the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Jason Coyle and Aoife Martin, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

The unthinkable has happened. At the height of the Cold War, American bombers have been ordered to enter Russian airspace and deploy their ordinance at the order of General Jack D. Ripper. The President of the United States scrambles to stop the crisis from escalating further, but the situation becomes even bleaker when it is revealed that the Russians have just deployed a failsafe that could wipe out all life on Earth in case of a potential American attack. Powers on both sides of the Iron Curtain find themselves racing against time, with the fate of the world in their hands.

At time of recording, it was ranked 67th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show Notes:

• Recorded 31st January 2022.
• Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb at The Internet Movie Database.
• The IMDb Top 250 at time of recording.
• Follow Aoife on Twitter.
• Read Aoife’s articles at The Journal.
• Follow Jay on Twitter.
• Listen to Jay at the Scannain podcast.
• Bruce Haring at Deadline writes about the pandemic resonance of Dr. Strangelove, January 2022.
• Daniel Rothberg at The Los Angeles Times reports on delays to the release of Dr. Strangelove following the Kennedy assassination, November 2013.
• Lily Rothman at Time reports on the changes made to Dr. Strangelove following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, July 2012.
• Laura Bliss at Bloomberg looks back on how Las Vegas marketed itself for “atomic tourism”, August 2014.
• Dave Kehr at The New York Times discusses Dr. Strangelove as the marker of a particular time and a particular mindset, June 2009.
• Stanley Kubrick talks to The New York Times about the development of Dr. Strangelove, April 1963.
• Stanley Kubrick talks to The New York Times about how Dr. Strangelove developed into a black comedy, January 1964.
• Mike D’Angelo at The A.V. Club debates the slow descent of Dr. Strangelove from atomic horror into absurdist comedy, June 2016.
• David Bromwich at The Criterion Collection discusses the history and the evolution of Dr. Strangelove, June 2016.
• Ken Adams talks to The A.V. Club about working with Stanley Kubrick on Dr. Strangelove, March 2016.
• William Grimes at The New York Times marks the passing of Ken Adams, March 2016.
• CBS News looks back on the life and career of Ken Adams, March 2016.
• Annie Quito at Quartz looks at how the architecture and design of Dr. Strangelove influenced real buildings, March 2016.
• Kyle VanHemert at Wired notes that FIFA reportedly designed their boardroom on the war room from Dr. Strangelove, April 2014.
• The Orlando Sentinel reports on the competition between Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe to bring nuclear annihilation to cinema, April 2000.
• Ari N. Schulman at Slate argues for Fail Safe as a better movie than Dr. Strangelove, October 2014.
• Eric Lefcowitz at The New York Times discusses the reality satirized in Dr. Strangelove, January 1994.
• Michael Hiltzik at The Los Angeles Times reflects on the insanity of nuclear annihilation as filtered through the prism of Dr. Strangelove, May 2014.
• David Denby at The New Yorker reflects on how Dr. Strangelove captured more of the nuclear era than anybody could have known, May 2014.
• Eric Schlosser at The New Yorker reports on the truth behind Dr. Strangelove, January 2014.
• Gene D. Phillips at The New York Times discusses the influence of Metropolis on Dr. Strangelove, September 1984.
• Slate looks at the various rumoured inspirations for the title character in Dr. Strangelove, March 1999.
• John R. Emery at The National Security Review looks at the influence of the Rand Corporation on how America perceived the Cold War, Fall 2011.
• Jeffrey W. Mason at the Federation of American Scientists discusses the influence of figures like von Braun on the title character of Dr. Strangelove, February 2014.
• John Wilkes at The Los Angeles Times looks at von Neumann as an influence on the title character of Dr. Strangelove, February 1992.
• Manjit Kumar at The Guardian discusses the life and times of von Neumann, October 2021.
• Shaun looks at the morality of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, December 2020.
• Dan Charles at The New Scientist looks at how Heisenberg might have prevented the Nazis from developing the atomic bomb, September 1992.
• Alejandro de la Garza at Time discusses how Nazi science enabled the American space race, July 2019.
• NukeMap.
• Nidhi Subbaraman at BuzzFeed News reflects on how conspiracy theorists have impacted real research into the subject, September 2019.
• Steven Monacelli at Rolling Stone reports on the QAnon cult awaiting the return of JFK Jr. in Dallas, December 2021.
• Bosley Crowther reviews Dr. Strangelove for The New York Times, January 1964.
• Bosley Crowther rewatches Dr. Strangelove for The New York Times, February 1964.
• Inspired by Dr. Strangelove, Bosley Crowther at The New York Times asks “is nothing sacred?”, February 1964.
• Philip K. Scheuer at The Los Angeles Times boasts that he would “sooner drink hemlock” than rewatch Dr. Strangelove, February 1964.
• Robert Strausz-Hupé’s writes to The New York Times criticising Dr. Strangelove, February 1964.
• Letters to The New York Times engage with the ongoing discussion around Dr. Strangelove, April 1964.
• Letters to The New York Times engage with the ongoing discussion around Dr. Strangelove, February 1964.
• The New York Times discusses the highly polarised response to Dr. Strangelove, February 1964.
• The New York Times reports on the international response to Dr. Strangelove, May 1964.
• Maria Vu at MetaFlix reports on how Peter Sellers lost his fourth role in Dr. Strangelove, September 2020.
• Aliya Whiteley at Den of Geek looks back on the relationship between Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers, July 2014.
• Terry Southern’s diary of working on Dr. Strangelove.
• Debadrita Sur at Far Out Magazine looks at how Stanley Kubrick manipulated Shelley Duvall during the making of The Shining, February 2020.
• James Earl Jones writes at The Wal Street Journal about working on Dr. Strangelove, November 2004.
• Malcolm McDowell talks to Collider about the making of A Clockwork Orange, May 2011.
• Malcolm McDowell discusses his life and career with The Irish Times, July 2020.
• Malcolm McDowell discusses his life and career with Den of Geek, May 2011.
• Malcolm McDowell talks to The Guardian about working with Stanley Kubrick on A Clockwork Orange, April 2019.
• Frederic Raphael talks to The Irish Times about working with Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut, July 1999.
• Imran Siddiquee at Buzzfeed News reflects on the fetishisation of auteur directors, October 2017.
• Leigh Monson at birth.death.movies reflects on the sexual frustration and tension that informs so much of Dr. Strangelove, September 2018.
• Tracy Reed talks to The Los Angeles Times about her work on Dr. Strangelove, July 1994.
• Matt Simon at Wired looks at the origins of the mythology around the “mandrake”, June 2014.
• Andrew Pulver at The Guardian looks back on the original ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey, March 2008.
• Gary Kamiya at The San Francisco Chronicle looks back at “Operation: Midnight Climax”, April 2016.
• Simon Wigley at The BFI offers a rare glimpse at the original deleted ending to Dr. Strangelove, January 2014.
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• Browse listening options at pod.link.

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: america, bomb, Cold War, death, george c. scott, imdb, impotence, masculinity, mega-death, nazis, nuclear annihilation, nuclear bomb, patton, peter sellers, podcast, Russia, sexuality, Soviet Union, stanley kubrick, The 250, violence |