DR. STRANGELOVE on Blu-ray is the bomb! — James Plath reviews the new BD Special Edition

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—> See Link to our Blu-ray Review (below)

We'll meet again..
don't know where, don't know when.
But I'm sure we'll meet again some sunny day.

"Seems better with each passing year."
—Leonard Maltin

"Despite the despairing theme, it's still among the funniest films ever made -- and, in his three roles, Peter Sellers delivers several classic speeches that will live forever."
—Kim Newman (Empire)

"DR. STRANGELOVE is filled with great comic performances... Arguably the best political satire of the century."
—Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times)

Stanley Kubrick's landmark 1964 satire...
DR. STRANGELOVE or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb makes it's high-definition premiere on Blu-ray Disc, in a deluxe 45th Anniversary Special Edition on June 16.

A psychotic Air Force General unleashes ingenious foolproof and irrevocable scheme sending bombers to attack Russia. The U.S. President works with Soviet premier in a desperate effort to save the world.

(Updated Press Release)
Culver City, CA – Sony Pictures Home Entertainment invites you to re-live Stanley Kubrick's satirical comedy Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb when it explodes on Blu-ray High-Def June 16, 2009 for the SRP $38.96. The 45th Anniversary HD release features a 32-page booklet included in a deluxe Blu-ray book package. This celebrated film features a cadre of premier talent whose performances are taken to new heights in high definition.

Peter Sellers (The Pink Panther, Being There) stars in this uniquely dark comedy and displays his talent and versatility as he portrays the roles of British Exchange Officer, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley, and Dr. Strangelove, the wheelchair-bound ex-Nazi nuclear war expert. The story follows paranoid and utterly mad U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) who sends bombers to destroy the U.S.S.R. which will unleash a cataclysmic series of events ultimately leading to total nuclear Armageddon.

Convinced the Commies want to pollute America's "precious bodily fluids," a crazed general (Sterling Hayden) orders a nuclear air strike on the U.S.S.R. As his aide, Captain Mandrake (Peter Sellers), scrambles to unlock a recall code to prevent the bombing, the U.S. President (Sellers again) calls a drunken Soviet Premier on the hotline claiming the proposed attack is all a silly mistake, while the President's advisor (an ex-Nazi scientist) Dr. Strangelove (Sellers once more) verifies the existence of a dreaded Doomsday Machine - a retaliatory device designed by the Soviets to end the human race once and for all!

Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is an inimitable film that demonstrates political satire at its finest. Nominated for four Oscars® including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Best Screenplay, this cult classic was made to be seen in high definition. Exclusive to the 45th Anniversary Special Edition Blu-ray is a "The Cold War: Picture-in-Picture (PiP) and Graphic-in-Picture (GiP) Pop-Up Trivia Track" – while the movie is playing, optional pop up graphics (GiP) provide background information on the film, and occasionally video (PiP) pops up with cast and crew commentary. Other special features include an inside look into Dr. Strangelove, an interview with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and a remembrance of Peter Sellers.

At a suggested retail price of $39, the black-and-white classic features a BD-Live enabled disc that's loaded with extras, including:

• 32-page deluxe Blu-ray booklet package!
• Interview with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
• Interviews with Peter Sellers and George C. Scott
Four Documentaries:
• "No Fighting in the War Room or: Dr. Strangelove and the Nuclear Threat"
• "Inside: Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"
• "The Art of Stanley Kubrick: From Short Films to Strangelove"
• "Best Sellers Or: Peter Sellers and Dr. Strangelove Remembered"
• The Cold War: Picture-in-Picture and Pop-Up Trivia Track - Embark on a journey into the very heart of the Cold War exploring, in fascinating detail, the military and political world in which Dr. Strangelove takes place. What did the film get right and where did it take liberties with established military procedures? And just how close were we in the early 1960s to a real atomic exchange? This multimedia experience includes Graphic-in-Picture pop-up trivia and Picture-in-Picture commentary that help shed some light on an era of secrets and heightened paranoia, all of which helped inspire this classic film.

Picture-in-Picture interviews include:
-Thomas Schelling (RAND Corp. employee during late 1950s and early 1960s – wrote article on novel "Red Alert" that prompted Kubrick's interest in adapting the book to a film)
-Richard A. Clarke (author of "Against All Enemies," counter-terrorism and command and control systems expert)
-Daniel Ellsberg (RAND Corp. employee during late 1950s and early 1960s; consultant to JFK admin., Dept. of Defense)
-George Quester (Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland; expert on nuclear proliferation, deterrence, and nuclear diplomacy)
-David Alan Rosenberg (Temple University professor; Historian of Nuclear Strategy; ex-military)

Note: The RAND Corporation (Research And Development) is a non-profit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces.

DR. STRANGELOVE — Explore further:
—> Blu-ray Review by James Plath »
EXCERPT: "Dr. Strangelove," in case you've never been exposed to this Cold War classic, is Kubrick's black comedy about the nuclear holocaust. With direct phone "hot lines" between Washington and Moscow and nuclear weapons stockpiled everywhere, was it possible someone could push the button by accident? Could a mistake launch missiles that would result in retaliatory missiles being fired, with the result being total annihilation of the planet? The chilling answer to that was yes.

