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To: Paul Atreides
Here are some details on the "changes" made in Dr. Strangelove. Note that the most serious change was made before the assasination:

***Major Kong's comment about the survival kit ("a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff") originally referred to Dallas instead of Las Vegas, but was overdubbed after President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.

***Kubrick intended the film to end with a custard pie fight between the Russians and the Americans in the War Room (which is why we see a big table of food there). The footage was shot, but he decided not to use it because he considered it too farcical to fit in with the satirical nature of the rest of the film.

***Another reason for cutting the custard pie fight at the end of the film was that at one point, President Muffley took a pie in the face and fell down, prompting Gen. Turgidson to cry, "Gentlemen! Our gallant young president has just been struck down in his prime!" Kubrick had already decided to cut the pie fight before the Kennedy assassination, but this line (or possibly even the whole sequence) would certainly have been cut due to its eerie similarity to real events.

***Some references show the date of this film as 1963. Its world premiere was scheduled for December 12, 1963, but following John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, it was felt to be inappropriate to release such a film so soon afterwards, so it was not shown until January 1964.

25 posted on 05/14/2004 2:43:39 PM PDT by Michael.SF. ('The weakest link in American security is the political link' - Thomas Sowell)
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To: Michael.SF.
That's the stuff I read, too.

On an episode of The Dick Van Dyke show, someone does a drawing of the Petrie family and Laura Petrie exclaims, "we look just like the Kennedys." That line was deleted.

Thanks for the post!

28 posted on 05/14/2004 2:46:26 PM PDT by Paul Atreides
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