Dr. Strangelove Gambling References

[@markpawziuk1449]

Great video! Kubrick and Harris regularly participated in poker games and the stock market while living in Hollywood, and Kubrick previously played chess for cash, so games with stakes certainly interested him and were also directly in Barry Lyndon.

[@kubricktheory237]

Oh wow , thank you ! 👍 I never heard that Stanley played chess for cash . Thanks for that info !

[@markpawziuk1449]

I find that hard to believe given the insightfulness of your videos.

[@8_Bit]

The seventeen thousand possible permutations for the Dr. Stranglove code are based on choosing any 3 of the 26 letters in the alphabet, which is 26^3 or one chance in 17576. These are exactly the same odds that HAL would be "one step ahead of IBM". This is an extraordinary coincidence, as Kubrick said.

[@kubricktheory237]

You're definitely better at math than I am ! 😃 But this is definitely interesting info , thank you ! 👋

[@robertprice2148]

Thank you for posting this. Gambling and games do feature a lot in Kubrick's work. Cards particularly in Barry Lyndon and in 2001, the Russian character Leonard Rossiter plays is named after a grand master and the game HAL plays with Dave is one of his noted chess games. I also think that the Shining has a connection with chess but it's not easy to explain!😊

[@unclebud1]

Dr.Strangelove gets some 'love'! I saw it in 1964 when it was released. I was 11 years old and I still knew what Slim Pickens meant by his "Vegas" reference. Nice use of b&w stills too, especially Strangelove himself.. There's an on-set photo of Kubrick and George C. Scott (wearing a bathrobe) playing chess, probably for cash.

[@kubricktheory237]

Yes , one of the other comments already told me that Kubrick used to play chess for cash which I didn't know . Thank you . Pretty amazing that you saw this when it was released ! Cool 😎

[@davegentry-pu9xm]

Good video. I'd never paid too much attention to the gambling references in Strangelove. Probably because the movie is so hysterical to me, having lived through a portion of that time period myself. What strikes me about this now that you bring it up, is that Sellers played 3 integral parts to the movie. He was involved directly or indirectly with every pivotal scene in the movie. And he almost played a 4th role, but he refused Kubrick, so Kubrick hired Slim Pickens instead. So what I'm getting at is this: Everyone is taking a gamble in this movie. A gamble for the future of the world. So, yes, there is a gambling theme and the stakes are high. But Sellers is placed at every pivotal junction, which makes him the equivalent to "The House" in gambling culture. And one of the most prevalent sayings about casinos is that "The House" always wins. This is some meta stuff I'm talking here, but it is something to think about. Keep up the good work! 😇

[@kubricktheory237]

Thank for the kind words , and that's an interesting take on Peter Sellers characters in this film . Maybe I should do a whole video about Peter Sellers different characters in Dr. Strangelove. Thank you ! 😃

[@davegentry-pu9xm]

@@kubricktheory237 Investigating Seller's characters would always be interesting. Hope you do it! To take my analogy above even further, with "The House always wins" ask yourself this: Did every one of Seller's characters "win" in the end? I would say yes. Dr Strangelove, President Muffley, and Col Mandrake all came to what they deemed a "win" or, at least, a satisfying conclusion to their dilemma. Even if Sellers had played Major Kong instead of Slim Pickens, that character too, had a "win" in the end. Now those of us in the audience would not consider any of these "wins" to be actual wins because we don't want to see the world blown up. But neither do we consider it a win for us when we lose to the House at the casino either! lol. Anyway, I've spewed enough nonsense here. I love your channel. Keep it up and don't burn out!

[@juanmanuelbaccino]

well Jack say to Danny "you are tired to bombing the universe" or something like that.