Sunday, June 30, 2019

Doctor Strangelove 190630

      Doctor Strangelove was a dark comedy about nuclear destruction of the world. The concept sounds horrific and is, but the book and the movie were both wonderful. The movie has been re-released this year on its 50th anniversary. The number of stars in the movie is enormous, including Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, James Earl Jones, Slim Pickens and Keenan Wynn. The movie has been put in the top 100 films of all times by the American Film Institute. The picture below had Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb down to hit a Russian missile site.



      The movie was surprisingly accurate in its depiction of the inside of a B-52 bomber, which was a highly classified weapon at the time. Oddly enough that same B-52 is still in use today. At the time of the movie, there were air force bomber wings in the air 24/7, ready to attack Russia if ever needed.
      The movie characters have some hilarious names like the rogue air force general that gives the air wing the attack code sending them in to bomb Russia, his name was general Jack D. Ripper. The army colonel who leads the attack on the air force base was colonel Bat Guano (guano is bat shit).
      The movie Dr. Strangelove ends with a plan where the top government officials and generals are set to go to an underground tunnel system so they could survive while the rest of the world dies. Part of the plan includes taking nuclear weapons in case when they come out of the tunnels the Russians would also have underground tunnels and they might also have taken nukes with them. This morning I saw a video with an investigative reporter actually found a real tunnel system under Rose mountain in West Virginia designed and built for the scenario in the movie. The rose mountain tunnels were built starting in 1951. The plan for their use is just like in the movie. Only select government and military knew about it. One member was a supreme court justice and when he found out he would be allowed to go to the tunnels, but his wife could not, he refused to have his name on the list of those members who would be included to go underground.
      I would urge you to watch the movie. It is available on Amazon Prime and other places if you spend some time searching.
      
      
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.

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