Tag Archives: Peter Sellers

Being There [1979)

The battery is dying.  I may not be able to finish.  I liked watching this movie.  Very much.  Peter was never better.  When I was a boy I didn’t understand.  I understand.  A movie is like a garden.  The light comes and goes.  The sun hides.  There are clouds.  I like to watch the light.

I miss Peter.  He did a very good job acting in this movie.  I like movies.

Shirley was beautiful.  I don’t think she looked old.  She looked very beautiful.

Maybe it is best to talk only about this movie.  I liked the static.  The screen looked like Christmas Eve.  Eve.  Eve was beautiful.  Peter was funny.  I think it is his best performance.  I hope they will not close up the movie theater when he is gone.  If I remember him, then he is not gone.

You tell that honky…ass whole, I won’t take…from no Western Union manager…or I’ll cut his ass.

If you see Raphael, please tell him.

I like to watch movies.  Yes.

 

-PD

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The Man with the Golden Gun [1974)

Third nipple.  It had to be said.  Nay, not even the great Roger Moore could get away with a strictly biological description.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way…  Indeed, Scaramanga was the most interesting and well-rounded villain yet in this series (by far).  This is Guy Hamilton’s directorial masterpiece.  Any who look down upon action/adventure movies are missing the fun of life.  C’est la vie.  It is an honor to write about a living legend–a true auteur.  I salute you Monsieur Hamilton!

Sure…there are some funny bits.  Coal and oil would soon run out?  Well, 40 years have gone by and we are still burning away.  But let us not dwell upon a minor hitch.  This film is so enjoyable to watch!

The location shoots are immaculate.  Macau, Hong Kong, Thailand…  I must admit I got a bit wistful hearing traditional Thai music (something I was lucky enough to study at university).  Hamilton pushes all the right buttons (rather the opposite of Miss Goodnight’s errant derriere).

I would dare say this is the best Bond film up to this point in the “canon”…without question!

It is not a matter of Connery vs. Moore, but rather of Hamilton vs. cinema.  There were great moments earlier in the series, but this really is the whole package.  It’s a shame Connery and Hamilton didn’t get the opportunity to hit on all cylinders as Moore and Hamilton did with this vehicle.

Bond takes one for the team early on by swallowing a piece of forensic evidence:  a golden bullet which had become the erstwhile navel ornament of a belly-dancer in Beirut.  Not long after we are introduced to an indispensable character:  Nick Nack.  Yes, that’s right…Tatoo from Fantasy Island, but officially the late Hervé Villechaize.  The MI6 base aboard the wreckage of the RMS Queen Elizabeth was a brilliant touch.  Special notice should go to Joie Vejjajiva and Qiu Yuen who are masterfully cute and pugnacious as Hip’s nieces.

There is certainly a hesitant feminism which asserts itself from time to time.  It is rather awkward in such a chauvinistic series, but welcome nonetheless.

Maud Adams is wonderful (if I may say so) particularly when she is playing dead (or, as the film would have it, actually dead).  I am speaking of course about the Thai boxing match scene.  It must have been no small feat to look so icy-cold in such a heated environment.  The whole mise-en-scène is so delicately artful that there is no doubt what we are seeing is thoroughly cinematic (meant in the most superlative sense).

Britt Ekland is wonderful as the bumbling white-hot Bond girl Mary Goodnight.  No wonder she and Peter Sellers had been married.  She’s a right bird!

Guy Hamilton must have really taken to Clifton James as the latter unbelievably reprises his role as Louisiana Sherriff J.W. Pepper.  This really does make the film essential viewing for Cajuns the world-round.  The AMC chase with Moore and “deputy” Pepper is exhilarating and hilarious.  This really shows the European influence of Hamilton, though one might think him Italian rather than French.  Nonetheless, the mélange of emotions warrants mention as particularly “other” from the Anglo-American milieu in which we seem to be racing around.

But there is no missing the recurring reference to The Lady from Shanghai in the funhouse mirrors which bookend this wonderful movie.  Nick Nack, likewise, presages Mini-Me of the Austin Powers franchise.

