Firstly, a massive thank you to our Patreon supporters. Your generosity touches me deeply. These supporters have become the single biggest contributing factor to the survival of DVDBeaver. Your assistance has become essential.
What do Patrons receive, that you don't?
1)
Our
weekly
Newsletter
sent to your Inbox every
Monday morning!
Please consider keeping us in existence with a couple of dollars or more each month (your pocket change!) so we can continue to do our best in giving you timely, thorough reviews, calendar updates and detailed comparisons. Thank you very much. |
Search DVDBeaver |
S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r |
(aka "Dr. Strangelove")
Stanley Kubricks painfully funny take on Cold War anxiety is one of the fiercest satires of human folly ever to come out of Hollywood. The matchless shape-shifter Peter Sellers plays three wildly different roles: Royal Air Force Captain Lionel Mandrake, timidly trying to stop a nuclear attack on the USSR ordered by an unbalanced general (Sterling Hayden); the ineffectual and perpetually dumbfounded U.S. President Merkin Muffley, who must deliver the very bad news to the Soviet premier; and the titular Strangelove himself, a wheelchair-bound presidential adviser with a Nazi past. Finding improbable hilarity in nearly every unimaginable scenario, Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a subversive masterpiece that officially announced Kubrick as an unparalleled stylist and pitch-black ironist. *** The destruction of mankind by the H-Bomb and a so-called "Doomsday Machine" scarcely seems a likely subject for comedy yet producer-director Stanley Kubrick has fashioned a fantastically satirical picture with many chuckles and a goodly amount of suspense from his zany picturization of Peter George's book, "Red Alert." Once again, Peter Sellers demonstrates his versatility and fine comedy sense with three widely varied portrayals, a mild-mannered British liaison officer, the calm, serious President of the U.S. and the heavily accented crippled German scientist, who gives the film its title (certainly the longest ever). Sellers' name, plus the title and rave magazine reviews, will attract the mature class patrons, especially in the key cities, but the picture's weird theme and the sex angle, briefly introduced by the bikini-clad Tracy Reed as an Air Force general's amorous secretary, must be heavily exploited. It may be too off-beat and filled with technical and nuclear terms for many average moviegoers. George C. Scott, as a grimacing Pentagon general, and Sterling Hayden, as the grimly realistic Gen. Jack D. Ripper, contribute fine portrayals. |
Posters
Theatrical Release: January 29th, 1964
Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews
Review: Sony - Region FREE - 4K UHD
Box Cover |
|
CLICK to order from: Bonus Captures: |
Distribution | Sony - Region FREE - 4K UHD | |
Runtime | 1:34:45.679 | |
Video |
1.66:1 2160P 4K Ultra HD Disc Size: 62,991,116,608 bytesFeature: 44,806,766,592 bytesVideo Bitrate: 50.89 MbpsCodec: HEVC Video |
|
NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
||
Bitrate 4K UHD: |
|
|
Audio |
DTS-HD Master
Audio English 2106 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 2106 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 /
48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit) Dolby Digital
Audio Czech 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -31dB |
|
Subtitles | English, English (SDH), Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, None | |
Features |
Release Information: Studio: Sony
1.66:1 2160P 4K Ultra HD Disc Size: 62,991,116,608 bytesFeature: 44,806,766,592 bytesVideo Bitrate: 50.89 MbpsCodec: HEVC Video
Edition Details: 4K Ultra HD disc
Interviews with Stanley Kubrick scholars Mick Broderick
(19:14) and Rodney Hill (17:25); archivist Richard Daniels (14:15);
cinematographer and camera innovator Joe Dunton; camera operator Kelvin
Pike (12:13); and David George, son of Peter George, on whose novel Red
Alert the film is based (10:57)
Sony - Region FREE - Blu-ray
The Cold War - picture-in-picture and Pop-up Trivia Track
Black 4K Ultra HD Case Chapters 16 |
Comments: |
NOTE:
The below
Blu-ray
and
4K UHD
captures were taken directly from the respective
discs.