"Dr. Strangelove" helped audiences release megatons of nervous tension during the Cold War, and it's still a taut and humorous drama that's driven by sharp satire, career performances, and black-and-white images that perfectly complement the good guy/bad guy mentality of the era. Now, with a nut-case in North Korea threatening nuclear war, "Dr. Strangelove" has become alarmingly relevant again. Nothing is Fail-Safe, except nuclear disarmament.

(Click thru the Link above for the full review)
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Note: Unfortunately, the infamous custard pie footage (alternate ending scene) is not included in this edition.

As explained on Wikipedia: The end of the film shows Dr. Strangelove exclaiming "Mein Führer, I can walk!" before cutting to footage of nuclear explosions, with Vera Lynn singing "We'll Meet Again". But it was originally intended that the film would end with everyone in the War Room involved in a pie fight, and this scene was filmed.

Accounts vary as to why the pie fight was cut. In a 1969 interview, Kubrick said: "I decided it was farce and not consistent with the satiric tone of the rest of the film." Alexander Walker observed that "the cream pies were flying around so thickly that people lost definition, and you couldn't really say whom you were looking at." Nile Southern, son of screenwriter Terry Southern, suggests that the fight was intended to be less jovial. "Since they were laughing, it was unusable, because instead of having that totally black, which would have been amazing, like, this blizzard, which in a sense is metaphorical for all of the missiles that are coming, as well, you just have these guys having a good old time. So, as Kubrick later said, 'it was a disaster of Homeric proportions.'"

Peter Sellers, in a biographic documentary, was credited with suggesting the Vera Lynn music for the ending.

Production Note (from Wikipedia)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (or more commonly known as Dr. Strangelove) is a 1964 black comedy film directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, and featuring Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, James Earl Jones and Tracy Reed. Loosely based by screenwriter Terry Southern on Peter George's Cold War thriller novel Red Alert (aka Two Hours to Doom), Dr. Strangelove satirises the Cold War and the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.

The story concerns a mentally unstable US Air Force general who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, and follows the President of the United States, his advisors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer as they try to recall the bombers to prevent a nuclear apocalypse, as well as the crew of one B-52 as they attempt to deliver their payload.

In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Additionally, it was listed as #3 on AFI's 100 Years.. 100 Laughs. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the 24th greatest comedy film of all time. It is one of the rare films to have received a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it is ranked 15th top movie of all time on TopTenReviews Movies. In addition to this, the movie is ranking #5 in the All-Time High Scores chart of Metacritic's Video/DVD section with an average score of 96.

Roger Ebert has Dr. Strangelove in his list of Great Movies, saying it is 'arguably the best political satire of the century.' It is also rated as the fifth greatest film – the highest rated comedy – in Sight & Sounds directors' poll.

"A movie that shocked the world into a new death-rattle irony."
—Ty Burr (Entertainment Weekly)

"The blackest satire on the madness of war has grown more apt over time."
—Peter Relic (Rolling Stone)

"Kubrick's atomic-powered black comedy, scripted to perfection by Terry Southern."
—Danny Leigh (Uncut)

Film Synopsis:
The hot-line suspense comedy.
Stanley Kubrick's classic black comedy about a group of war-eager military men who plan a nuclear apocalypse is both funny and frightening - and seems as relevant today as ever. Through a series of military and political accidents, two psychotic generals - U.S. Air Force Commander Jack D. Ripper and joint chief of Staff Buck Turgidson - trigger an ingenious, irrevocable scheme to attack Russia's strategic targets with nuclear bombs. The brains behind the scheme belong to Dr. Strangelove, a wheelchair-bound nuclear scientist who has bizarre ideas about man's future. The President is helpless to stop the bombers, as is Captain Mandrake, the only man who can stop them.

DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB is Stanley Kubrick's Cold War masterpiece. Based on the novel "Red Alert" by Peter George, the film is set at the height of the tensions between Russia and the United States, when all it would take to destroy the world was one push of a button. And General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) is just the man to do it. Convinced that the Russians have infiltrated America's "vital essence," the crazed Ripper gives the go code to the 843rd bomb wing to attack Russia, setting in motion a series of darkly hilarious vignettes involving gung-ho soldiers, wacky generals, spying Russians, drunken premiers, battles with soda machines, fights in the War Room, and the Russians' top-secret Doomsday Machine.

Shot in black and white, the film has three main centers of action: one of the B-52 bombers, on which a group of loyal men know they are about to start World War III; Burpelson Air Force Base, where Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) is trying to convince everyone that Ripper has gone mad and the bombing must be stopped; and the War Room, where President Merkin Muffley (Sellers again) is trying to make peace with the Russians. The finale act featuring Sellers as Dr. Strangelove is a comic gem. Hayden, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens, Keenan Wynn, and Sellers (in three roles) are especially terrific in what may be the funniest, most poignant black comedy ever made, a vicious satire on the farcical aspects of the military and the cold war.

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