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

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, motion-picture comedy about Cold War paranoia and the nuclear arms race, based on the novel Red Alert by Peter George and directed by Stanley Kubrick. Released in 1964, this British film stars Peter Sellers in three different roles, including Dr. Strangelove, an allegedly reformed Nazi working for the United States whose German-built prosthetic arm has a mind of its own and salutes Nazi-style against his will. A maniacal United States general orders a squadron of B-52 bombers to attack the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) unprovoked, setting off a chain of events involving a Russian doomsday machine. The ineffective U.S. president (also played by Sellers) politely apologizes to the Soviets and tries to help them shoot down the incoming planes, while crazed generals run amok in the War Room.

Director

• Stanley Kubrick

Cast

• Peter Sellers (Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley, Dr. Strangelove)
• George C. Scott (General Buck Turgidson)
• Sterling Hayden (General Jack D. Ripper)
• Keenan Wynn (Colonel Bat Guano)
• Slim Pickens (Major T. J. 'King' Kong)
• Peter Bull (Ambassador de Sadesky)
• Tracy Reed (Miss Scott)
• James Earl Jones (Lieutenant Lothar Zogg)
• Jack Creley (Mr. Staines)
• Frank Berry (Lieutenant H. R. Dietrich)
• Glenn Beck (Lieutenant W. D. Kivel)
• Shane Rimmer (Captain G. A. 'Ace' Owens)
• Paul Tamarin (Lieutenant B. Goldberg)
• Gordon Tanner (General Faceman)
• Robert O'Neil (Admiral Randolph)
• Roy Stephens (Frank)
• Laurence Herder (Member of the defense team)
• John McCarthy (Member of the defense team)
• Hal Galili (Member of the defense team)

Awards

• Selected for registry by the National Film Preservation Board (1989)

Quotes

• President Muffley: “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”