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

Plot summary

U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper goes completely and utterly mad, and sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He suspects that the communists are conspiring to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people. The U.S. president meets with his advisors, where the Soviet ambassador tells him that if the U.S.S.R. is hit by nuclear weapons, it will trigger a "Doomsday Machine" which will destroy all plant and animal life on Earth. Peter Sellers portrays the three men who might avert this tragedy: British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the only person with access to the demented Gen. Ripper; U.S. President Merkin Muffley, whose best attempts to divert disaster depend on placating a drunken Soviet Premier and the former Nazi genius Dr. Strangelove, who concludes that "such a device would not be a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious". Will the bombers be stopped in time, or will General Jack Ripper succeed in destroying the world ? Written by Colin Tinto {cst@imdb.com}

U.S. President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) is on the hot line to Moscow with some rather embarrassing news for the Soviet premier: "Hello, Dimitri....I'm fine....Now then, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb....The bomb, Dimitri. The hydrogen bomb....Well, now, what happened is that, uh, one of our base commanders...he went a little funny in the head....and he went and did a silly thing....He ordered his planes to attack your country." A comedy about an accidental nuclear attack? One that ends with total annihilation, thermonuclear apocalypse? Preposterous! Stanley Kubrick thought otherwise. In the end his thinking prevailed. The mad saga revolves around a psychotic Strategic Air Command officer, Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), who lets loose his B-52 bomber squadron on the Soviet Union. Ripper takes this unilateral action because of his paranoid belief that Communists are sapping and contaminating "all our precious bodily fluids" as part of their plan to take over the world." Unbeknownst to Ripper, his attack will trigger the Russian's ultimate weapon, the Doomsday Machine, a diabolical retaliatory device set to blow up the planet.

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

	Peter Sellers	...	Group Captain (G/C) Lionel Mandrake/President Merkin Muffley/Dr. Strangelove
	George C. Scott	...	Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson
	Sterling Hayden	...	Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper
	Keenan Wynn	...	Col. 'Bat' Guano
	Slim Pickens	...	Maj. T.J. 'King' Kong
	Peter Bull	...	Russian Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky
	James Earl Jones	...	Lt. Lothar Zogg
	Tracy Reed	...	Miss Scott
	Jack Creley	...	Mr. Staines
	Frank Berry	...	Lt. H.R. Dietrich
	Robert O'Neil	...	Adm. Randolph
	Glenn Beck	...	Lt. W.D. Kivel (as Glen Beck)
	Roy Stephens	...	Frank
	Shane Rimmer	...	Capt. G.A. 'Ace' Owens
	Hal Galili	...	Burpelson AFB Defense Team member