Terry Southern was brought in as co-writer by Peter Sellers because Sellers was a big fan of Southern's novel The Magic Christian, which later became a Sellers film vehicle.
Stanley Kubrick intended to film in the United States. Filming was moved to England's Shepperton Studio because Peter Sellers had to stay in England due to his pending divorce.
Stanley Kubrick usually gave directions to actors without cracking a smile. However, during the shooting of this film, Kubrick was laughing a good deal of the time while Peter Sellers was performing, often so hard that he brought himself to tears.
Stanley Kubrick wanted the tablecloth on the War Room table to be green, so it looked like the world leaders were playing poker with the world's fate. However, this makes little sense, since the film's budget required it to be shot in black & white, so color of the tablecloth would make no difference on the final film release.
Stanley Kubrick: [114] Name of the message decoder CRM-114.
Stanley Kubrick: [faces] General Turgidson, General Ripper, and Dr. Strangelove.
Stanley Kubrick: [three-way] USA vs. Russia vs. General Ripper.
Stanley Kubrick's last black and white film.
Tracy Reed, the only female seen in the film, plays Turgidson's secretary Miss Scott, was billed in some early adverts as 'Miss Foreign Affairs'. This was due to her also appearing as that character in the centerfold of Playboy magazine (June 1962), which is read by Major Kong in the cockpit. The magazine covering her butt is Foreign Affairs.
George C. Scott was reputedly annoyed that Stanley Kubrick was pushing him to overact for his role. While he vowed never to work with Kubrick again, Scott eventually saw this as one of his favorite performances. Many fans consider it some of his best work on-screen.
Peter Sellers improvised most of his lines.
Peter Sellers was also cast as Maj. T.J. "King" Kong, but he had trouble developing a Texas accent. When Sellers broke his ankle, Stanley Kubrick decided to cast another actor who naturally fit the role. John Wayne never responded. Bonanza star Dan Blocker, declined the role because of the script's progressive political content. Kubrick cast Slim Pickens because of his work on One-Eyed Jacks. Kubrick told Pickens to play it straight.
Peter Sellers was not keen on multiple takes, one of Stanley Kubrick's trademarks. Kubrick felt that Sellers's performance improved with each successive take, while Sellers couldn't understand why he was being asked to keep doing the same scene over and over.
Peter Sellers was paid $1 million, 55% of the film's budget. Stanley Kubrick famously quipped "I got three for the price of six".
Peter Sellers was the first actor to be nominated for a single Academy award (best actor) for a film in which he portrayed three different characters in the same film.
James Earl Jones' film debut. Stanley Kubrickcast Jones after seeing him in a production of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", in which George C. Scott also appeared.
According to Christiane Kubrick in her 2002 book "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures," her husband Stanley Kubrick often played chess with George C. Scott on the set between setups. Kubrick, renowned as a master-level chess player who used to hustle other players in his youth in New York City, outclassed Scott as a player and easily beat him, which had the effect of winning Scott's admiration for the director and keeping the famously volatile actor (who was only a few months younger than Kubrick) focused during the down-time.
As research, Stanley Kubrick read nearly 50 books about nuclear war.
As seen in the code book ("today's codes", on top of the page just after the crew member finds the right codes), the action takes place on Friday, 13 September 1963.
Based on the novel "Red Alert" by Peter George, and originally conceived as a tense thriller about the possibility of accidental nuclear war. Stanley Kubrick was working on the script when he realized that many scenes he had written were actually quite funny. He then brought in Terry Southern to turn the story into a satire. Among the changes were the addition of the title character and the renaming of other characters using satirical names such as Turgidson, Kissoff, Guano, DeSadesky, and Merkin Muffley.