CTHE Press Release: Dr. Strangelove 40th Anniversary (1 Viewer)

[Steve Christou]

Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The BOMB, Dmitri. The hydrogen bomb. Well now, what happened is, uh, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well, he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little...funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing...

One of my favorites, I'm all over this like a rash.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

I guess I may have to get this, too. Actually, even though I didn't really understand the reason for it, the whole multi-aspect ratio thing never bothered me as much as the fact that they were still using the same old transfer. Sure, it was Kubrick-approved, but Leon Vitali and the Kubrick estate participated in remasters of the Warner titles, so it was weird that Strangelove was not handled the same way.

Mr. Harris: thanks so much for your input; it's always welcome.

 

[Iain Quinn]

Why bother including 5.1 DD & DTS audio tracks for this film? Surely they would be better off preserving the space on the disc for the PQ instead of wasting it on gimmicky upmixes.

 

[Dan Lindley]

Hi All,

I show Dr S at Notre Dame every year, and talk it about all the time when I teach. I even have two study guides on it via (about midway down) at http://www.nd.edu/~dlindley/ One is shorter and was published, the longer one is more fun. I'll dip on this film anytime, anywhere. And don't forget, it isn't just a cult or Kubrick film, it is third on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 funniest films, and 26th on the AFI list of the top 100 American films.

Much is to be learned here. Everything is parody, but how far is the parody from reality? Not as far as one might hope. One of the best films of all time. Now where is that pie fight??? (which really would have detracted..., and gone beyond the line from nearly serious to ridiculous).

Dan

 

[Ric Bagoly]

MINE

 

[John Hodson]

Yup; I'm on board now...

 

[rich_d]

So much to love:

General Turgidson (addressing the President in the War Room)

"I mean we must BE increasingly on the alert (as the Russian Diplomat is secretly snapping shots behind their backs) to prevent them from taking over other mineshaft space - in order to BREED more prodigiously then we do thus knocking us out through superior numbers when we emerge. Mr. President, we must not ALLOW a mineshaft gap!"

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Brilliant movie! It will be mine. Oh, yes...

The whole thing about Kubrick and aspect ratios is a bit absurd. I remember reading that his beef with widescreen videos of his works (except for 2001 and Spartacus) at the time was because letterboxing took away (in his opinion) too much resolution and that they should be released full frame (as they were mostly soft matted). These comments were made, supposedly, before the advent of anamorphic enhancement for videos and high definition video for home use. That these older statements are now made to be doctrine and that most everything must be full frame is just stupid... as ludicrous as Warner Brothers not releasing the director's uncut and uncensored Eyes Wide Shut for the U.S.!

I say it's time that all of Kubrick's films be re-released in their original theatrical ratios for those of us sick to death of these open matte hack job transfers with visible hard matting errors and boom mikes, wires, aerial camera helicopter rotor blades, etc. showing up in the frame when they weren't supposed to be seen anyway due to the fact that Kubrick's DP composed the shots for widescreen in the first place.

 

[Damin J Toell]

This topic is doomed to never make any progress. It wouldn't matter if Kubrick's corpse rose from the grave and hired planes to spell out "I WANT FULL APERTURE TRANSFERS" in the sky...we would still be hearing about how there's no way Kubrick could've wanted it. Sometimes I think people tend to confuse their own desires with their imagined intentions for deceased filmmakers.

DJ

 

[Patrick McCart]

That's sort of like an matted anamorphic scope transfer.

 

[Mark_vdH]

Here's some progress. The cover art from Amazon:

 

[James N]

The artwork for the original release was one of the best; this is just terrible.

 

[Richard Kim]

.

 

[Ike]

I don't think it's terrible. It has to be different.

This will be my third copy of the movie on DVD, but oh well. For some this might be there fourth (original release, CTHE special edition, Warner box set version, new SE.)

 

[ZacharyTait]

Jeff Wells reports in his Hollywood Elsewhere column on hollywood-elsewhere.com that he received the DVD and it's in 1.85:1 the entire way. I'll copy and paste what he wrote below:

Mein Fuhrer!

I've got the old Criterion special-edition laser disc of Dr. Strangelove, and a special-edition DVD from two or three years ago with all kinds of bells and whistles. Now Columbia Tristar Home Video is releasing a two-disc, 40th anniversary edition coming out in a few weeks (on November 2nd...election day!).

