Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” (1964): The Pie Fight

For “Dr. Strangelove,” Stanley Kubrick envisioned a spectacular finale with a gigantic pie fight between the Russians and the Americans in the War Room. It was shot over five days. The press release claimed that three thousand pies were turned into missiles and that the costs for the cleaning amounted to $500 per day. After test screenings, however, Kubrick ct out the scene because its satirical nature threatened to turn the film into a mere farce. The shooting was documented by the Austrian-born photographer Arthur Fellig, also known as Weegee. On the set Peter Sellers was intrigued by Weegee’s accent and used it as the basis for Dr. Strangelove’s speech inflections.