Deciphering Dr. Strangelove's hidden recall codes

Stanley Kubrick's cold war masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove, still packs a chilling and comic punch 51 years later. Our film discussion group agreed on these conclusions about this timeless flick: 

WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS MOVIE? WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MAIN THEMES?

• The folly of the Arms Race and the Cold War and the ironic fallacy of nuclear weapons being “deterrents”

• Man’s impulse to wage war is linked to his sexual drive; a man’s sexual frustration (in this case Ripper) can have disastrous repercussions

• How bureaucracy, red tape and following protocol can also have disastrous consequences; examples include:

o Mandrake has to go through motions of treating Ripper like a superior officer even after Ripper demonstrates how psychotic he is

o Turgidson covering his ass while the world is on the verge of meltdown

o The polite banter between us president and Russian prime minister while on the hotline

o Bat Guano resists shooting the Coke machine because it’s private property

THE CHARACTERS NAMES AND PERSONALITIES ARE MEANT TO BE SYMBOLIC AND REPRESENTATIONAL. CAN YOU GIVE ME EXAMPLES?

• Mandrake is the name of a mythical herb or root believed to increase male potency; Mandrake is evocative of the prim and proper English officer played by Alec Guinness in Bridge on the River Kwai

• Buck is a euphemism for a studly male, and Turgidson plays on the word “turgid,” which means full of fluid to the point of hardness

• Soviet Ambassador de Sadesky sounds similar to the Marquis du Sade

• President Merkin Muffley has a name that is evocative of female pubic hair, as if to say he’s lacking in male machismo; his character is loosely based on politician Adlai Stevensen

• Jack D. Ripper is an obvious play on Jack the Ripper, a sociopathic serial killer; his use of the word “essence” is a synonym for semen; he is depicted as an impotent character

• Colonel Bat Guano’s name can be interpreted as “bat shit”, a euphemism for insane

• Dr. Strangelove is an amalgam of several people, including Henry Kissinger, Lionel Atwill the police inspector with the wooden arm in Son of Frankenstein, Rotwang the black gloved mad scientist in Metropolis, and Herman Kahn, a 1960s nuclear think tank point man

ASIDE FROM THE CHARACTERS’ NAMES, CAN YOU GIVE ME EXAMPLES OF THE RAMPANT SEXUAL METAPHORS AND INNUENDOS USED THROUGHOUT THE MOVIE?

• The refueling of the jets is symbolic of sexual coupling

• The Coke machines spewing fluids

• The B-52 crew goes through a complex ritual of foreplay that arms the bomb for use

• The plane is rendered impotent at the last moment when the bomb doors fail to open

• Slim pickens straddling the nuclear bomb = a phallic image

• Dr. Strangelove’s arm saluting becomes a phallic symbol

• These are images and situations meant to symbolize physical acts of the human body

• The intended bomb target is the island of Laputa, which in Spanish means “the whore”

• The pilot viewing an issue of Playboy

• Plan “R” for Romeo (war equals love)

• Male characters constantly having things in their mouth, such as food, chewing gum, and cigars, suggesting that they are stock in the oral stage of development, or some arrested stage of development indicating immaturity

HOW DOES KUBRICK JUXTAPOSE IMAGES AND MUSIC IN CREATIVE WAYS THAT ADD IRONY AND HUMOR TO AN OTHERWISE NONHUMOROUS SCENE?

• He matches the scene of the aircraft mating in mid-air with “Try a Little Tenderness”

• He pairs footage of nuclear armaggedon and the infamous mushroom cloud with the ballad “We’ll meet again” for a great nonsequitor

• He would repeat this method in 2001 with the Blue Danube Waltz and in A Clockwork Orange with “Singin’ in the Rain”

DR. STRANGELOVE HAS BEEN HAILED AS THE GREATEST BLACK COMEDY MOVIE EVER MADE. CAN YOU GIVE ME OTHER EXAMPLES OF BLACK COMEDY FILMS?

• Kind Hearts and Coronets

• Arsenic and Old Lace

• Monsieur Verdoux

• The Trouble With Harry

• Fargo

• Prizzi’s Honor