Author: Jurica Novaković /
Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe were both released in 1964 (Dr. Strangelove on January 29, Fail-Safe on October 7) and by the same company – Columbia Pictures. The screenplay for Dr. Strangelove was written by Stanley Kubrick and Terry Southern in collaboration with Peter George, the author of the thriller novel Red Alert on which the screenplay was based. Fail-Safe was based on the novel of the same name written by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. The novel was so similar to Red Alert that Kubrick, George and Columbia Pictures filed a plagiarism lawsuit but the case was finally settled out of court.
The films appeared just after the Cuban missile crisis (October 1962) during which the Cold War was very close to turning into a nuclear conflict. The American public was very sensitive to this possibility of nuclear bombs being dropped on both sides. Stanley Kubrick and Sidney Lumet, the directors of Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe respectively, dealt with this fear in two different ways – Kubrick decided to make a black comedy, or in his own words, a nightmare comedy (or as the original film poster says, the hot-line suspense comedy) whereas Lumet chose the thriller form. Lumet’s film is quite nauseating and unsettling with its highly dramatic scenes shot in a documentary fashion. Kubrick’s film, on the other hand, uses black humor as a means to cope with the deep-seated fear. But humor does not serve only as a kind of defensive mechanism – it is also used to attack this whole business of nuclear warfare and the Cold War in general. Although commonly known just as Dr. Strangelove, the full title of the film is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. After watching it, the comic aspect of the film makes one stop worrying about the bombs and crazy generals which could not be said for the bitter taste that stays after watching Fail-Safe.
Although the budget for Dr. Strangelove did not allow Kubrick to shoot it in color, on a symbolic level the elimination of colors is similar to the bipolar Cold War situation in the sixties. As can be seen on the original film poster for Dr. Strangelove, the whole globe is divided in two parts, one under the American flag and the other under the Soviet flag with nothing in between. Of course, a black-and-white film also enhances the dramatic situations, which is particularly important in the case of Fail-Safe – even the main title at the beginning of the film alternates between the flashing white letters on the black background and the flashing black letters on the white background.
As far as sound and music are concerned, both films make good use of them. There is a total absence of any kind of non-diegetic sound or music in Fail-Safe. The only exception would be the sounds of aircraft engine and crowd cheering which eventually merge into the shrill sound of a telephone melting at the beginning and at the end of the film. Accompanied by many close ups, this only heightens the drama, the most striking example probably being General Black’s dream scene. Long silences infiltrate the dialogues which are as hopeless as the actions that the characters take. Silence in Fail-Safe functions like the whiteness of Moby Dick (which makes it even more terrifying) by creating an eerie atmosphere of the film which could not be achieved by any sound. Since Dr. Strangelove is a comedy and therefore strives to bring about a different effect, there are non-diegetic sounds and music in it. First of all, there is the narrator in that scene above the clouds talking about a certain rumor that the Soviet Union is at work at a doomsday device. Then, there is the scene of aerial refueling between a tanker plane and a B-52 which is accompanied by the gentle instrumental version of the love song Try a Little Tenderness. The two planes exchanging their bodily fluids to the sweet notes of a love song is only one of the numerous sexual allusions in the film. The B-52 scenes are accompanied by the melody of the American Civil War song entitled When Johnny Comes Marching Home which is obviously ironic because these boys will not have a home to go back to once they set off the doomsday machine. There is also some cheerful music heard on the radio which Group Captain Mandrake finds and brings to General Ripper’s office. The film ends with Vera Lynn singing We’ll Meet Again, once again juxtaposing the end of the world with this optimistic song of the Second World War era that sings of reunion. The musical score for the film was composed by Laurie Johnson.
