Dr. Strangelove (1964) MOVIE REACTION! FIRST TIME WATCHING! Ft. The Atomic Age (A NUCLEAR ENGINEER!) 

I hope and want to impress upon you the fact that Peter Sellers is giving life to three characters here: Mandrake, the President and Dr. Strangelove himself. The genius of it is that they are so distinct that you really don't register this fact. Also, Strangelove interacts a great deal with the President, so that Sellers is acting with himself.

The best analogy for the nuclear arms race I ever heard was this: Two men locked in a room together waist-deep in gasoline, arguing about who has the most matches.

One of my favorite jokes in the movie is an extremely subtle one (that you didn't include in your reaction video). When Major Kong is looking at the Playboy the model in the centerfold is General Turgidson's "secretary," and the magazine covering her rear is Foreign Affairs, which is one of, if not the premier foreign policy journals in the country.

Great reaction guys! I think people who lived through the cold war might rate the movie higher because both the premise and the comedy hit home hard for me. I love this movie. As I'm sure others have mentioned the three roles played by Peter Sellers were awesome, as were Slim Pickens (yes from Blazing Saddles) and a very young James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader) and an energetic George C. Scott (a famous dramatic actor chewing up every scene he was in here).

This movie has Peter Sellers, aka "Inspector Clouseau" of the "Pink Panther" series of movies, which I recommend. The gruff, gravely voiced general is George C. Scott, who was an excellent actor and did the TV movie "A Christmas Carol" you should have seen last month.

This is one of the few 50+ year old movies that is as fresh and hilarious now as it was when it came out to shocked audiences

Really cool to get an actual nuclear engineer to react along with you guys. Great video.

Still in 2023, funny as hell

This is an amazing reaction channel. I LOVE this movie and you guys covered it with the comedy the whole world deserves. Great reaction!

That chief bomber pilot (Major Kong) was played by 'Slim Pickens.' And he was in Blazing Saddles... :-)

The black pilot is James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader

This is such a classic. I've seen it a ton of times and its still funny. Now if you don't mind I'm gonna replenish my precious bodily fluids.

Fantastic reaction, might be my favorite reaction yet to this classic! If anyone asks me if this movie has held up, I can just direct them to this video. The indisputable proof! You guys laughed at classic lines that are so iconic, so repeated that a lot of us have almost forgotten what it's like to see this for the first time. Seeing you guys laugh at "You can't fight here, this is the war room!" or Major Kong riding the bomb or Dr. Strangelove's antics.......it just confirms what most of us now take for granted with this wild movie. Kubrick does it again, right?!!!! You want to see a wild, completely different type of Kubrick movie? "Paths Of Glory", his World War I movie. DEVASTATING. It's his first masterpiece (pre-Strangelove). Ok, going to watch the post-film discussion now. GREAT REACTION, MY DUDES!!!!! And thanks for hipping us to The Atomic Age, going to definitely check out his Chernobyl reactions!!!

“In 1968 the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) established a system of movie ratings for parents to use as a guide to determine the appropriateness of a film's content for children and teenagers. The ratings system is voluntary, and there is no legal requirement that filmmakers submit their films for rating.” The prize goes to the nuclear scientist for being correct in stating that ratings did not exist when this movie was made.

Back in the Black & White days, where we would use a green screen today (it was actually a blue screen when the technique was first introduced) they would have actors stand in front of a rear projection screen, and project the background onto it. The B-52 in this movie is pretty clearly a model, but since we can't see any wires, they most likely shot it against a solid black background, and then overlaid it against the landscape footage.

Hey....As explained to me as a pilot in the USAF: "Southern boys had no "paths to careers" OTHER than in the military. They had no "High-Tech" companies to be employed with. No Stock Brokers jobs. No nothing BUT the military. In the USAF ALL mess halls served grits in the morning. Many of my compatriots were "southern boys" as were many of my commanders. And they ALWAYS did a GREAT job! Yes their language was "funny to listen to". But their brains were nothing but "fine tuned".

Dr. Strangelove, the President, and Mandrake were performed by the same actor, Peter Sellers (of Pink Panther fame).

@7:35 That's not a joke actually, "Peace is our Profession" was the official motto of Strategic Air Command, or SAC. SAC was the US Air Force's MAJCOMM for global strike and nuclear deterrence during the Cold War. They were in charge of the B-52 bombers (as well as B-58s, B-47s, and F-111s, depending on the time period), KC-135 refueling tankers, and the Atlas, Titan, and minuteman ICBMs.

