Review: Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Rating

Director

Stanley Kubrick

Screenplay

Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, Peter George (Book: Peter George)

Length

1h 35m

Starring

Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Peter Bull, James Earl Jones, Tracy Reed, Jack Creley, Frank Berry, Robert O’Neil, Glen Beck

MPAA Rating

Review

While war is no laughing matter, try telling that to the makers of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb who roughly halfway into the armed stalemate of the Cold War found something utterly ludicrous in the concept of mutually assured destruction.

As the dust settled from World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became engaged in a game of brinksmanship, setting the world on edge for more than forty years. The Cold War was filled with nuclear disarmament talks, stalemates over Cuba, and various conflicts that always seemed on the verge of threatening both nations’ ways of life. The absurdity of the situation is easy to reflect upon with the perfect vision of hindsight but for those who lived through it, the fear of perpetual annihilation became engrained in our culture. While the outlook in 1964 looked grim, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick directed and co-wrote the adaptation of Peter George’s novel Red Alert into one of the most incisive and hilarious war comedies ever filmed.

U.S. Air Force General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) goes completely and utterly mad, and sends his bomber wing to destroy the Soviet Union with a nuclear warhead. He suspects that the communists are conspiring to pollute the “precious bodily fluids” of the American people. The U.S. President (Peter Sellers) meets with his advisors, where the Soviet ambassador (Peter Bull) tells him that if the Soviet Union is hit by nuclear weapons, it will trigger a “Doomsday Device” which will destroy all plant and animal life on Earth. In addition to President Merkin Muffley, Sellers portrays the two other men who might be able to avert this tragedy: British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the only person with access to the demented Gen. Ripper, and the former Nazi scientist and nuclear weapons expert Dr. Strangelove, who concludes that “such a device would not be a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious.”

Along for the ride are noted actors George C. Scott as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Keenan Wynn as the colonel who locates Ripper and Mandrake in their makeshift bunker. Some of the action also takes place aboard the bomber where Slim Pickens, James Earl Jones in his film debut, and Shane Rimmer play the Army pilots who will drop the fateful bomb.

Kubrick was just beginning his post-studio career, with this film following his controversial first partnership with Sellers, Lolita. He had already shown his ability to redefine genres, including film noir, sword-and-sandal epics, and war dramas but this was a departure for the filmmaker, a political satire tackling a difficult and fraught subject matter and turning it into one of the greatest films in the genre. It also set him on the path to immortality with his string of sensational follow-ups 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971).

Lambasting the political paranoia and brinksmanship going on between the Soviet Union and the United States, Kubrick and his fellow screenwriters Terry Southern and novel author George crafted a bizarre but plausible fable about what might happen if dunces and conspiracy theorists came into control of the military or the government. It becomes even more insightful when viewed through a historical lens, not just in tandem to the Cold War but in comparison to modern political divisiveness and fascistic tendencies.

Were it not for Sellers’ brilliant trio of performances, Dr. Strangelove wouldn’t be the success it is. Not only are Muffley, Mandrake, and Strangelove compelling and nihilistically plausible personalities, they are presented with the utmost conviction and the audience can’t help but be drawn in to their ineptitude. Kubrick mainstay Hayden, Scott, and Pickens are all terrific as well, selling their outlandish personas with skillful ease.

Dr. Strangelove is a masterclass feature that all future filmmakers should familiarize themselves with before tackling anything remotely political or humorous. Nothing is taken for granted in the film and every laugh and absurdity is earned. Even to modern audiences, the lunacy is infectious and should be seen by as many as possible.