One final thought…  There is a troublesome moment when Bond pushes a Thai boy into a canal.  For a moment, reality erupts within the spectacle (to more-or-less quote another famous Guy:  Debord).  It reminds us that espionage is not all fun and games.  People get hurt.  People are used.  There are many means to an end.  But I credit the series and even this film with upholding a certain stereotype of the British which I think has some truth to it…in a couple of words:  tact and manners.  Bond doesn’t really hurt the boy, though it is rather cruel seeing as how the boy had just helped him out of a “jam” only to have Bond, moreover, immediately renege on a 20,000 baht reward.  But even Scaramanga seems to appreciate the “sporting” nature of British fairness…offering Bond a chance.  True…Bond kicks a martial arts opponent in the face during the preordained moment for bowing to the sensei of the dojo, but Bond was outnumbered 20 to 1 (or thereabouts).  The final test comes when Nick Nack ends up in a suitcase courtesy of 007.  We assume from Ekland’s response that Bond has thrown the little person overboard, but we see at the end that the devilish manservant ended up in a wicker cage hoisted up the junk’s rigging.  I admire this delicacy.  Keep Bond and carry on!

 

-PD

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Trail of the Pink Panther [1982)

Ugh.  Ay carambas!  Yikes.  This film is torture.  I will not claim to have made it all the way through, but I held on as long as I could.

This really is just a travesty all around.  It starts well enough.  Harvey Korman is an admirable Auguste Balls.  “Maybe they did have enough outtake footage to patch together a film,” I thought.  I kept as alert as possible, trying to find the inevitable and unenviable “break point.”  It comes after Sellers exits the elevator:  the last laugh.

It is a jaw-dropping stroke of hubris…Sellers doing soft-shoe on the spilled rice and then the exact same set piece with the keys in the door and the ripped trousers.  It’s all downhill from there.  It turns into a “greatest hits” playback of scenes from the previous films with stupefying ennui courtesy of interviewing those who had known Clouseau.

I must say, however:  I made it further into this debacle than I thought I would.  At least the “pup-out” lighter scene was priceless (truly the last laugh).  Perhaps I will return to this revolting pastiche once my stomach has calmed down…in a couple of weeks.

 

-PD

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I Love You, Alice B. Toklas [1968)

I must hand it to Drew Barrymore.  She fought the law and she won.  It is nothing short of a minor coup (?) that she persisted in having this film shown as part of TCM’s Essentials programming (against, perhaps, the “better” judgment of Robert Osborne).  I’ve had this film in VHS form sans case awaiting the perfect moment to watch it.  That moment came tonight thanks to guest programmer Drew.

I should mention that I rather like Robert Osborne.  His love for film is unquestioned.  He has that twinkle in his eye…even when speaking about the most apocryphal “classics.”  It was truly a moment in my life when I first heard the word Cahiers pronounced…and the speaker was none other than Mr. Osborne.

On to the film at hand.  This really is a strange movie.  Mostly because it is not strange.  Peter Sellers plays what might best be described as Zeppo Marx for the entirety of the film.  I must, however, give it to director Hy Averback for having crafted a film which nicely calls into question the values people place on rather vacuous objects and principles.  At least the very last scene (Sellers hastily strolling down the street) finally achieves a sublime effect which was labored over for 94 minutes before being realized.  Sadly, this film has all the trappings of The Party (truly Sellers’ best performance) with almost none of the brilliance.  It is acutely agonizing to watch Sellers play the straight man.

 

-PD

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The Revenge of the Pink Panther [1978)

It all starts to blur together.  After the masterful return to form in The Pink Panther Strikes Again, this film fails to distinguish itself from the series.  There are some amazing moments.  True.  But perhaps it would have behooved the creators to have set the entire film in Hong Kong rather than merely the last portion.

