Dr. Strangelove

and Security

Where is Major Kong

The Pablo Ferro trailer for Kubrick's masterpiece:

"After seeing Ferro's commercials, Kubrick hired him to direct the advertising trailers and teasers for Dr. Strangelove and convinced him to resettle in London (Kubrick's base of operations until he died there in March 1999). Ferro was inclined to be peripatetic anyway, and ever anxious to bypass already completed challenges he agreed to pull up stakes on the chance that he would get to direct a few British TV commercials, which he did.

The black and white spot that Ferro designed for Dr. Strangelove employed his quick-cut technique - using as many as 125 separate images in a minute - to convey both the dark humor and the political immediacy of the film. At something akin to stroboscopic speed words and images flew across the screen to the accompaniment of loud sound effects and snippets of ironic dialog.

At a time when the bomb loomed so large in the US public's fears (remember Barry Goldwater ran for President promising to nuke China), and the polarization of left and right - east and west - was at its zenith, Ferro's commercial was not only the boldest and most hypnotic graphic on TV, it was a sly subversive statement.

Dr. Strangelove was key to Ferro's eventual shift from TV to film. And working with Kubrick was the best possible introduction to the movie industry since this relationship bypassed the stultifying Hollywood bureaucracy. Ferro was free to generate ideas and Kubrick was self-confident enough to accept (and sometimes refine) them."