I watched Alexander Mercouris presentation today . He was more passionate and Brilliant than ever. His herky Jerky delivery punctuated with ironic laughs and periodic outbursts of emotion remind me of Peter Sellers Brilliant portrayal of DR Srtangelove. This was a HUGE movie back when I was a Young teen . Most of you my vintage will remember this movie but I just googled it and WOW…Incredible to remember that back in the 60s we had the Cold War and were always living under the spector of guess what…NUCLEAR WAR AND HOLOCAUST . This at a time only 20 years removed from Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

Here is what Google has to say about Dr. Strangelove

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

Known simply and more commonly as Dr. Strangelove, is a 1964 satirical black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. The film was directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick and stars Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, and Slim Pickens. The film is loosely based on Peter George’s thriller novel Red Alert (1958).

The story concerns an unhinged United States Air Force general who orders a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. It separately follows the President of the United States, his advisors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a Royal Air Force exchange officer as they attempt to prevent the crew of a B-52 (who were following orders from the general) from bombing the Soviet Union and starting a nuclear war.

The film is often considered one of the best comedies ever made, as well as one of the greatest films of all time. In 1998, the American Film Institute ranked it twenty-sixth in its list of the best American movies (in the 2007 edition, the film ranked thirty-ninth), and in 2000, it was listed as number three on its list of the funniest American films. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress included Dr. Strangelove as one of the first 25 films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Plot
United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper is commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, which houses the 843rd Bomb Wing, flying B-52 bombers armed with hydrogen bombs. The planes are on airborne alert two hours from their targets inside the USSR.

General Ripper orders his executive officer, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (an exchange officer from the Royal Air Force), to put the base on alert, confiscate all privately owned radios from base personnel and issue “Wing Attack Plan R” to the patrolling bombers. All the aircraft commence attack flights on the USSR and set their radios to allow communications only through their CRM 114 discriminators, which are designed to accept only communications preceded by a secret three-letter code known only to General Ripper. Happening upon a radio that had been missed earlier and hearing normal civilian broadcasting, Mandrake realizes that no attack order has been issued by the Pentagon and tries to stop Ripper, who locks them both in his office. Ripper tells Mandrake that he believes the Soviets have been fluoridating American water supplies to pollute the “precious bodily fluids” of Americans. Mandrake realizes Ripper has become insane.

In the War Room at the Pentagon, General Buck Turgidson briefs President Merkin Muffley and other officers about how “Plan R” enables a senior officer to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack on the Soviets if all superiors have been killed in a first strike on the United States. It would take two days to try every CRM code combination to issue a recall order, so Muffley orders the U.S. Army to storm the base and arrest General Ripper. Turgidson, noting the slim odds of recalling the planes in time, then proposes that Muffley not only let the attack continue but send reinforcements. According to an unofficial study, this would result in “modest and acceptable civilian casualties” from the “badly damaged and uncoordinated” Soviet military that would remain after the initial attack. Muffley refuses this plan and instead brings Soviet ambassador Alexei de Sadeski into the War Room to telephone Soviet Premier Dimitri Kissov on the “hotline”. Muffley warns the Premier of the impending attack and offers to reveal the targets, flight plans and defensive systems of the bombers so that the Soviets can protect themselves.

After a heated discussion with the Premier, the ambassador informs President Muffley that the Soviet Union created a doomsday machine as a nuclear deterrent; it consists of many buried bombs jacketed with “cobalt–thorium G”, which are set to detonate automatically should any nuclear attack strike the country. The resulting nuclear fallout would then engulf the planet for 93 years, rendering the Earth’s surface uninhabitable. The device cannot be deactivated, as it is programmed to explode if any such attempt is made. The President’s wheelchair-using scientific advisor, former German Nazi Dr. Strangelove, points out that such a doomsday machine would only be an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it; Alexei replies that the Soviet Premier had planned to reveal its existence to the world the following week at the Party Congress.

U.S. Army troops arrive at Burpelson and battle with the garrison. After General Ripper commits suicide, Mandrake identifies Ripper’s CRM code from his desk blotter and relays it to the Pentagon. Using the code, Strategic Air Command successfully recalls all of the bombers except for one, commanded by Major T. J. “King” Kong, due to the radio equipment being damaged in a missile attack. The Soviets attempt to find it, but Kong has the bomber attack a closer target due to dwindling fuel. As the plane approaches the new target, a Soviet ICBM site, the crew is unable to open the damaged bomb bay doors. Kong enters the bay and repairs the electrical wiring while straddling an H-bomb, whereupon the doors open and the bomb is dropped. Kong joyously hoots and waves his cowboy hat as he rides the falling bomb to his death.

Back in the War Room, Dr. Strangelove recommends that the President gather several hundred thousand people to live in deep underground mines where the radiation will not penetrate. He suggests a 10:1 female-to-male ratio for a breeding program to repopulate the Earth once the radiation has subsided, a plan which gathers enthusiastic support from the all-male command staff. Worried that the Soviets will do the same, Turgidson warns about a “mineshaft gap” while Alexei secretly photographs the War Room. Dr. Strangelove declares he has a plan, then suddenly rises from his wheelchair and exclaims, “Mein Führer, I can walk!” The film cuts to a montage of nuclear explosions, accompanied by Vera Lynn’s rendition of the song “We’ll Meet Again”.

Cast
Peter Sellers as:
Group captain Lionel Mandrake, a British RAF exchange officer
Merkin Muffley, the President of the United States
Dr. Strangelove, the wheelchair-using nuclear war expert and former Nazi named Merkwürdigliebe, who has alien hand syndrome[9][10]
George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Sterling Hayden as Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, paranoid commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, which is part of the Strategic Air Command.
Keenan Wynn as Colonel “Bat” Guano, the Army officer who finds Mandrake and Ripper
Jack Creley as Mr. Staines, National Security Advisor
Slim Pickens as Major T. J. “King” Kong, the B-52 bomber’s commander and pilot
Peter Bull as Soviet Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski
James Earl Jones as Lieutenant Lothar Zogg, the B-52’s bombardier (film debut)
Tracy Reed as Miss Scott, General Turgidson’s secretary and mistress, the film’s only female character. She also appears as “Miss Foreign Affairs”, the Playboy Playmate in Playboy’s June 1962 issue,[11] which Major Kong is shown perusing at one point.[12]
Shane Rimmer as Capt. Ace Owens, the co-pilot of the B-52

If you haven’t seen this movie..Watch it…if you saw in back in the 60s…watch it again…They dont make em like this any more !

2 minute clip of Peter Sellers Dr Strangelove

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzddAYYDZkk

Probably the Most remebered scene…