I'll get into a fuller review down the road, but I should proclaim right now that the image is darker and murkier-looking than the previous CTHV Strangelove. And instead of using the proper alternating aspect ratios of 1.33 to 1 and 1.66 to 1 (the look used in the earlier CTHV DVD), the new DVD goes with a 1.85 to 1 crop, which pointlessly lops off visual information from the tops and bottoms of the frame.



There's a fascinating snafu contained in a video interview with Robert S. MacNamara, Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in the `60s and star of Errol Morris' Oscar-winning The Fog of War.

The astonishing mistake is....the camera jiggles. McNamara is being asked about what it was like living under a nuclear Sword of Damocles ever day, and someone bumps into the camera tripod. Thump...jiggle...what happened? This kind of thing never makes the final cut of a taped interview. It was kept in because there wasn't time to re-do anything because they were on a clock that McNamara had insisted upon.

There's a new documentary called "No Fighting in the War Room or: Dr. Strangelove and the Nuclear Threat." It includes talking-head interviews with McNamara, author Bob Woodward, Roger Ebert and Spike Lee, and is fairly interesting. It's playing as I write this, but I can't really watch it because the column needs to be up in an hour.

There's also a doc called "Best Sellers: Peter Sellers Remembered." I watched about fie minutes' worth and it seems reasonably smart and perceptive.

What I really want from a Dr. Strangelove DVD but will never get is (a) lost footage of the climactic pie-fight sequence in the War Room that was shot but never used by director Stanley Kubrick, and (b) 16mm color behind-the-scenes footage. That's what I want. I know the pie-fight sequence didn't work, etc., but I want to see it anyway.



One of the funniest moments in Dr. Strangelove is a slip-up. Go to the famous scene in which the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers), a German scientist based on Dr. Werner von Braun, is fighting with his prosthetic arm, which has a sporadic tendency to give "seig heil!" salutes all on its own.

As Sellers tries to overcome the arm by beating on it, Peter Bull, the actor playing the Russian ambassador and who's standing right behind Sellers, breaks character by smiling. He nearly starts laughing, but he checks himself. This is an absolute no-no, of course. However, Bull's face was heavily shadowed and Kubrick probably figured all eyes would be on Sellers at that moment. But it's a fairly glaring error, especially for a film made by a legendary control freak.

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If I can, I'm going to rent this from Netflix as I doubt any of the video stores around here are going to carry the new version for rent.

 

[george kaplan]

If it's true that the new version has been crop & dropped, then it's a no-sale for me. :frowning: OAR only.

 

[Patrick McCart]

The specs DID say 1.66:1, so perhaps it looks like 1.85:1 on a TV screen after overscan.

The few 1.66:1 DVD's I own (A Hard Day's Night and 3 Mickey Mouse cartoons) look exactly like 1.78:1 on my television, but are correctly framed on my laptop. So, it would be good if we knew whether or not the 1.85:1 ratio was a result of overscan or not.

 

[Juan C]

FWIW I watched Monsieur Ibrahim (another Columbia title) yesterday and it was correctly framed as anamorphic 1.66:1. On my projector the thin vertical bars were there; on the TV, overscan is such that it really looks like 1.85:1.

 

[Richard Kim]

Let's not forget that the Criterion LD of Lolita had the same variable AR as Strangelove, but the Kubrick approved DVDs are 1.66:1. I'm sure the new Strangelove DVD is also 1.66:1 as well.

 

[Hans M.]

Actually, I just read this scene was in the film during a pre-view screening, but audience reaction changed Kubrick's mind about including the scene! Kubrick is well known for continuing the editing process after the film's release. The Shining had an alternate ending for a while with Wendy and Danny in a hospital. 2001 had nearly 19 minutes of footage cut out after its premiere screening. I even rented a video of Lolita that had extra dialogue in the fateful hotel bedroom scene with Lolita and Humbert (this was a big surprise as I rented the video for a classroom presentation and I simply cued the scene up and played it, and it went longer than expected-- another student also noted this, so I was not seeing things. I returned the tape and missed an opportunity to buy it for $3 when the video store went out of business and cleared out its stock! I highly regret it. It was one of the recent Kubrick Warner videos—before the remastered ones came out, so check yours if you have it on VHS!).

My point is: deleted scenes should exist in reasonable shape. Why did Columbia not include these extra scenes on the extras disk if Kubrick has passed on (RIP—may you not roll over in your grave!) and they have violated his OAR anyway.

As for the current debate on deformed aspect ratio on this 40th anniversary release: I believe it. All the zealous chatter from the ignorant pro-widescreen camp is understandably leading studios to present films widescreen, even if it means cropping OAR films. It's been happening way too often, and I blame idiots who blankly declare “say no to full screen.”