(Foreign) >> Gentlemen, you can't fight in here.
This is the war room.
(Sound) >> Nuclear war.
Hilarious, right?
When Stanley Kubrick got a hold of it in 1964's Doctor's Strangelove, or
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, it was literally never funnier.
The dark comedy about mutually assured destruction has become widely regarded as
one of the greatest satires of all time. >> The novel it's based on however,
Red Alert by Peter George is not funny.
Not even a little bit.
So how did a grim look at Cold War-era nuclear politics end up being such a riot?
>> Isn't that what this show is?
Isn't that what we're doing here? >> Yeah, I was just setting up, you get-
>> Right, right, right, right.
So I'm Clint Gage. >> I'm Casey Redman, and without further
ado and no restraint on spoilers, it's time to ask, what's the difference?
Well, I guess we already got the big one out of the way.
The book is not funny and the movie is.
In the most general terms, the book and the movie are about an Air Force
commander launching a full nuclear assault on Russia, and
the resulting race to call back the bombers.
Most of that story makes it onto the screen.
>> The details however are almost all
different, which makes this a fascinating study in satire.
How similar elements get a little nudge one way or the other, and all of a sudden,
a terrifying story about nuclear war becomes a political satire for the ages.
>> To start with, the book and
the movie both open with airplanes refueling.
In the book,
the B-52's mid-air refueling process is described with military precision.
Its cold and mechanical detail meant to convey the cutting-edge technology
available to the Air Force at the time. >> In the movie,
it's this super phallic love scene set to romantic music.
So right away from the opening credits, the adaptation sets a much funnier tone.
The rest of the story's told with the same structure in both mediums,
cutting between the same three tracks.
There's the Air Force base, inside one of the B-52 bombers and
in the war room with the president.
In the book we're at Sonora Air Force Base under the command of General Quinten.
>> Meanwhile,
the events of the movie are set in motion when General Jack D Ripper of
Burpleson Air Force Base, gives the order to attack.
On top of getting a silly, satirical name, the general's motivation changes
slightly as well. >> General Quinten is a terminally
ill man.
He knows he hasn't got much longer.
He's also convinced that Russia has just been biding their time since World War II,
waiting for a confluence of their own advancing weapons technology and
the relaxation of American foreign policy to strike.
That time is rapidly approaching according to Clinton, so he figures a preemptive
strike against the Russians is the only way to actually achieve peace on earth.
General Ripper uses most of that same reasoning.
He even uses the same quote by Clemenceau as his novel counterpart,
about war being too important to be left to politicians.
But Ripper adds a paranoia about a Russian thought to sap and
impurify our precious bodily fluids.
So there's a bit of the realistic zeal from the novel still present, but
tempered and made funny with the addition of a crazy person's
fluid-based conspiracy theory that he developed when he
felt tired after sex. >> Next we meet the crew of
the Alabama Angel, one of the B-52 bombers sent into Russia.
On board is Captain Brown and
a handful of other crewmen with completely normal names.
They're young, in their early 20s and portrayed as loyal and brave airmen,
admirably performing their duty.
In the movie the bomber is captained by a perfect Slim Pickens performance as
Major Kong.
As opposed Captain Brown,
he's a middle-aged man with a delightfully stereotypical Western accent.
That coupled with the use of When Johnny Comes Marching Home the crew of the bomber
feels more like they're exercising some sort of aw shucks,
blind allegiance. >> Meanwhile as the president assembles
the Chiefs of Staff in the War Room at the Pentagon,
the real gravity of the situation General Quinten has put them in becomes apparent.
At first the joint chiefs feel the best course of action is to go all in,
to follow the initial attack authorized by Quinten with a secondary group of bombers
to take out the rest of the Russian targets.
Then the president reveals the doomsday weapon,
a series of bombs buried in the Ural Mountains that would literally kill every
living thing on the planet inside of ten months.
(Sound) All the Soviet leader would have to do is set it off.
>> First you push this button,
then you flip the switch and bada bing, bada boom.
(Sound) Cocktails all around. >> In the film,
the Russian ambassador is the one to tell everybody about the doomsday machine.
As soon as, and here comes another great list of names,
General Turgidson tells President Merkin Muffley,
played hilariously timid by Peter Sellers, about General Ripper's actions.
They get Russian premier Kissof who is of course drunk on the hotline.
In this case however, the human element has been removed from the doomsday device,
so it will detonate automatically if Russia is attached.
The titular Dr. Strangelove himself points out himself the whole idea behind
the doomsday device is pointless if they don't tell anybody.
>> Why didn't you tell the world,
eh? >> And a quick note about Dr. Strangelove,
not only is he a second Peter Sellers character, he's not in the book at all.
There are some nuclear experts in the room, but
none are a significant character, much less a wheelchair-bound German defector,
who's right arm is still a Nazi. >> Heil Hitler!