The saving grace of the Bond series from Eon Productions is that, though formulaic, one can differentiate one film from another (more or less) by the location shooting.  The original Pink Panther movie boded well for just such expectations by having Clouseau go off to Cortina d’Ampezzo for a postcard background.  When one thinks of Bond, we can picture Jamaica (Dr. No), Turkey (From Russia With Love), Japan (You Only Live Twice) and Switzerland (particularly On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but also Goldfinger) to name just a few.  Such differentiation was sorely lacking in this parallel string of sequels.

Back to the film at hand:  it is not at all bad.  It just becomes difficult to tell it apart from the preceding four installments (not including 1968’s Inspector Clouseau which featured Alan Arkin rather than Sellers).  [I suppose Arkin is the Lazenby of this franchise.]

There are some nuggets in this film–some “set pieces” which make it wonderful viewing in spite of its meta-laziness.  When Sellers manages to kill Ed Parker…that’s surely a laugher.  But what follows is even better.  As Clouseau has the floor sawn from beneath him, we once again enter a surreal world of Sellers vs. Kwouk (which Blake Edwards had begun to capture ever more rivetingly in the preceding two films).  Sellers ends up largely covered in blue paint (which also splatters on the walls of the apartment beneath his…a half-finished renovation) and the whole thing begs the question as to whether Sellers and the creators of this film were versed in the history of Yves Klein.  Klein, of course, in addition to “patenting” a particular shade of blue (International Klein Blue) was also a martial arts enthusiast (becoming a master of judo at age 25).  And.  He was, of course, thoroughly French.

Dyan Cannon looked lovely in this film and the scene with Sellers by the fireplace is both charming and hilarious (in a Samuel Beckett sort of way).  Sellers as Godfather Scallini presages the Austin Powers “fat suit” antics of Mike Myers.  Finally, the medal presentation at the end of the film is befitting for the aging Sellers:  a grand exit from the series proper.  [One last trio of antics…the faulty sword, the pigeon on his gendarme casque, and the thorough unraveling of the French president’s necktie.]

Graham Stark is excellent in yet a third separate role (over the course of the series) as Auguste Balls.  Special notice should also be given to André Maranne who was an iconic face and personality throughout the franchise’s run.

Sellers contributed a magnificent archetype to cinema with his storied presentation of the Clouseau character over the course of these many films.  He is, and always will be, (notwithstanding Casino Royale) the anti-Bond.  Farewell sweet soul.

 

-PD

 

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The Pink Panther Strikes Again [1976)

This is a brilliant film. And though I doubt the Quasimodo disguise kit which Clouseau just happened to have on hand prior to learning of Dreyfus’ escape was spun-off into a product tie-in, it should have been.

The problem with the prior film (The Return of the Pink Panther) is remedied here in spades with liberal experimentation. Having Dreyfus form a S.P.E.C.T.R.E.-like crime organization is as ingenious as it is utterly ridiculous. Students of German cinema may be left wondering whether Professor Fassbender is actually a reference to Rainer Werner Fassbinder. No matter: the joy of this film is how little it takes itself seriously.

Clouseau once again is buoyed by his charmed existence: like Charlie Chaplin meets Forrest Gump. The world’s top assassins (assigned to kill our beloved Inspector) are no match for Clouseau’s fateful luck–stumbling over each other like a bunch of amateurs in his wake–and he is none-the-wiser (being both detached and oblivious).  Peter Sellers was pure nitrous oxide when he was at his best. His visual humor has been near-unparalleled in the history of cinema. His performance in this film ranks with The Party as among his best.

Awkward men everywhere can exult in the clumsy attempt Clouseau makes near the end of the movie to simply get undressed (similar to his misadventures with Capucine in the original installment of the series).

Director Blake Edwards expanded on the “psychedelic” touches of The Return of the Pink Panther by having more outrageous slow-motion scream-groans in the primary karate skirmish between Cato and Clouseau. It is a truly masterful instance of surrealism.

In short, it is a viewing experience not to be missed. This is your dossier.

-PD

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The Return of the Pink Panther [1975)

From the start it is a pale imitation of Topkapi.

