Grade: A+
Synopsis: After a delusional American general (Sterling Hayden) initiates a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, the President (Peter Sellers) tries to avert disaster while his advisors (George C. Scott and Peter Sellers) try to exploit it.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is, perhaps, the greatest black comedy ever made. The collaboration between two fiercely creative minds in writer/director Stanley Kubrick and star Peter Sellers elevates a fairly routine premise to an insightful, multi-layered satire that, despite its Cold War sensibilities, feels just as fresh and relevant today as it did nearly fifty years ago.
Sellers is a tour-de-force, playing three distinct roles that jockey for position as the film’s funniest. The supporting cast is great too. Reportedly, Sellers was set to play the part of Major Kong, but couldn’t get the accent right, so Kubrick brought in Slim Pickens for the part, never letting on that the film was a comedy. The resulting earnest, straight performance is dead perfect and produced one of the film’s most iconic images. Equally well-cast are George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden, both of whom play their roles on the fine line between satire and over-the-top parody.
And that’s a quality that runs through the whole film. It walks the perfect line throughout its 93 minutes, never wavering, never going too far one way or another. The humor’s there, but it’s never overt. The film starts relatively dry and gets more and more absurd as it goes on. Along the way, there aren’t any easy laughs or pratfalls; it’s all much more insidious, and as such, holds up to viewing after viewing. Which is why Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the classic, must-see film that it is.
