You're listening to the West Wing Weekly Political Film Fest. I'm Rishi Keshiroway.

And I'm Joshua Molina.

A few days after we recorded this episode,

James Earl Jones passed away.

It goes without saying that he was a legend

with a long, long list of iconic roles.

We talk about him in our conversation but we just wanted to add this note to Mark

his passing and pay our respects. Today we're talking about the film Dr Strange Love or how I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

It was written by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, and Peter George.

It was directed of course by Stanley Kubrick and it was released on January 29th 1964 almost two years to the day

give her to take a couple weeks before I was born.

Josh did you know that that release date actually got moved it was supposed to come out earlier

and what happened John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Oh it was supposed to come out in

November it was supposed to come out I think think maybe in December, but the very first public screening

of it was going to be a preview screening on November 22nd, 1963.

Oh, wow.

The movie is based on a book called Red Alert by Peter George, the third credited

screenwriter and Kubrick initially planned to make a pretty straight ahead movie out of the straight ahead serious book on which this is based.

But he kept finding that when he tried to carve out the absurdities of the situation from the book,

he had nothing left.

And there was no way to tell the story without the dark comedy of the reality in the premise.

And I think what's so incredible is that even though it is so funny, all the comedy in the movie

...