But the film is salvaged by upping the ridiculousness of Sellers’ French accent.

The grand premise is similar to Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief (1955), but the Pink Panther series had by 1975 lost that je ne sais quoi which made the first two films of the series minor masterpieces.

This film is really all about Sellers’ uncanny skill at impressions (and there are some good ones):  the phone company man, the German-speaking housekeeper and even the Tony Clifton-esque playboy.

It is interesting to note that Sellers actually did have a residence in Gstaad (one of the principal settings for this film).

Also interesting to note is that Graham Stark (who had previously played Hercule LaJoy in A Shot In The Dark (1964), the second episode in the series) plays the role of Pepi.  Pepi is actually the only other interesting character in this whole film.  There is a sort of “Signor Ugarte meets Marty Feldman’s Igor” about his performance.

The direction at least has some interesting “psychedelic” moments (I’m thinking of the two slow-motion shots of Sellers flying through the air attempting an unsuccessful karate kick).

One thing is certain:  Sellers had a comedic magic which even caused his fellow actors (Catherine Schell in this film) to visibly “crack up” during takes.  The “corpsing” (as it is known) will be familiar to viewers of Saturday Night Live.  Sellers really embodied the part (as any good purveyor of imitations would).  When true comedic genius is present, it is often hard to find a Zeppo Marx.

But what I find most fascinating about this awful film (awful aside from Sellers) is that the director Blake Edwards had just three years previous made a fantastic drama starring James Coburn called The Carey Treatment (1972).  Edwards was no slouch as a director.  That then brings into question the underrated acting skills of Coburn (Derek Flint for spy-spoof enthusiasts).

With the immense talent of Sellers and the thorough competence of Edwards, I can only surmise that (like the Bond series beginning with You Only Live Twice (1967)) the series itself became a stale constraint due to pressure from above.  The only real innovation allowed to happen was in the liberties Sellers took with the Clouseau character.  The accent is more indecipherable, yet that becomes formulaic over the course of 114 minutes as the new gag is run into the ground.  The imitations are creative and elaborate (almost like a playful take on Dr. Strangelove), but none of them seem particularly well thought-out.  Somehow there was a disconnect between the talents of Sellers and Edwards.  Had they been creating as one, this awfully good film might have been great.

 

-PD

 

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A Shot in the Dark [1964)

If you are not paying strict attention it may escape you that A Shot in the Dark is the second installment in The Pink Panther series.  After playing second fiddle (literally…in bed…a “Stradivarius”) to David Niven in The Pink Panther, Peter Sellers parlays his upstaging of Niven into this starring vehicle loaded with bombs, murders and surprise karate attacks.

After receiving a “beump” on the head, Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer) is rendered unconscious.  While out, a gun is placed in her hand making her appear to be the culprit in a mysterious murder.  Leave it to a crew working in Britain and relying heavily on fake French accents to name a key character Dreyfus.  Think Alfred Dreyfus…1894-1906…not at all a funny affair in the annals of French history.

What is more, the newly introduced character Cato could not be further from the lofty Cato the Younger of Roman history.  The two Catos, however, do share a stubborn tenacity.  But more about that later…

Clouseau (Sellers) is as bumbling as ever and, as always, blinded by love.  After being cuckolded and taken by Capucine in the first installment, this time he lets love rule in his passion for Elke Sommers’ character.  Unlike the first film, his blind faith this time turns out to be vindicated.

The scene at the nudist colony is almost as good as the quintessential Sellers movie The Party (1968).

Things start to really go downhill for Clouseau’s boss Commissioner Dreyfus when the man in charge manages to chop his own thumb off in a guillotine-shaped cigar cutter.  Dreyfus proceeds to “go postal” in an attempt to rid himself of his least favorite employee (Clouseau):  the bane of his existence.