In both cases, the Pentagon refused to help in the making of the films so that the directors and their crews had to manage it on their own. The set designers involved in the making of the B-52 cockpit for Dr. Strangelove from a single photograph were so successful that they got everything just right to the utter astonishment of some United States Air Force officials. The Fail-Safe crew did not have to bother much about the authenticity of their bomber’s cockpit because the bomber in question has been a fictional element in the novel on which the film is based. Quite different from the subsonic B-52 Stratofortress in Dr. Strangelove, the Vindicator is a supersonic bomber represented in Fail-Safe by the footage of the real B-58 Hustler. Both films include a disclaimer in which it is stated that the safeguards and controls employed by the U. S. Air Force ensure that such occurrences cannot happen. The only difference is that Dr. Strangelove begins with such a statement whereas Fail-Safe ends with it.
Unlike in Dr. Strangelove, the time and place in Fail-Safe are clearly indicated in a documentary fashion before each new scene. The action of these two films primarily takes place indoors, in planes, heavily guarded Air Force bases, the Pentagon war rooms and bomb shelters. In Dr. Strangelove, the only outdoor activity is the brief scene of the attack on the Air Force base whereas in Fail-Safe, the only scenes in which one can see nature and people engaged in everyday activities are the final ones involving the countdown. In the brief scenes showing Washington countryside and a street in Omaha, the characters are either driving or are being driven in a car. The characters are surrounded and dominated by machines the fear of which is especially expressed in Fail-Safe. They are rarely on the surface of the Earth which is about to become inhabitable for 93 years (as in Dr. Strangelove) or partially destroyed (as in Fail-Safe). Instead, the characters are either above it (in planes) or under it (in various shelters).
Some important elements in both films take the form of the letter “V”: the B-52 bombers and the Vindicator bombers, the table in the war conference room in Fail-Safe and the ceiling of the war room in Dr. Strangelove. The letter “V” is visually closest to the shape of a bomb, but it can also symbolize victory and peace, neither of which is achieved in the films. Moreover, it is the twenty-second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet, which reminds of Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 (published in 1961) with its pilots and bombardiers involved in the highest level of military absurdity and mad reasoning. The scene which shows precisely that is from Dr. Strangelove and involves the soldiers of the same army shooting at each other in front of a sign which says: “Peace is our profession.”
When it comes to Fail-Safe characters, they mirror those in Dr. Strangelove, but since the mirror used in Dr. Strangelove is in fact a funhouse mirror, the characters play their roles in a very different way. The names of the characters in Dr. Strangelove function as sexual allusions, which of course is not the case in Fail-Safe since that would only undermine its complete seriousness. The sexual allusions in Dr. Strangelove do not stop there. The first stage in Freud’s psychosexual development is the oral stage and some of the loony characters in Dr. Strangelove regress to that stage and their pleasure center becomes the mouth: Dr. Strangelove smokes a cigarette, the Soviet ambassador de Sadesky smokes cigars (but only Cuban), General Turgidson keeps feeding his mouth with ever-increasing amount of chewing gum while General Ripper is a chain smoker of cigars.
Now, the first pair of these mirrored characters would be Dr. Strangelove (played by Peter Sellers) and Professor Groeteschele (played by Walter Matthau). Both of them are scientific advisers to the President and the Pentagon. Prof. Groeteschele is somewhat based on the military strategist and futurist Herman Kahn who was, like Professor Groeteschele, very much involved in various analyses of the possible nuclear war consequences and the ways of improving the survival of the people. Dr. Strangelove, on the other hand, is based on various real scientists like John von Neumann, Wernher von Braun, Edward Teller and Herman Kahn as well as on a fictional one, the mad scientist Rotwang in Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis. Dr. Strangelove borrows from Rotwang his white disheveled hair and the gloved right hand. While Rotwang lost his hand in an accident and replaced it with a mechanical one, Dr. Strangelove’s right hand is his own flesh and blood inserted in a black glove although it does echo Rotwang’s mechanical hand in the sense that it is not controlled by Dr. Strangelove but acts on its own. Interestingly, Colonel Grady in Fail-Safe is wearing a black glove only on his right hand during his flight. Professor Groeteschele argues that every war must have a winner and a loser and that the main goal is the survival of the culture. According to him, the main problem of a devastated New York will be the excavation of corporation records on which the American economy depends. He is always making calculations, estimations – people easily turn into numerals. Probably the only humorous scene in Fail-Safe is the one in which Professor tells the joke about convicts and file clerks being the only persons who would survive a nuclear war. He says that the Soviets are fanatics and not normal people, that they are calculating machines without pity and emotions. That sounds as if they should be treated like the animals of which Dr. Strangelove is speaking when describing the post-apocalyptic life in mine shafts in which these animals could be bred and slaughtered (this word is strongly emphasized by Dr. Strangelove). These advisers have both learned from the same teachers – the Nazis. The Professor states it plainly when arguing with General Black, whereas Dr. Strangelove is apparently a former Nazi himself who has changed his surname but still has not entirely lost his Nazi salute and the habit of addressing his new commander-in-chief as Mein Fuhrer.
