Dr. Strangelove 4K UHD - Peter Sellers

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka "Dr. Strangelove")

U.K. 1964

Stanley Kubrick’s 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.

Excerpt from Box Office Magazine's review located Here

Posters

Theatrical Release: January 29th, 1964

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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 bytes Feature: 44,806,766,592 bytes Video Bitrate: 50.89 Mbps Codec: 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) DTS-HD Master Audio English 1557 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1557 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit) DUBs: Dolby Digital Audio Czech 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -31dB Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -31dB Dolby Digital Audio German 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -31dB Dolby Digital Audio Italian 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -31dB Dolby Digital Audio Japanese 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -31dB Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 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 bytes Feature: 44,806,766,592 bytes Video Bitrate: 50.89 Mbps Codec: 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) • Peter Sellers interview by Gene Shalit (10:37) • The Today Show - George Scott (6:01) • Stanley Kubrick Considers the Bomb - Eric Schlosser (5:39) • Theatrical Trailer (3:24) • Excerpts from a 1966 audio interview with Kubrick, conducted by physicist and author Jeremy Bernstein (2:50) Sony - Region FREE - Blu-ray • The Cold War - picture-in-picture and Pop-up Trivia Track • No Fighting in the War Room or: Dr. Strangelove and the Nuclear Threat (30:04) • Interview with Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense under President Johnson (24:26) • Inside Dr. Strangelove OR: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (46:04) • Best Sellers Or: Peter Sellers and Dr. Strangelove (18:22) • Original Split-Screen Interview with Peter Sellers and George C. Scott (7:17) • The Art of Stanley Kubrick: From Short Films to Strangelove (13:50) • BD-LIVE 4K Ultra HD Release Date: July 6th, 2021 Black 4K Ultra HD Case Chapters 16

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray and 4K UHD captures were taken directly from the respective discs.

ADDITION: Sony 4K UHD (July 2021): Sony's are releasing Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" to 4K UHD individually after it was already available in Sony's Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection 4K UHD with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington / Lawrence of Arabia / Gandhi / A League of Their Own / Jerry Maguire and, this, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The higher resolution (3840 X 2160) benefits the image quality showing more film grain and notable upgrades in contrast (looking slightly brighter) and an up-tick in detail. It's really no comparison on a large system as I did a side by side with the Criterion Blu-ray (compared with DVDs etc. HERE). Via my 65" OLED the 4K UHD looked significantly more film like - the rich textures are magnificent. Brilliant contrast layering - I felt like it was a theatrical viewing.

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: 49 more more full resolution (3840 X 2160) 4K UHD captures, in lossless PNG format, for Patrons are available HERE

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.

There are plentiful extras on the 4K UHD disc - some new. In total, including the second disc Blu-ray, there seems to be most of the previously released extras included - 2009 Sony and 2016 Criterion Blu-rays.

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.

Sony's 4K UHD release of Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" has a demonstrative upgrade in video - especially for those who appreciate film grain. It's stacked with extras and for lovers of the director's work, this seems a no-brainer purchase if you didn't nab the Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection 4K UHD package. Dr. Strangelove is a film you watch repeatedly and it this 3840 X 2160 transfer has a special place in my digital library despite the audio stasis. It, of course, has our highest recommendation and its rightful place in our Feature disc of the Month.