The included Blu-ray in the 4K UHD package, has video files that date from 2009:
NOTE: We have compared to select captures from the
latest BD comparison,
HERE. This includes the Columbia Tri-Star (Collector's Edition)
DVD, Columbia Tri-Star's first release DVD, the Japanese Superbit DVD, the
2009 Sony Blu-ray and the Criterion
Blu-ray. We thought this helped show
more of the disparity and accentuated the
4K UHD improvement.
It is likely that the monitor
you are seeing this review is not an
HDR-compatible
display (High Dynamic Range) or Dolby Vision, where each pixel can be assigned with a wider
and notably granular range of color and light. Our
capture software if simulating the HDR (in a uniform manner) for standard
monitors. This should make it easier for us to review more
4K UHD titles in the
future and give you a decent idea of its attributes on your system. So our
captures may not support the exact same colors (coolness of
skin tones, brighter or darker hues etc.) as the
4K system at your home. But the
framing, detail, grain texture support etc. are, generally, not effected by
this simulation representation.
NOTE:
We have reviewed the following 4K UHD packages to date: Perdita Durango (software uniformly simulated HDR), Django (software uniformly simulated HDR), Fanny Lye Deliver'd (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, (NO HDR applied to disc), Rollerball (software uniformly simulated HDR), Chernobyl (software uniformly simulated HDR), Daughters of Darkness (software uniformly simulated HDR), Vigilante (software uniformly simulated HDR), Tremors (software uniformly simulated HDR), Cinema Paradiso (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Bourne Legacy (software uniformly simulated HDR), Full Metal Jacket (software uniformly simulated HDR), Psycho (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Birds (software uniformly simulated HDR), Rear Window (software uniformly simulated HDR), Vertigo (software uniformly simulated HDR), Spartacus (software uniformly simulated HDR), Jaws (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Invisible Man, (software uniformly simulated HDR), Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds (software uniformly simulated HDR), Lucio Fulci's 1979 Zombie (software uniformly simulated HDR),, 2004's Van Helsining (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Shallows (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Bridge on the River Kwai (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Deer Hunter (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Elephant Man (software uniformly simulated HDR), A Quiet Place (software uniformly simulated HDR), Easy Rider (software uniformly simulated HDR), Suspiria (software uniformly simulated HDR), Pan's Labyrinth (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Wizard of Oz, (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Shining, (software uniformly simulated HDR), Batman Returns (software uniformly simulated HDR), Don't Look Now (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Man Who Killed Killed and then The Bigfoot (software uniformly simulated HDR),, Bram Stoker's Dracula (software uniformly simulated HDR), Lucy (software uniformly simulated HDR), They Live (software uniformly simulated HDR), Shutter Island (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Matrix (software uniformly simulated HDR), Alien (software uniformly simulated HDR), Toy Story (software uniformly simulated HDR), A Few Good Men (software uniformly simulated HDR), 2001: A Space Odyssey (HDR caps udated), Schindler's List (simulated HDR), The Neon Demon (No HDR), Dawn of the Dead (No HDR), Saving Private Ryan (simulated HDR and 'raw' captures), Suspiria (No HDR), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (No HDR), The Big Lebowski, and I Am Legend (simulated and 'raw' HDR captures).
I couldn't notice any upgrade in the audio from
the past
Blu-rays. The
dual-mono and 5.1 English tracks are included in DTS-HD Master audio - still
only 16-bit ?!?
There is the option for multiple foreign language DUBs and subtitle choices. The 5.1 English track
has a
decent amount of separation - certain scenes are bass-heavy.