Although they differ in rank and appearance, pilots Major T. J. “King” Kong (played by Slim Pickens) and Colonel Jack Grady (played by Ed Binns) are two determined and patriotic soldiers who carry out their orders no matter what. The first scene featuring Major Kong shows that it is not only the name that he and the legendary gorilla share – both of them like to hold a beautiful girl in their hands while occupying some high place such as a skyscraper or an aircraft. While Major Kong is resting his eyes on Playboy girls and thinking out loud in his Texan drawl about all the naughty things he could do with the stuff in his survival kit, Colonel Grady is more of a family man. His wedding ring can be seen on his left hand and his wife appears in one of the final scenes. Unlike Major Kong, Colonel Grady is torn between his civilian and his military life, between the orders given by machines and those given by the human voice. Like a good soldier, Colonel Grady obeys the order that beyond a certain point pilots should not trust any verbal transmission even if it comes from his wife or the President. He is the commanding officer and the pilot whereas Major Kong is much more than that – he is also the mechanic (the scene in which he fixes the device for dropping bombs) and, in a sense, the bombardier (the scene in which he drops and navigates the bomb). Both pilots are very serious about their mission and they both decide to fly their planes too low for the enemy radar once they have been hit. Their flying skills are so good that they are the only ones who can and do complete their mission. Colonel Grady and his crew decide to go with the bomb since the radiation they have received would kill them anyway. Major Kong, on the other hand, rides the bomb (the detonation altitude of which is set to 0 unlike Colonel Grady’s bomb) all the way to the target. The scene in which he is riding the bomb and waving his cowboy hat has certainly benefited from Slim Pickens’s experience as a rodeo performer. It is interesting that he never really stopped playing the role of Major Kong, the role which made him instantaneously famous – Pickens spent his final years flying a civilian plane in a green U. S. Air Force flight suit and a cowboy hat on his head. By the way, the first pilot of the aircraft that Major Kong is flying, the B-52, was Alvin M. Johnston nicknamed “Tex”. John Wayne was allegedly offered the role of Major Kong but he immediately turned it down. One of the reasons might have been Kubrick’s intention to satirize the Cold War, which would never do with Wayne who was a declared conservative and supporter of McCarthyism.
Brigadier Generals Jack D. Ripper and Warren A. Black are polar opposites. General Ripper (played by Sterling Hayden) is a paranoid patriot who fears for the purity and essence of American bodily fluids and decides to start the nuclear war in order to protect them. General Black (played by Dan O’Herlihy), on the other hand, is a rational and sensitive family man who cares for the bodily fluids of every human being regardless of their nationality. General Ripper starts a nuclear war whereas General Black ends one. Just as he drops the bomb on New York City, General Black realizes that he is the matador (which literally means “killer”) that has been tormenting him in his dreams. He does not believe in limited or any other kind of war. Bodily fluids should be exchanged among people, not spilt or kept to oneself. Waking from his nightmare, General Black can be seen sharing his bodily fluids (in this case, his sweat) with his pillow and pajamas. Being a father, he has obviously not denied his bodily fluids to his wife which is not the case with General Ripper who denies his essence on a regular basis. He seals his bodily pipes just like he seals his base – tight. Always insecure and afraid, he holds a machine gun in his golf bag and his obsession with security can be seen in the scene in which he is talking to Group Captain Mandrake asking him if he recognizes his voice even though they have spoken only a few minutes ago. With his base under attack, he drifts back into the past by saying that the Redcoats are coming, thus comparing the U. S. Army soldiers who are attacking his base with the British soldiers fighting the colonists during the American Revolution. Unlike General Ripper, General Black is not always shown in his uniform – his pajamas make him look less rigid and strict. He is a man of compromises, flexibility – he calmly smokes a curved pipe (in Dr. Strangelove, one of the men in the war room smokes a pipe) whereas General Ripper’s teeth show no mercy for the straight cigars that he smokes. Even their suicides show how different they are when it comes to subtleness and violence – General Ripper blows his head off making a terrible mess in the bathroom while General Black does it nice and clean with a suicide pin.