Fun fact. While this movie was made prior to the term MAD, the concept was already known at the time. The thing is, ussr didn't have nearly as many nukes as they claimed. Most of there nuclear capacity was made during the 70tys, and if a strike was carried out like the one in the movie, there would be quite few nukes actually launched, probobly less than a dussin.5 years later it would be a 100... 5 years more, it would be 1000

(2:47) Pheeeew-wee - soo glad you've got Charlie on board to give an expert opinion. _Retroactivity_ is freakin' scary!

They had Twilight zone on TV before this movie, where in plenty of episodes they had sad endings.

W. C. Fields said "I never drink water 'cause fish fuck in it." 🐟🐠

The footage of the B-52 was a model filmed in front of rear projected aerial footage. That footage was taken by a B-17 from World War 2 flying over Arctic terrain...and at a couple points in the movie looking out of the B-52, you can see the shadow of the B-17 camera plane on the icy surface below. LOL Yeah...they definitely seemed to get the jokes...but I worry that they learned a lot of things about the Cold War that were not true. There were a few humor things that they took seriously, and some that were fictional that they now think are true. I hope that someday these guys will see some more factual videos about the Cold War. One thing I was very very glad to see The Atomic Age explain is just how hard it is to detonate a nuclear bomb, and how unlikely it is to happen by accident. And there may not have been people on those ships, but there were quite a few animals on board as test subjects.🖖💯

Good ear. The pilot is Slim Pickens who also played Haggart in Blazing Sadles

Another brilliant Kubrick masterpiece! Great job reacting. And the guest was a perfect choice. You should do Full Metal Jacket and A Clockwork Orange, 2 more Kubrick gems. Great job boys.

Have you guys watched WarGames? Young man hacks into a “game”, not realizing it could come with devastating results.

Even though this movie is satire there were generals that wanted to strike the Soviet union first. I can't remember the generals names but a couple of the main characters are based on the personalities of real people. This movie is a masterpiece, lots of comedy but some of the military scenes and procedures are extremely accurate, for the time period of course. Also if you didn't notice, one of the B-52 bombers crew is James Earl Jones, voice of Darth Vader and many other films.

Hope you react to the movie M*A*S*H (1970) some day. One of the best comedies ever made along with Dr. Strangelove.

One of the scriptwriters, Terry Southern, is worth researching as a satirist. And then there's his short story "Red-Dirt Marijuana".

eversince the first Trinity test and the 2 bombs that were dropped on Japan, there have been over 4,000 test detonations done.

If you enjoyed the battle footage then you really should check out Kubrick's two war themed films _Paths of Glory_ (1957) and _Full Metal Jacket_ (1987). One of the great "what ifs" of war films is the abandoned film Kubrick planned to do on the life of Napolean Boneparte, but we did get a few pre industrial reolvution battle scenes from him in _Barry Lyndon_ (1975).

You can't fight in here. This is the War Room.

Love your reaction!

Blazing Saddles is a Mel Brooks movie not Kubrick but Slim Pickens was in both.

As far as a guy with a southern accent being the pilot of the plane is concerned, just because they talk funny doesn't mean they're stupid.

If you want more Kubrick with Peter Sellers. Try LOLITA ❤

One reason for the title is, the film was adapted from a very un-funny thriller called "Red Alert." At some point in the writing, Kubrick decided (remember this wasn't long after the Cuban missle crisis!) that taking it seriously wasn't working, but maybe it could work as satire. Then, the next problem was how to draw an audience. When one of the 3 Peter Sellers characters is Dr. Strangelove, the hope was his star power could attract people. Of course, the other thing is, even though he only shows up twice, Dr. Strangelove's ideas for the future are thoroughly embedded throughout the story. ...so much reality is in the film! even '60s conspiracies about communists flouridizing water!

you mentioned movie ratings. before there was the ratings movies were regulated by the hays code. this was from about 1930 to about 1960

Darth Vader - James Earl Jones - was the black Air Force officer in the plane.

If you are interested in what went on in those days, take a look at "Trinity and Beyond" (I do not mean for review on your channel, just for learning) narrated by Willam Shatner. It's crazy all the test nukes that were detonated (most were filmed) and how they underestimated the power of one test that almost killed the scientist. It was big. Also how they put animal out to see what happened to them along with solders near by the blast.

Thorium is *not* something you’d want in the atmosphere. The perfect half-life to stay around and also irradiate a lot. This movie is the prequel to the Fallout games.

. "Mien Fuher; I Can VALK !!!" .

