10 Genius Edits That Totally Saved Movies
6. An Accidental Reference To JFK's Assassination Was Eliminated By Dubbing - Dr. Strangelove
Though Stanley Kubrick was never a filmmaker to shy away from controversy, he did nevertheless make one smart concession by avoiding an unfortunate coincidence which would've undeniably cast a dark shadow over his delicious political satire Dr. Strangelove.
The film's creation is inextricably intertwined with the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, with its first test screening being held the very same day that Kennedy was killed.
Kennedy's death caused the film, with its heavy political themes, to be delayed by two months, during which Kubrick made the small-but-vital editing decision to re-dub a single line of dialogue.
During the movie, Major Kong (Slim Pickens) was originally meant to say "a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff," but given that Dallas was at the time unavoidably associated with Kennedy's death - it being the city where he was killed - Kubrick had Pickens re-dub Dallas as "Vegas."
It's certainly not the tidiest piece of ADR you're ever going to see, but considering it avoided a potential news fiasco for the movie and went unnoticed by surely 98% of viewers, it all worked out for the best.