The differences between generals do not stop here. General Buck Turgidson played by George C. Scott (who was tricked by Stanley Kubrick to play the role far more ludicrously than Scott wanted to) is a ridiculous four-star general whose absurd suggestions match only those of Colonel Guano. The way he grimaces, slaps his bare stomach or chews his gum is in perfect accord with his absurd or loony ideas: informing President Muffley that they are working at the possible codes but that it is going to take them about two and a half days to transmit them all and that they are still trying to figure out the meaning of that last phrase in General Ripper’s message about the purity of essence; disagreeing that General Ripper is a psychotic because all the facts are not in; making two points which end up being six and so on. Like Professor Groeteschele, he quickly and cheerfully estimates nuclear war casualties and is just crazy about bombs and warfare (he laments the fact that the USA does not have a doomsday device and he warns the President that even in the mine shafts they should stash missiles so that they could keep fighting once they get out, suggesting the idea of a mine shaft gap). He expresses his strong dislike of the communists by constantly fighting with the Soviet ambassador de Sadesky who he calls Mr. Commy. It seems that he is somewhat based on the United States Air Force General Curtis LeMay (who always had a cigar in his mouths like General Ripper), but he also recalls the absurdly funny generals and colonels in Catch-22. General Bogan (played by Frank Overton) is, of course, his opposite. He is a temperate and reasonable military man who is not too happy about disclosing top secret information to the Soviets but obeys President’s orders. Unlike General Turgidson, he does not believe that they are dealing with a Soviet deception and does not feel hatred for the Soviets – he and General Konjev call each other friends. Since four-star generals are nominated for appointment by the President from eligible officers, General Turgidson and General Bogan tell a lot about the Presidents that have nominated them. While General Bogan is a feather in his President’s cap (to use the terminology devised by Colonel Cathcart in Catch-22), General Turgidson is definitely President Muffley’s black eye which Muffley obviously cannot tolerate but has no choice since General Turgidson’s appointment is, to a large extent, his fault.
These two films mirror each other in almost every aspect but, as has been already mentioned, the mirror in Dr. Strangelove is a funhouse mirror that not only creates a mirror image that puts right and left in the opposite positions but also distorts the things that are mirrored. The previous examples show that these distortions can be severe, but they are only slight when it comes to the Presidents. They are both sober, realistic politicians who are trying to stop the Soviet retaliation and minimize the damage that has been done. Although President Muffley (played by Peter Sellers) appears to be the only reasonable person in Dr. Strangelove (except Group Captain Mandrake), he sometimes gets carried away by the others and lapses into their absurdist mad dribble, especially when he is speaking to Premier Kisov (arguing about who is capable of being more sorry; wondering whether Kisov happens to have the phone number of the People’s Central Air Defense Headquarters; telling Kisov that there is no point for him to go hysterical in a moment when a nuclear bomb is about to trigger off the doomsday machine). The two Presidents, however, are mirror images on a very literal level – President Muffley is holding the telephone handset in his right hand whereas the Fail-Safe President (played by Henry Fonda) is holding it in his left hand.
