Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964)
Stanley Kubrick set out to make a deadly serious thriller about nuclear war, based on Peter George's novel Red Alert. The deeper he dug into the research, the more absurd the logic of mutually assured destruction seemed, so he brought in Terry Southern and turned it into the blackest comedy of the Cold War. Peter Sellers plays three roles: the RAF officer Mandrake, President Muffley and Strangelove himself. He was meant to play the bomb-riding Major Kong too, until an ankle injury handed the part to Slim Pickens, who was reportedly never told he was in a comedy.
History kept interrupting. The premiere was pushed back after President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, and Kong's line about a good weekend in Dallas was quietly redubbed as Vegas. Ken Adam's War Room was so convincing that Ronald Reagan is said to have asked to see it on taking office. Four Oscar nominations followed, including Best Picture, and the American Film Institute later ranked it third among the funniest American films ever made.
The artwork is by Tomi Ungerer, the Alsatian illustrator better known to generations of children for The Three Robbers, whose savage satirical eye was a perfect match for Kubrick. This copy is the sought-after variant with fluorescent titles, used on only part of the print run, and was folded as issued for cinemas in 1964.
- Year: 1964
- Nationality: United States
- Condition: Folded-as-Issued
- Type: Original One Sheet
- Size: 27 x 41 inches
- Product Code: W5008