Burt Kwouk’s character Cato (actually spelled Kato, but only for this episode of the series) keeps the good inspector on his toes by attacking him at all hours of the day and night.  They are, apparently, friends.  Their sparring makes for some interesting phone calls as Cato answers “Inspector Clouseau’s residence” and hands the phone to Sellers who is twice breathing heavily from a just-finished skirmish.  It leaves the impression that Clouseau might be homosexual and that perhaps a “passionate moment” has been interrupted by the caller.  Indeed, Clouseau is always (without fail) in the wrong place at the wrong time (and alternately, the right place and the right time).  His is both a cursed and charmed existence.  Coupled with his indecipherable accent, he is a complete enigma.  The film seems to be asking, “How does this man even exist?!?”  And that’s what makes his story so entertaining.

For serious film nerds, notice Monsieur Ballon’s wife as being Tracy Reed:  the one and only actress in Dr. Strangelove.  I admit…it’s hard to recognize her without her bikini.

Graham Stark is great as Hercule LaJoy (no doubt an Agatha Christie/Hercule Poirot reference).  Perhaps no greater embodiment of patience has existed in the history of cinema outside of Officer LaJoy.

It should be noted that director Blake Edwards was a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma:  not exactly the place from whence you would assume such humor to emanate.  Indeed, this film is all about Edwards and Sellers.

Let us not forget the timeless Operation Petticoat (1959…even the timeless have times) with Cary Grant which Edwards helmed.  Even Andrew Sarris noted the achievement of Edward’s film Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961).  And we musn’t forget 10 (1979) with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek.

It’s a long way from Tulsa to Portsmouth, U.K. where Peter Sellers was born.  The thing about Sellers is that he really was a late bloomer as regards international stardom.  He was 38 when he first played Clouseau on screen and 39 for his turns in Dr. Stranglove and A Shot in the Dark.

For fans of The Kinks, it should be noted that the Sellers family relocated to Muswell Hill when Peter was aged 10.  He was of a Protestant father and Jewish mother so naturally (?) he attended Catholic school.  Sellers was, in fact, an accomplished drummer and was at one time billed as “Britain’s answer to Gene Krupa.” (!)  His first studio album (sketches and comic songs) was produced by George Martin in 1958 and released on Parlophone (reaching #3 in the U.K. album charts).  In 1960 he recorded an album with Sophia Loren (including the #4 U.K. hit “Goodness Gracious Me”…also produced by Martin).

Sellers made his directorial debut in 1961 with Mr. Topaze.

But back to the film at hand.  Even Bosley Crowther himself admired Sellers’ performance in A Shot in the Dark.

Sellers really had a wild year in 1964…what with Dr. Stranglove…A Shot in the Dark…and the eight heart attacks he suffered over the course of three hours from popping amyl nitrates prior to having sex with Britt Ekland.

Sellers received a CBE shortly after leaving (quit or fired) the set of Casino Royale (1967).

“What’s that you say?  Oh…”

 

-PD

 

 

 

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The Pink Panther [1963)

Reporting from Lugash…I just have word that Cortina d’Ampezzo is a real place.  It cannot be confirmed at this time, but the report indicates it was the location of the 1956 Winter Olympics.  What is even more unbelievable is the claim that a James Bond movie was shot there in 1981.

There is no disputing that Switzerland has four official languages (including Romansh), but our fabled Cortina is said to have a language called Ladin.  This is, I know, hard to fathom.  It is even said that Hemingway wrote for a short time in Cortina, but I do not believe it for one second.

Now…Skardu, in Pakistan:  that is an actual town!  [and not too very far from Lugash, I might add]  But one must never confuse Akbar the Magnificent with the Mughal Emperor Akbar.  They are approximately 450 years apart chronologically.  There are some rumors of a mountain called K2 in the vicinity of Skardu, but do not pay this any mind.  It is simply a myth, I tell you.  It would behoove these mythmakers to concentrate on more pressing problems such as Y2K.  The world is still in danger, I tell you!  Think, for instance, if a clock was 15 years behind, yes?  It could be this very New Year’s Eve when this very real menace finally brings our technological world to its knees.  But I digress…

