Major Kong's plane's primary target, is an ICBM complex at Laputa. In Jonathan Swift's 1726 novel 'Gulliver's Travels', Laputa is a place inhabited by caricatures of scientific researchers. It's also a play on words: "la puta" is Spanish slang for "prostitute."
Many of the characters have names which are double entendres or innuendos: Jack D. Ripper refers to the famous London murderer; Merkin Muffley's names refer to female parts - a merkin is a pubic hair wig and muff is slang for women's pubic hair; Turgidson's first name is "Buck" and "turgid" is a word describing the condition of an erect penis; the Soviet premier is "Kissoff"; the Soviet ambassador is named after the Marquis de Sade (the original "sadist"); and the title character is called "Strangelove".
One definition of the word "guano" is "A substance composed chiefly of the dung of sea birds or bats", meaning Col. "Bat" Guano's name can be translated into "Bat Shit", which could also describe his reasoning with Mandrake about not wanting to shoot the Coca-Cola machine.
Over 10 miles of electrical cable was required to light up the giant screen in the War Room set.
Produced and filmed during the spring and summer of 1963, the first test screening of the film was scheduled for November 22, 1963, the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The producers felt that the public would not be in a mood for a black comedy so soon after such a traumatic event, so the premiere was moved back to late January 1964.
Shortly after the release of the movie, Stanley Kubrick met with Arthur C. Clarke to talk about making the "proverbial good science-fiction movie". During a discussion of ideas (that eventually became 2001: A Space Odyssey, the two men saw what they at first thought was a satellite moving in a polar orbit, but it abruptly changed direction. When Clarke suggesting calling in a UFO report, Kubrick said, "After 'Dr. Strangelove', the Air Force doesn't want to hear from me."
The background footage for the model B-52 is filmed from a Boeing B-17G, whose shadow can be seen on the ground.
The character of General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) was patterned after Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. Curtis LeMay, who was renowned for his extreme anti-Communist views and who once stated that he would not be afraid to start a nuclear war with the Soviet Union if he was elected president. Similarly, Brigadier General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) was patterned after General Thomas S. Power, LeMay's protégé and successor as Commander in Chief of Strategic Air Command. When briefed on a RAND proposal to limit U.S. nuclear strikes on Soviet cities at the beginning of a war, Power responded, "Restraint! Why are you so concerned with saving their lives! The whole idea is to kill the bastards!...At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!"
The character of President Merklin Muffley (Peter Sellers) was patterned after Adlai Stevenson II, who lost two presidential elections to Dwight D. Eisenhower before becoming America's ambassador to the United Nations (1961-1965, dying in office), which was his position at the time this film was made.
The end sequence, in which Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" is played over several shots of nuclear explosions, was suggested by Peter Sellers' fellow ex-Goon, Spike Milligan.
The ending in the novel was similar to the novel and movie Fail-Safe. Author Peter George detested the conversion of his book to a satire, but wrote a tie-in novelization of the film anyway.
The favorite film of film critic Gene Siskel.
The film led to actual changes in policy to ensure that the events depicted could never really occur in real life.
The German word "Gemeinschaft" means "A spontaneously arising organic social relationship characterized by strong reciprocal bonds of sentiment and kinship within a common tradition". In this context the discussion of the post-apocalypse society living in mine shafts at the end of the film presents an interesting double-entendre. Dr. Strangelove's remarks about the participants in the new society spontaneously accepting new social norms and having "bold curiosity for the adventure ahead" is especially germane. Also, General Turgidson's admonition to "not allow a mine shaft gap" at the end is a particularly vivid pun.
The illuminated symbols on the War Room map displays were cutouts lit by individual floodlights behind them. They generated so much heat that the display was damaged. Air-conditioning had to be installed.
The ninth nuclear explosion shot in the end sequence is US nuclear test "Baker" from "Operations Crossroads", the first post-war nuclear tests on the Bikini atoll. Shot No. 14 is "Able" from the same operation. Shot No. 15 is "Trinity," the first atomic explosion ever.
The photographic mural in General Ripper's office is actually a view of Heathrow Airport, London.
The scene where Gen. Turgidson trips and falls in the War Room, and then gets back up and resumes talking as if nothing happened, really was an accident. Stanley Kubrick mistakenly thought that it was George C. Scott really in character, so he left it in the film.
The score for the B-52 scenes is mostly "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye", a traditional Irish anti-war song that tells the story of a broken, heavily mutilated soldier coming back from war. The last lines are "They're rolling out the guns again / but they'll never take my sons again." It's also the melody of the American Civil War song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," which describes the celebrations that will happen when the soldiers return from war. "The men will cheer and the boys will shout / The ladies they will all turn out / And we'll all feel gay / When Johnny comes marching home."
The Soviet ambassador describes the Doomsday Machine as an array of 100 megaton bombs covered with a special fallout-inducing material. A few years before the movie's release, the Soviets produced a working 100 megaton bomb design (the "Tsar Bomba") but scaled it back to 50 megatons before testing. If the full- scale bomb were tested, it would have increased the global radioactive fallout from all nuclear detonations to that point in history by 25%. Interestingly, by removing the fallout-producing uranium third stage, the scaled-back test had the lowest fallout per kiloton of explosive power.