The counterpart of Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (played by Peter Sellers) is Colonel Cascio (played by Fritz Weaver). Since Mandrake is an RAF officer, his rank matches that of a colonel in the U. S. Air Force. There is a stark contrast between him and his commanding officer, General Ripper. Group Captain Mandrake is the only sane character in the film and General Ripper as a totally mad person is at the opposite extreme. The rest of the main characters in the film are just somewhere in between. The comic situations involving him arise due to his sanity being surrounded by insanity, first by General Ripper and then by Colonel Guano. The sane mind cannot find any common ground with the insane mind and therefore Group Captain Mandrake’s guessing is always wrong (he believes that the condition red is a jolly good idea because he thinks that it is only a drill until he finds out that it is not). The scene in which his pent-up frustration is finally expressed in the crazy laughter while he is sitting on the sofa with General Ripper (who is holding one hand on Mandrake’s shoulder and the other on Mandrake’s knee) who is blabbering about water is as comic as it is dramatic. His adventures with Colonel Guano are as frustrating as they can be. When there is no time to lose, Group Captain Mandrake suddenly finds himself in a Monty Python sketch in which he is faced with such questions as “What kind of suit you call that?”, statements like “You’re gonna answer to the Coca-Cola company” and the lack of sufficient amount of coins to get the President on the phone and tell him the recall code (which, by the way, is another sick invention of General Ripper – Peace on Earth / Purity of Essence). Colonel Cascio disagrees with his superior too. He shares General Turginson’s suspicions and belief that it is only a Soviet trick. When he fails to convince his superior, General Bogan, to launch a full- strength attack, he assaults him and attempts to take over the command. He is a tragic character who suffers a nervous breakdown due to his professional preoccupations as a soldier and the problems that he is having with some of his family members (who he calls “those people”).
In Dr. Strangelove, Peter Bull is playing the Soviet ambassador Alexei de Sadesky, another absurd character who is secretly taking pictures of the war room even though it is quite clear that the end is near. He is the one who informs the Americans about the existence of the doomsday machine and is surprised that the Americans do not have one since the Soviet source was the New York Times. This burlesque does not stop with his boss, Premier Kisov, who is discussing the deadly serious situation of a nuclear attack under the influence of alcohol and with some loud music pumping in the background.
Among other things, the two films differ in terms of the initiating factor of all the terrible things that will ensue. In Dr. Strangelove, the human factor is responsible for the nuclear war while in Fail-Safe, the machines participate too. Although present in Dr. Strangelove, this relationship between humans and machines is one of the main topics in Fail-Safe. Before going on that fatal mission, Colonel Grady laments the good old days when a pilot was flying a plane and not the other way around. He warns Billy of the importance of the personal factor – one can depend upon human beings, not machines. General Black is of the same opinion, urging his colleagues that they have to slow down because war machine acts faster than the ability of man to control it. Even Knapp, the constructor, says that machines work too fast for humans to be able to correct them. In Omaha, Congressman Raskob is assured by the military personnel that it is they who control the machines and that the money is well spent, but he gets different answers when he asks about responsibility. In Fail-Safe, the U. S. machines start the nuclear war and the Soviet computers initiate the jamming, but even those humans who are strongly opposed to them are acting like machines – following his orders, Colonel Grady disregards the human factor that is begging him to turn back. The President is quite clear about whose fault it is – as he is telling the Soviet Premier, the two of them are to blame. In Dr. Strangelove, the machines do not start the war but the doomsday machine ends it. Sometimes the machines are even trying to prevent the nuclear disaster, like in that scene in which the bomb bay doors of Major Kong’s B-52 refuse to open. However, they are usually just a time-consuming factor that frustrates the characters that are trying to convey some life-saving message, appearing in the form of telephones (the dead phone lines in the Air Force base, Group Mandrake’s search for coins, the President’s attempt to find out the phone number of the People’s Central Air Defense Headquarters) or the wicked Coca Cola machine.
As has been mentioned, Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe deal, each in its own way, with themes such as the Cold War, communism, human/machine relationship and humanity. But what seems to be really questioned in these films is the human intelligence, or shall we say, human stupidity.
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