Movie-A-Day #171: Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

On this date in 1963, in the wake of the Cuban missle crisis, the first direct line between the White House and the Kremlin – the so-called “hot line” or “red phone” – was installed. The goal was provide a line of direct communication between the United States and the Soviet Union, thereby preventing the sort of nightmare scenario depicted in “Dr. Strangelove.” Its use in that film, as well as in “Fail-Safe” later the same year, has made it a permanent part of the Cold War iconography.