>> But once again we see a disturbing
scenario made funny, simply by the fact that a world leader just hadn't mentioned
his globe destroying new weapon yet. >> As you
know the Premier loves surprises. >> Once everyone agrees an attack
on Russia cannot be allowed, the race is on to find the recall code,
a three-letter prefix that must be in front of any transmission sent in order
for the bombers to even receive it.
In the book, only General Quinten and two other officers know the code.
But Quinten sent them both on a hunting trip ahead of his attack.
In the movie, it's literally just General Ripper that knows the code.
Like his book Counterpart, he puts the base on complete lockdown, cutting off all
communications and ordering his men to fire on anybody who approaches the base.
Also in both mediums, the President orders an attack on the base in an attempt to
retrieve the recall code prefix. >> As the base is attacked,
Quentin remains locked in his office, holding his second in command,
Major Howard, at gunpoint.
The fighting outside on the base is brutal, and
many men die on each side of the attack.
But for Quentin, the defense of Senora Air Force Base is just to buy time.
Once the bombers are close enough to their targets, Quentin calls for a ceasefire,
thinking it's too late for anyone to stop his plans.
Confident he's succeeded, and equally confident he'd go insane living with
the knowledge that he'd killed tens of millions of people, Quentin kills himself.
Sitting quietly at his desk, secure in his belief in the afterlife and
that he can answer for things he's done,
he takes a last look at some photos in his wallet, presumably his family, and
he shoots himself in the head. >> Ripper is much more active in
the defense of the base.
Firing a machine gun from his window, enlisting help from his second-in-command,
yet another Peter Sellers character,
a British exchange officer named Group Captain Lionel Mandrake.
Ultimately, Ripper is devastated by his troop's surrender.
It's in this moment, knowing he couldn't hold up being tortured for
the recall code, that he calmly walks into the bathroom and shoots himself.
>> But while the base is being attacked,
the men on the Alabama Angel are performing acts of wartime bravery that
rank right up there with any fictional soldiers.
B-52 is attacked by radar guided rockets, fighter jets and missiles,
each time sustaining damage and casualties.
Their CRM 114 transmitter, the device that would receive the recall code, is damaged,
and they're leaking fuel.
But Brown continues stoically on the mission.
>> In the film though the bomber crew has
only one missile to deal with.
While the plane sustains damage to its CRM 114 transmitter, Kong and
his crew survive.
They quickly discover they can't make it to their primary
target however so they decide yo go to an alternate target
they actually can make it to. >> Ultimately the recall code
is deciphered from scrolling notes made by the base general.
In the book it was Quentin's obsession with Peace On Earth.
So Major Howard figures the code would be some combination of POE.
In the film Mandrake finds notes about Peace On Earth and
Purity of essence because the fluid stuff that Ripper was into.
For security reasons,
Howard boldly demands to talk directly to the President himself.
While Mandrake has to convince a guy named Bat Guano to let him make a phone call to
the Pentagon.
Another silly name and another satirical nod of bureaucracy that will probably end
up killing us all. >> While the recall code worked for most
of the planes, President Merkin Muffley discovers one bomber made it through.
While they are able to tell the Russians where the plane is headed,
they don't know that Kong diverted the bomber because of the damage sustained.
And so Kong and his crew easily make it to the target and drop the bomb in what has
become the most iconic guy rides a nuc like a cowboy shot in film history.
(Noise) >> Captain Brown, however,
does not divert, and
the Russians put every obstacle they can in the way of the plane.
Ultimately, again, because these guys are doing some epic heroism here,
they made it through the flack, and literally as he's dying,
Brown releases the bomb. >> Dun dun dun!
(Sound) >> But Like the film,
it doesn't actually release.
Unlike the film though, the reader is meant to think it was released for a time.
There's even a whole chapter where the President offers up
Atlantic City as a target for
Russia to destroy as recompense to avoid the use of the Doomsday Device.
It isn't until the Alabama Angel crashes, having overshot its target,
that we discover the bomb was still on the plane.
The bomber's target remains unharmed, so the attack on Atlantic City is called off
with minutes to spare. >> In the movie though,
because the Doomsday Device is automated, there's no such luck.
The film wraps up with Dr. Strangelove presenting a plan for
surviving the pending nuclear holocaust as his Nazi arm gets excited at the thought.
The plan includes ten gorgeous women for every man, hiding in mine shafts and
breeding prodigiously for the next 100 years until it's safe to come back out.
But bickering about weapons and mine shaft gaps continue until the bombs go off to
the pleasant sounds of We'll Meet Again. >> So
in the end these stories really are basically the same.
Red Alert portrays just how close we are to disaster, how the systems in place
require the slightest defect to send the whole thing tumbling down.
Dr. Strangelove, though,
portrays how ridiculous the men who put that system into place really are.
In the same way Generals Quinten and
Ripper nudged the defense strategy over the edge.
Stanley Kubrick and company took a cautionary tale of nuclear horror,
simply made the names and the motives sillier, and it became one of the best
comedies ever made. >> That's it for this episode.
We'll meet again.
Don't know how, don't know when.
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.
As long as you subscribe to Cinefix, which is exactly how the song went.
(Music)