The origins of Dr Strangelove's accent

Weegee's most striking photographs were made on the War Room set, where much of the drama of Dr Strangelove takes place. Visionary production designer Ken Adam's expressionist, windowless interior was all dark gloss surfaces and angled walls, with a huge circular table illuminated from above, like a poker room. Since there were no public images of the U.S. government's real Pentagon War Room, Ken Adam was free to imagine it (just as he imagined the unseen interior of Fort Knox for the James Bond movie Goldfinger, also released in 1964). Preeminently a photographer of the night, Weegee was perfectly at home in the darkened space. He could use his flash or the production's bright lights to pick out his subjects, just as he had done in the treacly midnights of 1930s and '40s New York. His portrait of Peter Bull, playing Russian ambassador Alexi de Sadesky, looks as if it could have been taken in the crowd at a Manhattan theater premiere.

The British actor Peter Sellers was tasked with playing three key roles in the film: U.S. President Merkin Muffley, Captain Lionel Mandrake of the British Royal Air Force, and the eerie Dr. Strangelove - a former Nazi who is now the President's chief scientific advisor. Sellers was also a keen amateur filmmaker, shooting many home movies as well as photographs. He and Weegee struck up an endearing friendship on set. Sellers had an extraordinary ability to absorb and mimic accents, and became fascinated with Weegee's way of talking, which was a gruff but sweet cocktail of eastern European consonants and streetwise New York vowels. Sellers needed very distinct accents for each of his parts. His impression of Weegee became the basis of his voice for Dr. Strangelove. On a TV talkshow shortly after filming, Sellers recalled:

"I was stuck, you see, because I didn't want to do sort of a normal English broken German accent thing, so on the set was a little photographer from New York, a very cute little fellow called Weegee. You must have heard of him. And he had a little voice.... And I got an idea... I put a German accent on top of that, and I suddenly got... him into Dr. Strangelove. So really, it's Weegee. I don't know if he knows it."

- David Campany, 'Weegee & Kubrick', in Clement Cheroux (ed.), Weegee: Society of the Spectacle, London, 2025, p.193.

See also:
Photography: Dennis Hopper: photographer, 15 September 2025

Photography: Sherman meets Blanchett, 8 May 2022

Photography: Who Shot Rock 'n Roll, 1 January 2013

Respect at this point is pretty much out of the question

Thursday music corner: Singer songwriter Randy Newman was born in Los Angeles in 1943. Three of his uncles were Hollywood film composers, and one (Alfred Newman) received 45 Oscar nominations and won nine times. 

In his lengthy and much-garlanded career Newman has released 11 studio albums, three 'songbook' albums of re-recordings of his own songs, a 1995 musical version of Faust, and 28 soundtrack albums. He has won the Academy Award for Best Original Song twice - in 2001 for If I Didn't Have You (from Monsters, Inc.) and in 2010 for We Belong Together (from Toy Story 3), plus seven Grammy Awards. His biggest hit was the ironic novelty number Short People, which reached number 2 in the US charts in 1977.

A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, which displays Newman's traditional sardonic humour, was released as a single in 2007 and appeared on Newman's Mitchell Froom and Lenny Waronker-produced 2008 album Harps & Angels. The song was named the sixth best song of the 2000s decade by music critic Robert Christgau.

Randy Newman - A Few Words in Defense of Our Country (2007)

See also:

Music: Randy Newman - Political Science (live, 1972)

Music: Randy Newman & Paul Simon - The Blues (1982)

Music: Randy Newman - You've Got a Friend In Me (2010)

As you screen out the light that colours your skin

Thursday music corner: Our Daughter's Wedding were a New York-based synthpop trio founded in 1979, showing influences of Gary Numan's Tubeway Army. The band released an EP and an album in 1981-82. Their first single, Lawnchairs, was released on Design Records in 1980, and reached number 31 on the Billboard Disco Chart and number 49 on the UK Singles Chart in August 1981. The band toured with a range of other artists including U2, Duran Duran and OMD, and appeared on various UK TV programmes. Following a year-long US tour supporting the Psychedelic Furs, Our Daughter's Wedding split up in 1984.

Our Daughter's Wedding - Lawnchairs (1980)

See also:

Music: Our Daughter's Wedding - Nightlife (1980)

Music: Our Daughter's Wedding - Target For Life (1981)

Music: Psychedelic Furs - Sister Europe (1980)

Fern inspector

 

'Cos I'm ringing out, I'm ringing for you

Thursday music corner: New Zealand music stalwart Sir Dave Dobbyn was born in Auckland in 1957. He is famed for both his band career - with Th' Dudes from 1975 to 1980 and DD Smash from 1980 to 1986 - and as a solo artist since 1986. With Th' Dudes he had three New Zealand top 40 singles, plus the classic Walking In Light. With DD Smash he scored a New Zealand chart-topping album, 1982's Cool Bananas, the platinum-certified The Optimist from 1984, and three New Zealand top 10 singles: Outlook for Thursday, Whaling and Magic (What She Do). All nine of his solo albums have reached the New Zealand top 20, with 1998's The Islander hitting number one and 2005's Available Light being certified double platinum. He has achieved three New Zealand chart-topping singles, and his first, Slice of Heaven, also topped the charts in Australia driven by the success of the Footrot Flats animated movie soundtrack. He was knighted in 2021.

Lament for the Numb (1993) was Dobbyn's third solo album, and was credited to Dave Dobbyn and the Stone People. The band consisted of Crowded House producer (and, much later, band-member) Mitchell Froom, plus two members of Elvis Costello's band, and the album was recorded and mixed in Hollywood by Tchad Blake, also a frequent Crowded House collaborator. In 2009 he discussed the album with Simon Sweetman:

I went to Hollywood to record the Lament for the Numb album; I was on a label that had connected me with Elvis Costello's great rhythm section [Pete Thomas and Bruce Thomas] so I couldn't help but want to pay tribute to him; and I was offering nods to Randy Newman and all of these heroes. I delivered an album that I thought was edgy. The record label called it 'un-releasable' and they shelved it. It sat for a year before being released."

The sparse romanticism of Belltower was a Lament for the Numb album track. Dobbyn performed it solo last year for RNZ Music.

Dave Dobbyn - Belltower (live, 2025; orig. 1993)

See also:

Music: Dave Dobbyn - Lipstick Power (1981)

Music: Dave Dobbyn - Whaling (live at the Gluepot, 1994)

Music: Dave Dobbyn - Beside You (1999)

Pigeon conclave in Courtenay Place