Originally Posted by
tomgoodman
Speaking of roles in the movie, Kubrick said in an interview that the casting plan had Peter Sellers playing a
fourth part, that of Maj. "King" Kong. But Sellers couldn't climb around in the bomb bay due to a leg injury, so they hired Slim Pickens, which turned out to be even better. Kubrick also said that the original concept was a straight drama, like "Fail-Safe", but he found that "we were being forced to throw away a lot of good stuff because it was too hilarious, so we realized that the movie would have to be a comedy."
We could and probably have done a complete thread on this movie. There are LOTS of bits that escape the first time view. The low level scenes show the shadow of a B-17. When they were flying the low level routes for the movie, they often ran into problems with the authorities.. a B-17 doing what??? Also, the USAF gave Kubrick NO help on the movie and when it came out, they wanted to know how they got the detail for the cockpit.
FWIW, if you look at how Kong runs the crew, VERY good CRM. And this was before CRM. Challenge and response. F/O flies during emergency. Delegation of tasks.
And the names.. Merkin Muffly? A BALD President? (check out merkin) Bat Guanno. General Turgidson (from turgid) and Mandrake. All probably the idea of Terry Southern.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.
FWIW, Premier Kissof would use chemtrails.