Now, let me tell you about this lake in the vicinity of the very real Skardu (near to the very real Lugash).  Shangrila Lake is as lovely as the probably-fictional Cortina purports to be.  There is even a restaurant in the fuselage of an aircraft which crashed nearby.  See:  you would never have such an obviously real detail in the notes of a “place” like Cortina.  One must use logic and deduce what is faux from what is not faux.  Now then…

I tell you all of this back story because I firmly believe Sir Charles Lytton to be one and the same with Sir James Bond.  I know this may seem to be a stretch to the untrained mind, but I will elucidate my reasoning in due time.  I would also be willing to bet my job with the Sûreté that this same Sir Charles is the elusive Phantom for whom I have been searching my entire life.  In due course I will explain this, this…how do you call it?  Triple agent!

I, of course, am now writing from the Gaol here in Voghera.  I believe that the very real Princess Dala was conspiring with someone (I don’t know who…certainly not my wife) and that she stole the Pink Panther herself so that it would not be taken away from her by the government of the very real country of Lugash (Voghera being a little-known hamlet in the Lombardy area of Lugash).  I will address the claims that I am homosexual at a later date.

The fact that I was made to testify against myself in court was really a sneaky gambit on the part of Sir Charles’ barrister.  I must admit that I passed out in shock from having the Pink Panther fall from my coat pocket.  Now they are claiming I also stole some ridiculous and obviously nonexistent jewel called the Hope Diamond, but I tell you…I am about 400 years too young for that to even be possible.  And contrary to accounts, I have never gone by the name Tavernier.

I would like to clear up some further controversy.  The Daria-i-Noor diamond does not exist.  I can see how some might mistake it for the very real Pink Panther because of the preposterous similarities between the very real Lugash and some fictional country called Iran, but I can assure you that there is no Iran.  India?  Yes.  Persia?  Of course.  Iran?  It sounds like a song by The Flock of The Seagulls.  It is obviously a lie.

Most importantly!  I do not plan to be held in the gaol for much longer as I am sure the real Phantom will strike again.  At that point, I intend to resume work for the Sûreté (having been properly exonerated of all wrongdoing).

Furthermore, I have never heard of this silly Alfred Itchcock nor his supposed film Foreign Correspondent so I cannot answer claims that any of my story bears resemblance to his film.  But be well-advised:  when I chase a criminal, I always catch that criminal.  As my great countryman Racine said, “There are no secrets that time does not reveal.”

One last note.  Topkapi is just a movie.  I will admit, I do not see the humor in the criminal aspects, but I do enjoy that the thieves are eventually dispensed justice.  So to further clarify with the geography lesson:  Topkapi is not a real place.

I have been asking for coffee here in my cell in Voghera in Lugash since I have been imprisoned and if Topkapı were really a neighborhood of Istanbul I would demand they bring me a Turkish coffee immediately (and it better be tonight).  But you see, they could not…the whole concept is a farce…unlike my very sad and serious imprisonment.  Please tell my darling Simone that I love her…and remind her not to be too frugal with the housekeeping money.  I know she is quite capable of buying mink coats from the leftover money.  She has done it before, my pigeon…

-PD

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Dr. Strangelove [1964)

…and you will know us by the title which follows the colon.  Yes, Dr. Strangelove is indeed a mouthful when its title is cited in full.  Some years ago I proffered that this film summed my personality up better than any other single motion picture.  Whether or not that remains true, I still hold it to be one of the two perfect or near-perfect films which Kubrick made (the other being Lolita).

I won’t labor over the plot details too much.  Indeed, some may not yet have seen this masterpiece.  I suppose it would behoove me as a critic “of the people” to not always give away the ending.  But when I last viewed this piece of cinema, some things struck me which had previously slipped unnoticed under my nose in the fray.  Perhaps I am most ashamed to admit that I never realized one of the principal characters was named Jack D. Ripper.  He is, indeed, the problem child of this movie.

Played by Sterling Hayden (Johnny Guitar, anyone?), Ripper sets in motion a string of events which define the drama over the course of 94 minutes.  Neither had I recognized the humor in his operating base:  Burpelson AFB.  Perhaps there’s not as much meaning in the place, but the character is indeed aptly monikered.