I think this was Kubrick"reaction to the chilling [at the time] movie Failsafe. At the time, a real representation of the Mutual Assured Destruction that was where the world lived for decades, or, ironiucally, MAD. Watch it…

Interesting you fail to mention that Petter Sellers is playing three roles. It is a complex film based on a popular book of the time. If the film seems two faced, it is Peter Sellers brilliance. the other half is a grim end of the world story.

C.R.M.114 took on kind of a life of its own. It appeared in Kubrick's next film, A Clockwork Orange as "Serum 114," and in Eyes Wide Shut as "Level C Room 114." In the opening scene of Back to the Future the power switch on the giant guitar amplifier is labled CRM114, and in the NBC series Heroes a samurai sword in stored in a museum in a drawer labeled CRM114. I'd love to know if there are any other appearences. (I've heard that it appears on a pod in 2001, but I've never found it.)

The Great irony of this film is that the actor who played Jack RIpper, actually got run out of Hollywood as a communist during the Red Scare. Fun fact.. or not so fun, the ONLY example of an actual Cobalt test (as used in the doomsday device) was by the British in Maralinga Australia.... extremely messy and the had to scrape several inches of soil from the whole area. Another couple of movie facts.. the plane getting stock footage over Alaska flew over a secret base, was escorted to land and grilled why they were photographing the area. They were also grilled by US Intel because the B52 and procedures were too accurate and they thought there was a leak. In reality, they had just one pic of a part of the cockpit and guessed the rest. The whole 'string in the leg" was totally improptu. "The self destruct system was hit and blew itself up!" lol You really should check out more Peter Sellers... a total genius. IF only one... make it Revenge Of The Pink Panther! (1978). edit: The plane flying scenes were done using rear projection behind a model. There was no greenscreen really used until Star Wars (blue), then it changed to green when they discovered a blue screen was useless shooting Supreman in a blue suit. It's all practical and in-camera. The first significant CGI was in The Last Starfighter (1984) and TRON (1982). Previous to that it is all practical and in-camera effects

At 15:54 "1,400 MEGATON's worth". To put that into perspective, 1,400 MTs is TEN THOUSAND times more powerful than the 14 kiloton bomb dropped on Hiroshima! In reality, the most powerful thermonuclear device ever detonated was by Russia, the "Tsar Bomba". It had a potential yield of 100MTs, but was only tested at 50 MTs. 100 Mts was considered too dangerous to set off within earth's atmosphere. .

R for Robert is the old police alphabet (Adam Boy Charles) rather than the newer international alphabet (Alpha Bravo Charlie), R for Romeo.

The movie FAILSAFE with Henry Fonda from 1968 would be excellent to watch after this.

31:35 Auto-destruct mechanisms for highly-classified systems, including those involving crypto-communications, is not uncommon. In the mid-1980s I worked for a defense contractor and the two things in the area that I worked in (but that I did not work with) that were classified Secret were nuclear yields and crypto.

I hope that you follow up with more Peter Sellers movies. The Pink Panther series is very funny, as well as "The Mouse That Roared" though you will need to understand a bit about American foreign policy regarding post war reconstruction grants. (No big history lesson, on par with the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction).

Other movies related to the atomic topic: - The day after - When the wind blows (animation)

You should also check out the documentary movie The Atomic Cafe.

I worked on the B2 stealth bomber as an engineer in the early 80s. It was supposed to replace those old bombers, until the Congressional Republicans decided to kill it. We used to joke that we didn't need it to have enough range to get back after they dropped their nukes on Russia.

logical next: "Fail Safe" 1964 - similar, but serious, excellent.

Comedy but as always Kubrick had a point. There was a strong element of truth, called the arms race to stay ahead of Russia, keep the gap advantage, 40 -50 years. The movie struck the public.

Kubricks best film,world class performances from Peter Sellers George E Scott,

So funny to hear you talk about the Cold War - as if we aren't back in a new cold war. 90 seconds from midnight, boys...

Did you notice Darth Vader was on the plane?

Of course, the beginning credits with the fueling of the planes was meant to be a symbol for sexual intercourse just in case you never got that.

love the group reactions, best one to this movie so far. especially for younger guys and black and white film

Cool beans! The guy riding the missile at the end is Slim Pickens. He played Taggert in Blazing Saddles. Peter Sellers is hilarious in this movie and if you ever get the chance you should watch him in all the Pink Panther movies he starred in as Inspector Clouseau. :) Yeah, the G, PG, R and X ratings system didn't start until about 1968.

