After I posted my blog yesterday, I thought I'd watch that classic 1964 anti-nuclear war black comedy, Dr. Strangelove, which got 98/94 ratings from Rotten Tomatoes. Conveniently, I had recorded it some time ago off TCM. Of course I had seen it a long time ago, but forgot all the details. A timetable of what was happening during that period:- There was a half-hearted Bay of Pigs invasion in April of 1961. Incredibly, there is a true story of how five of us as Stanford juniors actually had planned to swing through the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for the spring break, then join this attack. Good thing we chickened out.
The Berlin Crisis came in August of 1961 when the wall was built between East and West Berlin.- I graduated and in June of 1962 moved to the Hutchinson Sugar Company in Naalehu on the Big Island of Hawaii, a location where I could not receive radio or television.
Came the Cuban Missile Crisis from 16-28October1962. John Kennedy pressured Nikita Khrushchev to pull out of Cuba with his missiles, which to the Soviet Union was a huge embarrassment, leading to Nikita's fall from power in 1964. At this time, the U.S. had 27,000 nuclear warheads to the Soviet's 3600, so we had a decided advantage. This is the closest humanity has been to a nuclear third world war.
- JFK was assassinated on 22November1963.
- Dr. Strangelove was supposed to be first screened exactly on that day, so the release date instead came late in January 1964.
About Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb:
- A political satire black comedy as a co-production between the U.S. and U.K.
- Co-written, produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Peter Sellers plays three characters.- Group Captain Mandrake, a British RAF exchange officer, but, after all he comes from the UK.
- Merkin Muffley, President of the USA, who spoke pretty good midwestern English, sort of like Adlai Stevenson.
Dr. Strangelove, former Nazi still with Heil Hitler tendencies serving as the President's scientific advisor. Dr. Strangelove is, oh, an amalgamation of Herman Kahn, Wernher von Braun and Edward Teller.
He was also supposed to play the B-52 commander, and would have been on the H-Bomb that caused WW3. However, an injury forced him to back off, giving Slim Pickens his finest day on screen.
George C. Scott played General Buck Turgidson, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There, too, is meaning to his name. He was tricked by Kubrick to be outlandish. There was only one female character in the entire film, Tracy Reed, as Turgidson's mistress, Playboy Playmate in the June issue of 1962.
Sterling Hayden played Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, the crazy rogue who caused this crisis. He was the paranoid commander of the Strategic Air Command's Burpelson Air Force Base, the site's name with burp is intended to show humor. He should have gotten at least an Oscar nomination. The film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, but none of these won.
James Earl Jones is the bombardier on the fatal B-52. His film debut. He was the only black character of note, but he didn't then have that Darth Vader voice.- Here is the final 2 minutes 32 seconds of this film. Yes, the Third World War begins...and Humanity ends.
The British one-hour documentary, The War Game, was finished in 1966. Said to be the most horrifying war production ever. Won an Academy Award in 1967. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey arrived in 1968. As I reported yesterday, that ultimate anti-nuclear war film, Threads (watch it...the whole 1 hr 47 minute movie), arrived in 1984, with Dr. Strangelove re-released in 1994. Kubrick the following year had in mind a sequel, Son of Strangelove, with Terry Gilliam (member of Monty Python) as director.
I could end here, but will add something about the sixth extinction.
- There are several books on this subject, with the most popular by Elizabeth Kolbert, published in 2014,
- As you might know, life on Earth has suffered through five extinctions. While life in general continued:
- 444 million years ago, 86% of species did not, caused largely by global warming.
- 360 mya 75% of species disappeared from global cooling.
- 250 mya 96% of species lost from supervolcanic activity in Siberia.
200 mya 89% lost from underwater volcanic activity in the Atlantic.- 66 mya 76% went because of an asteroid impact, although supervolcano eruptions also occurred. This one killed off the dinosaurs.
- We are now in what has been called the Sixth and Holocene Extinction driven by human activity.
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic timepiece showing how close we are to ‘destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making’.
I'll end with the Doomsday Clock.
- Led by Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, scientists who participated in the Manhattan Project began publishing a newsletter, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and since its inception in 1947, has depicted the Doomsday Clock on every cover.
- The original setting was 7 minutes to midnight.
- Has been set backwards 8 times and forward 18 times.
- The farthest from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991 when the Cold War ended.
The closest is NOW, set to 89 seconds in January of 2025.- The print edition became digital in 2009.
- You can access this Bulletin here.
- Some history.
- Why are we our closest to doomsday?
- Board member Manpreet Sethi says:
The risk of nuclear use continues to grow due to capabilities building up and treaties breaking down. Russia has suspended compliance with the New START treaty and withdrawn ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. China is rapidly increasing its nuclear arsenal. And, the US has abdicated its role as a voice of caution. It seems inclined to expand its nuclear arsenal and adopt a posture that reinforces the belief that ‘limited’ use of nuclear weapons can be managed. Such misplaced confidence could have us stumble into a nuclear war.”
- Add the role of Artificial Intelligence to war strategy, the changed attitudes about remediating climate change, exacerbated by the Donald, and fear of future pandemics.
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