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Photos: When Weegee Visited The Set Of <i>Dr. Strangelove</i>
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jul 30, 2012
Modified Jul 30, 2012
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jul 30, 2012
Modified Jul 30, 2012
Share
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Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb is one of those movies that you fire up with your significant other and sputter "YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THIS?!?!" (This screening also kicks off the four week period where you say, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!" six times daily.) But were you aware that New York City's most famous crime scene photographer Weegee was a "technical consultant" for the film, and may have helped inspire Peter Sellers' accent for Dr. Strangelove? After spending time photographing New York with Weegee, director Stanley Kubrick admired his garish, gritty style invited him on the set to take a few photos.
According to author Ed Sikov, Sellers recorded Weegee's thick, New Yawk/Hungarian hybrid accent for "research purposes":
As though a satire about bombing all of humanity to death wasn’t gruesome enough, Kubrick brought in as technical consultant the photographer Weegee, who was known for having taken stark, emotionally charged photographs of an estimated five thousand murder scenes over the course of his grim career.… Officially, Weegee’s technical consultantions involved Dr. Strangelove’s periodically harsh, crime-scene—like black-and-white cinematography, but because he had an unusual accent—German overlaid with NewYork, all with a nasal, slightly strangled, back-of-the-throat quality—he inadvertently provided technical assistance for the film’s star as well.
“‘I vas psychic!’ Weegee told Peter on the set one day—a conversation Peter was taping for research purposes. ‘I vould go to a moidah before it vas committed!’ Peter’s vocal model for Strangelove was Weegee, whom Sellers pushed further into parody.
You can still see the International Center of Photography's Weegee exhibit through September 2.
[via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats / Art Info]
Tagged
classic films
peter sellers
stanley kubrick
weegee
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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