Dr. Strangelove could be both the funniest AND the most frightening movie ever made. Great reaction!

The original ending called for a pie fight in the war room but it was scrapped after Kennedy was assassinated just a couple of months before the film was released. Also Kubrick designed the interior of the B-52 based off of one photo he had seen that gave a limited view of the interior. His design was so accurate he was investigated by the FBI. In case you missed it Turgidson's secretary was also the centerfold in the Playboy magazine on board the B-52. Turgidson's fall in the war room was not in the script. George C. Scott tripped and managed to stay in character while falling. Kubrick liked it so much he kept it in the film.

"Gentlemen, You Can't Fight In Here!!! This Is The War Room!!" Classic Line!!

Green screen would be pointless in a black & white film. One of the things they did do however was use models with a rear projection screen behind them. They also did a two shot process similar to green screen with the screen being black for making things appear to be invisible like in the 1930's movie, The Invisible Man. They could also do things like use a color filter on the B&W camera, then use colored makeup on an actor to make them appear dead white, which was why the Frankenstein Monster's makeup was green, because when they shot it with the filter it showed up as corpse white.

Peter sellers plays the president, Dr Strangelove and the British officer. Also, James Earl Jones (voice of Darth Vader) is a member of the flight crew.

Now you guys should check out Fail Safe. It came out the same year as Strangelove, but it's a serious version of the same story. And it has a fantastic cast.

That General "Bucky" actor would later go on to Play General Patton in the movie "Patton". George C Scott did a great portrayal of Patton which would be another good movie to review if you get the opportunity.

Slim Pickens IS that guy from "Blazing Saddles", good catch. This particular role here became "iconic" for him.

An absolute classic. One of Peter Seller’s finest roles. I’m so happy y’all did this film! Keep doing stuff no one else is doing. This film is in my top 20 faves of all time. Thanks guys!

"Peace is Our Profession" was indeed an actual official motto used by the Strategic Air Command. An unofficial follow up was "... War is just a hobby".

This is a really good choice. Most movie reactors wouldn't have the brains to pick this classic. The problem I have with many movie reactors your age is that they confine themselves to very mediocre recent movies and TV shows, but you guys have made some great choices. By the way, the mutually assured destruction premise is anything but "ridiculous." It's kept nuclear weapons from being used for almost 80 years. By the way, you know that Peter Sellers played 3 roles, right?

A Dark Comedy by Kubrick. It was kind of neat with Peter Sellers playing 3 parts in the film. Actually there was some resistance to the idea of Flouridating public water supplies in the 50's. I still remember the Cuban Missile Crisis as a kid and Dad stocking the basement with canned goods as we really did think we might all be kissing our little butts goodbye! I think after this Kubrick's next film was Clockwork Orange which was even stranger for its time. Then he made the magnificent 2001.

Peter Sellers played the British Leutenant, The US President AND Dr Strangelove.

Great reaction guys. There are allot of unusual cultural elements to navigate just because of the major differences between 1964 and 2023. At that time, the cold war with Russia literally colored everything. The threat of a 'hot' war breaking out and nuclear devastation was very real and never far from people's thoughts. Children had nuclear bomb drills in school (now it's chillingly active shooter drills). It was also an analog world - no computers or even transistors. No cellular phones, no internet, none of the technology that we now take for granted, yet the technology to destroy the world already existed in these nuclear bombs. On a more lighthearted note, you were right when you said the bomber pilot reminded you of the actor from 'Blazing Saddles' because it was the same actor, the famous character actor 'Slim Pickens' 10 years younger. Of note, the famous James Earl Jones (who voices Darth Vader, among many other roles) made his film debut in this movie as one of the bomber crew. As others have already noted, the famous Peter Sellers plays 3 roles in this movie. George C Scott (most famous for his role as General George S Patton) appears as the off the rail general Buck Turgidson.

Have a friend who was in the air force decades ago and flew those planes out of Kansas or Oklahoma? Said that the crews had this film basically on permanent loan and watched it a lot - they loved it! I love it too! It was great to talk to him about their drills

I was assigned to several nuclear missile and other nuclear capable units in the Army. In Pershing (theater ballistic missiles) we used to watch this movie at least once before we assumed alert status, which happened at least 4 times a year. So, have seen this movie more than 50 times. Unbelievable piece of cinema.

My dad’s ship in World War II, the USS Conyngham (DD-371), was one of the ships used in the Bikini Atoll tests. It was one of the very small number of those ships that actually survived the detonation. Afterward, they basically hosed it down to remove any possible contaminated matter, and it was sailed back under its own power to the western coast of the United States. It was sunk for target practice a couple of years later in the Pacific off the California coast.

