“ARE THE RUSSIANS INVOLVED, SIR?”: THE BRITISH DIMENSION OF DR. STRANGELOVE

Abstract

Filmed in Shepperton by a director from New York, shaped by a novel by a British author at its inception and influenced by the work of a British cast and crew during its production, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove is explored in this essay as a British–American hybrid. Kubrick’s film was informed throughout the period of its creation by the differences in political and cultural attitudes toward the nuclear threat that existed between the US and the UK during the Cold War. This allowed the film to act as a reflection of the shift in the general understanding of the nuclear dilemma between 1958 and 1964 on both sides of the Atlantic – a movement from apparently inescapable anxiety toward a form of release and gleeful resignation.