The film really gets going as we see Peter Sellers (the true star(s) of this film) for the first time in one of his three roles.  As Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, he is the proper Brit whose tact makes him unable to quite fix the snafu in progress (a rogue launch against the U.S.S.R.), but whose diplomacy nearly staves off a most dreadful outcome.

There is an interesting element of this film which is approached tongue-in-cheek, but which nevertheless perhaps deserves further investigation at length.  That element is fluorine…in the form of fluoride…as in fluoridated water.  It just so happens that our resident kook (who has singlehandedly endangered all of civilization by ordering his bomber wing to attack) is very much against water fluoridation.  The year, we must remember, is 1964.  Ripper explains to Mandrake that fluoridation began in the U.S. in 1946.  He takes this (along with his rabid anti-communism) to indicate that water fluoridation is a grand Soviet plot.

Indeed, water fluoridation in the U.S. is said to have begun in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1945.  By 1951, the U.S. Public Health Service had made water fluoridation public policy.  In 1960, it is estimated that 50 million Americans were the recipients of fluoridated water.  In 2006, the percentage of the U.S. population receiving fluoride in their water was at just over 60%.  Any thought outside this narrow swath of inquiry is said spuriously to be the conjecture of conspiracy theorists.  Funny how the villain of Dr. Strangelove is one such fellow–a real doozy at that…inept at expressing himself…always talking about “bodily fluids.”  Indeed, something strange is going on with this subplot.  I will leave it to the reader to investigate the merits of pro-fluoridation and anti-fluoridation.  I myself avoid fluoride at all costs.

Back to cinema (and Peter Sellers), we next encounter another funny name:  President (of the U.S.) Merkin Muffley.  Merkin, of course, is the name given to “public wigs.”  And the muff in Muffley, well…  Again, I urge the reader to let their imagination guide their inquiry.

It would be germane to introduce my own bit of conspiratorial evidence at this juncture.  There is, of course, the oration of Gen. Turgidson (George C. Scott) where he urges the President to (thank you Rahm Emmanuel) not let this tragedy go to waste.  Yes, it is that age-old stain on humanity which Webster Tarpley so eloquently sums up as “cynical.”  Gen. Turgidson (another apt name) asserts with bombastic cynicism a plan so heinous (while holding his megadeath statistics) that it could only be concocted by Hollywood, right?  Wrong.

Case in point:  Operation Northwoods.  With apparent thanks to author James Bamford (and those who have railed against the Kennedy assassination as being something far different than it was characterized), documents from 1962 show the very real psychosis of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (of which, no doubt, Gen. Turgidson would seem to be part…if not the head).  No, Kubrick was not simply out to discredit conspiracy theorists.  Perhaps the fluoridation subplot is a smokescreen, but Gen. Turgidson shows verily that he shares a certain simpatico with our rogue Gen. Ripper (who launched the insubordinate attack).  Oh…what would Kubrick make of our post-9/11 world had he lived to see it?  Indeed, the timing of Dr. Strangelove couldn’t have been better (or worse, depending on how one looks at it), considering that just two months before its release J.F.K. was murdered in Dallas.

Ah, but President Muffley’s voice of reason prevails (just as J.F.K.’s voice of reason categorically refused the Operation Northwoods plan which was agreed upon and signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff…including their head, Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer).  I won’t deviate too far from the plan, but suffice it to intrigue the reader that Northwoods was a false-flag terror attack which would have used remote control planes, fake passengers (with “carefully prepared aliases”) and other such stratagems (including the death of American citizens) which certainly could have no bearing upon events in say, I don’t know, the past 15 years or so, could they?  Or course not.  How silly of me.

