the enemy.
Given the prevalence of the so-called military-industrial complex during the Cold War (and beyond), and given the nature of the civilian vs. military inner conflicts of the Kennedy administration, one could surmise that what happens in
Dr. Strangelove is exactly what people like Turgidson and Ripper wanted all along: to launch a nuclear strike on the USSR without interference from the President and/or Congress. Indeed, Gen. Turgidson intends on using Ripper's act of insanity as a sneak attack on the Soviets, disregarding the fact the Ripper's use of Plan R was a personal abuse of national policy. After all, Turgidson has already ordered an "unofficial study" by the RAND corporation on the effect of a sneak nuclear strike. True, General Ripper clearly acted on his own accord. However, Trugidson certainly welcomes this as a golden opportunity to catch the Russians "with their pants down" (futhermore, the President's comments indicates that he would ultimately be blamed for this, even though he had nothing to do with it).
Recent historical reappraisals of the Cold War (Oliver Stone, and others) have painted a very different portrait of what was originally believed to be the "good" Americans vs. the "evil" Soviets. As WWII came to a close, the Truman administrationtook a progressively more "hard line" view on the Soviet Union. A hard line that was not necessarily in accordance with Russian intentions. Simply put, the US became more agressive to the Russians without any justifications given the excellent relationship between Josef Stalin and FDR. Fueled by Churchill (a staunch anti-communist), Roosevelt's successor Truman took a dim of his former ally and his people. Considering there is enough ground to claim that the USSR "saved our collective asses in WWII", this change in attitude could be construed as a complete lack of gratitude from US officials. The USSR became our enemy because the US wanted them to become one. They repaid in kind.
However, note that the Doomsday Machine is really what De Sadeski claim it is: a deterrent. It has no offensive capabilities and can only
react to a previous attack, not start one out of the blue. It's only failure resides in its secrecy (it was to be announced a week after the events of the movie). Most tellingly, the Russians developped it when the
New York Times informed them the US were going along similar lines.
The truth is, neither the US nor the USSR had definite plans of attack, nuclear-wise, and after the close call of the Cuban Missile Crisis, both superpowers started to calm down a bit. The 1970s ushered a new spirit of
détente (fostered by Richard Nixon, of all people). The Cold War got colder again with the advent of Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" quip and his utter failure to understand what Mikhail Gorbatchov was trying to do (to be fair, the Soviets didn't either).
All of this seems far from us now, and nuclear war has become a remote threat (with countries like Iran and North Korea attempting to remind us of it). Let's hope that we will not have to fight a "mineshaft gap war" anytime soon.
Next on the Kubrick Hotline....
A Clockwork Orange
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