I’m really enjoying these reactions to Kubrick’s movies, I hope you’ll do others such as A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket, And Eyes Wide Shut. Other then that all I can say is keep up the good work, and keep it coming, because everyone’s loving it.

Complete satire, not spoof. Spoof reimagines an original. This is Peter Sellers at his best. Another great is “Being There”. What a genius film.

It IS the one guy from Blazing Saddles, actor Slim Pickens. Here he plays Major "King" Kong and in Saddles he played railroad boss Taggart. Born Louis Burton Lindley Jr., he started out as a rodeo performer using the name Slim Pickens, so in essence he was a real cowboy.

The "Mein Führer, I can walk" scene was improvised. Peter Sellers forgot his character couldn't walk, so when he stood up he improvised those lines.

One member of the plane crew is James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader.

I love this movie. Its such an instant classic. Fun fact - when major kong is reading the list of the survivor kit he was supposed to say dallas but the line was changed due to president kennedys assination

"Gentlmen, Gentlemen, there's no fighting in the warroom!" My favorite quote from a movie.

Major Kong, the pilot, played by Slim Pickens (real name Louis Burton Lindley Jr) was born in California, near Fresno. His "southern" accent was due to his father being from Texas and his mother from Missouri. Interesting to note, he "was" in the movie Blazing Saddles. He was also a former rodeo clown. And one last thing: the comment he made, "Stay on the bomb run, boys. I'm gonna get them doors open if it hare-lip's everybody on Bear Creek.", was a reference to a medical condition called hare lip (a.k.a. cleft lip or cleft palate). Since once of the causes of the condition is genetic mutation, Major Kong was implying that radiation from the bomb would affect pregnant women in the area, and therefore potentially cause the mutation.

The Original "Fail Safe" is a must for you three now.

The B-52 has more than just evasive action to avoid a missile. Part of the crew of a B-52 is an EWO ( Electronic Warfare Officer) whose job is to use electronics to interfere with the guidance systems of missiles or planes attacking the B-52. My father was a B-52 pilot and what he told me was there was no little black box, which is featured in both Dr Strangelove and Fail Safe. They received their orders direct from SAC HQ in Omaha NE. Usually a color, which meant a certain procedure. The correct military alphabetic term for "R" is Romeo not Robert.

darth vader is in this movie no really check the plan crew

If I recall correctly- Kubrick used "unused" movie footage from another film, to show the gun battle scenes at the Air Force base. Stanley liked the hand-held, documentarian camera-work style for war/battle scenes. In the 'colorful journey" sequence in 2001, a lot of it was colorized negatives, from previous ariel footage from one of his other films.

I have two hilarious movies from the 60’s for you. “The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming.” And, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad,World.”

I love the undercurrent of sexual frustration in this movie.

"The Bedford Incident" Another film that looks at cold war tension but within a single ship following a soviet nuclear sub in a cat and mouse chase in the arctic. The cold war was hot at times.

The cowboy pilot (Major "King" Kong) is played by rodeo rider turned actor Slim Pickens, who was also in Blazing Saddles.

Here's some really obscure trivia: Shane Rimmer, the actor who played the B-52 co-pilot, later provided the voice for one of the marionette pilots on the kids' TV series The Thunderbirds (1965-1966). The latter, and others like it, then went on to be the inspiration for the well-received comedy Team America: World Police in 2004.

The shots of the bomber plane are a model in front of a rear projection. They didn't do blue or green screen yet, but they did have glass matte paintings. Old special effects are very cool.

It's great watching Peter Sellers play three different characters from three different countries. Yes that is Slim Pickens from Blazing Saddles.

Oh boy...this one is always...um...interesting. I have seen a few reactors that do not get it...and that is not necessarily their fault. If you have not studied the time in which this movie was made, and did not live through any of the Cold War as an adult, a lot of the humor in this movie may simply not be accessible to you. I hope Cam and Zay get it and like it... and that they realize Peter Sellers plays three different parts. I wonder how much explanation The Atomic Age will end up providing...especially since he is so young as well.😁💯✌ And one thing to say about the bombers being in the air all the time...that was only for a few years in the late 1960s under the Chrome Dome program. However, for many years there would be a few bombers making training flights every day, and the planes in those training flights were almost always fully armed and ready to go to war, since the flights were always meant to simulate a "real" mission as much as possible.

The Movie "Fail Safe" was a serious depiction of the rogue commander scenario.