And while some ideas such as cobalt bombs seem preposterous today, in 1964 they must have seemed quite nerve-wracking indeed.  The Soviet doomsday device which figures in the movie is, of course, humorously inserted, but the technology was (at the very least) tested by the British in Australia in 1957.  Nevil Shute’s novel On The Beach (also 1957) leans heavily on this technology being quite real and not in the least silly.  Even the Eon series of Bond movies takes up the idea somewhat (in 1964, no less…same year as our film) in that Auric Goldfinger intends to use a device which incorporates cobalt to render the gold of Fort Knox uselessly radioactive for 58 years.  All experiments aside, the theory seems to indicate that radioactive cobalt would be a hazard for far longer than 58 years (as Dr. Strangelove himself points out in the odd segment just before the end of our film).  Indeed, 100 years is more like it (for all practical purposes).  Perhaps even 142 or so…

But I dare say the only name one needs remember in this piece of cinema is Col. “Bat” Guano.  The writers (including Terry Southern) were really having a larf by that point.  Our team aboard the one aircraft which didn’t get the recall “memo” head to what seems to be a made up locale in Soviet Russia:  Kodlosk.  By the end of this romp we are not only questioning the mental capacity of L.B.J. (newly sworn-in President when this came out), but also that of dear old George W. Bush.  One can’t help interpreting the role of Slim Pickens as symbolic of the cavalier disrespect for human life wrapped up in all of America’s nuclear ambitions.  And he just so happens to be a rural gent–a cowboy, if you will.  No matter that the real life Pickens was not only born in California, but died there (in Modesto, to be exact).

“Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?,” sing Pink Floyd in the song “Vera” from 1979’s The Wall.  Going on to reference the very song which ends Dr. Strangelove (“We’ll Meet Again”), it’s an appropriate way to broach how Kubrick’s masterpiece will go down in history.  I personally find only the ending to be a bit clumsy and, thus, the film as a whole (at least) near-perfect.

Sellers’ third role in the film is that of Dr. Strangelove himself.  An obvious remnant of Operation Paperclip, Strangelove is the former (?) Nazi who is wheelchair-bound (with a gimp arm to boot).  This really is Sellers at his surreal best, no doubt doing a good bit of visual improvising (as his bum arm seems to have a mind of its own–at one point choking the neck to which it is attached).

There is one (and only one) female character:  and she is a tightly-wound symbol of power.  Played by Tracy Reed in a bikini, she mainly figures into just one scene (that in which Gen. Turgidson is indisposed in the “powder room”).

Speaking of (and to) power, one would be remiss not to mention the RAND Corporation.  It has been ventured that Herman Kahn, John von Neumann and/or Henry Kissinger might have been templates for the character of Strangelove.  To that I would add Albert Wohlstetter.  All four were part of the aforementioned “think tank.”  Another possibility is Wernher von Braun.  Indeed, it is worth some study to learn how this former Nazi SS member became head of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Likewise, it is interesting how the International Institute for Strategic Studies played a role in the genesis of Dr. Strangelove.  It was, in fact, the director (Alastair Buchan) of this organization (ostensibly formed in 1958) who suggested to Kubrick the book upon which the film would be based.  That book was Red Alert by Peter George.  Silly me, all of these think tanks have me in a quandary.  I was quite sure Mr. Buchan was of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (a.k.a. Chatham House, formed 1920), but I see that I was mistaken.  I do, however, congratulate myself upon noticing that Kubrick’s chum Buchan was son of Hitchcock’s Buchan (author of The Thirty-Nine Steps).  Interesting also that the aforementioned Herman Kahn was a consultant on Dr. Strangelove.

As was noted in my article concerning Dr. No (1962) [see “Bond” section], Ken Adam went from that Eon Production’s set designer to being Kubrick’s man concerned with the same on Dr. Strangelove.  Indeed, that iconic table in “the war room” is covered in green baize.  One need not look further than Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale for the previous symbolic nature of this fabric (consider M’s door, for instance).

Back to Herman Kahn…  He coined the term “megadeath.”  But it took Kubrick and Peter Sellers and God knows who else to concoct the only line ending with which I can feel assured (the feeling is mutual, I’m sure) a sense of finality:  “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”

 

-PD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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