Top 10 Physically Disabled Film Characters
8. Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Dr. Strangelove, one of the three characters in the film played by Peter Sellers, is a wheelchair-bound former Nazi scientist now working for the US government as the president's scientific advisor. There are varying accounts regarding who the performance was based on with Henry Kissinger, German Rocket scientist Werner Von Braun and mathematician and Manhattan project principle John Von Neumann being notable suggestions.
Although the character, Dr. Strangelove (formerly Dr. Merkwurdigliebe (Strangelove in German)), isn't given a whole lot of screen time he is given one of the funniest scene in cinematic history as he awkwardly fights his own arm which appears to be staunchly pro-Nazi. The scene in which Strangelove battles his own arm was mostly improvised and had to be cut and put together due to the cast and crew, including famously straight-faced Stanley Kubrick, cracking up laughing due to Sellers' performance. The glove worn for the performance belonged to Kubrick who used them to handle hot lights on-set, Sellers thought the gloves looked sinister so borrowed one for the scene. The condition that caused Strangeloves arm to fight with him is called alien hand syndrome and can be a result of a disconnection between the hemispheres of the brain. Alien Hand syndrome is now often known by the nickname 'Dr. Strangelove Syndrome'.
There's no message about disability here it's just an incredibly funny scene that doesn't even really have anything to do with the wheelchair.