by Scott Teeters, host of FarOutRadio
"Mandrake, have you ever seen a "commie" drink a glass of water?"
Thanks to the brilliant research of Jay Weidner, a frequent alternative radio show guest and talented movie documentary maker that I have listened to and admired for years, I have been introduced to the real genius of the famous filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. I have seen several of Kubrick’s films and some I did like but most I did not care for. What I learned from Jay about the intent of Stanley Kubrick was that in every one of Kubrick’s films, the man was telling us something, BESIDES the actual plot or story line.
With that in mind, I went looking for Kubrick films on Netflix Watch Instantly. “Dr. Strangelove” was available and since I have a keen interest in a lot of material and history about the 1960s, (the JFK assassination, Dave McGowan’s Laurel Canyon music scene, the Beatles, and other 1960s documentaries), I wanted to see how the Cold War was being portrayed in Kubrick's film. I knew from listening to several interviews with Jay Weidner that Kubrick’s request to the U.S. Air Force for assistance at the time was rejected because the plot made them look like a bunch of loonies and that made the film more tantalizing for me. Kubrick and his set designers recreated the insides of the B-52 bomber in such detail that when the military saw the movie, they were unhinged and realized that they needed Kubrick working for “them”!