The score by Laurie Johnson
(famous for The Avengers TV series theme,
First Men in the Moon, Hammer Studios'
Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter and many more) sounds
supportive. There is other music; Try a Little Tenderness
performed by Studio Orchestra during the opening credits, When Johnny
Comes Marching Home from 1863, in the score often during the flight of
Major 'King' Kong's aircraft and, lastly, Vera Lynn and chorus singing in
the finale "We'll Meet Again". While I don't know if Atmos etc. would
do much for the presentation - it might have been a good choice to add.
This is a Region 'Free'
4K UHD
from Sony, and the included Blu-ray
is Region 'Free' as well. The 4K UHD has the 20-minute interview with Stanley Kubrick scholars Mick Broderick (Reconstructing "Strangelove") discussing Stanley Kubrick's first efforts on Dr. Strangelove as sole producer. There is also another Criterion-produced piece - running over 17-minutes with Rodney Hill (contributor, The Stanley Kubrick Archives) who delves into the archetypes present in Dr. Strangelove. We also get to spend 1/4 hour with Richard Daniels senior-archivist, at the Stanley Kubrick Archive and coeditor of the book Stanley Kubrick : New Perspectives and he discusses the archive and the portrait of the filmmaker that emerges from its Dr. Strangelove collection. Also on the previous Criterion Blu-ray - filmed in 2016 - is a 12-minute interview with cinematographer and camera innovator Joe Dunton and camera operator Kelvin Pike detailing the techniques behind the stunning visuals of Dr. Strangelove. David George, son of Peter George, on whose novel Red Alert the film is based gives an 11-minute piece and he discusses the collaboration with his father Peter and director Stanley Kubrick, as well as his discovery of a short story that introduces the character of Dr. Strangelove. We get a 10-minute video piece with Peter Sellers interviewed by Gene Shalit, 6-minutes of The Today Show about George Scott, Eric Schlosser's piece entitled Stanley Kubrick Considers the Bomb that runs over 5-minutes. Lastly, on the 4K UHD disc is a theatrical trailer and brief excerpts from a 1966 audio interview with Kubrick, conducted by physicist and author Jeremy Bernstein - also found on the 2016 Criterion Blu-ray.
As stated the included
Blu-ray
in the one from 2009. It has the The Cold War - picture-in-picture
and Pop-up Trivia Track (see sample below),
The Art of Stanley Kubrick from 2000 runs 14-minutes and features
biographer John Baxter, critic Alexander Walker, cinematographer Gilbert
Taylor, and others, chronicles Stanley Kubrick's growth from still
photographer to the film auteur responsible for Dr. Strangelove.
Inside Dr. Strangelove is a 46-minute documentary from 2000 about
the making of Dr. Strangelove featuring filmmaker James B.
Harris. actor James Earl Jones, title-designer Pablo Ferro and filmmaker
and writer Nile Southern, among others. No Fighting in the War Room
is a 1/2 hour piece from 2004 featuring former secretary of defense
Robert McNamara and journalist Bob Woodward, among others looking into
the nuclear paranoia that fueled the satire Dr. Strangelove. Best
Sellers from 2004 runs almost 19-minutes shows some rarely seen home
moves and interviews with critic Roger Ebert, actors Shirley MacLaine
and Michael Palin. There is a 25-minute interview
with Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense under President Johnson and a
'Split-Screen Interview' with Peter Sellers and George C. Scott cuts from
the film on the phone. The
Blu-ray
disc has, untested, BD-Live functionality. |
Menus / Extras
Included Sony Pictures Region FREE - Blu-ray in the Region FREE - 4K UHD package
CLICK EACH BLU-RAY and 4K UHD CAPTURE TO SEE IN FULL RESOLUTION
1) Columbia Tri-Star (Collector's Edition) - Region 2 - PAL TOP 2) Sony - Region FREE - 4K UHD BOTTOM |
More full resolution (3840 X 2160) 4K Ultra HD Captures for Patreon Supporters HERE
Box Cover |
|
CLICK to order from: Bonus Captures: |
Distribution | Sony - Region FREE - 4K UHD |
Search DVDBeaver |
S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r |