Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Written by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, & Peter George

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

1998 List Ranking: 26

2007 List Ranking: 39

I’m gonna cut right to the chase: this film is weird. I suppose I knew that going in, just based off the title. I’ve known about this film for quite a while, but I didn’t really know anything ABOUT it before I watched it (there is a part of me that considers this film to be complimentary in tone or theme to Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, which is coming soon on this list, so please don’t tell me if I’m wrong). I suppose, in hindsight, I’m not sure that I expected anything different than what I got here, but that doesn’t make it any less strange.

The war room, a great aspect of set design

Dr. Strangelove concerns MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, and a scenario that continually spirals out of control in a way that effectively exploits (and allegedly ridicules) the Cold War paranoia of the time. Jack D. Ripper is a commander with strategic air command who becomes convinced that the Soviets, through the use of fluoridation, have found a way to contaminate the…ahem, “precious bodily fluids” of men and therefore commands the various allied air craft patrolling the Soviet Union to launch nuclear attacks. To do so, the aircraft must switch their communication devices to a certain frequency, the special code to which only Ripper knows. As Ripper’s executive officer Mandrake realizes that Ripper has gone insane, U.S. President Muffley learns of the attack and, thanks to his general Turgidson, understands the helplessness of the situation, thanks in part to the revelation by his scientific advisor Dr. Strangelove and the Soviet ambassador of a doomsday machine buried within the ground, a device that, if triggered, will assure the complete destruction of the Earth’s surface.

But it’s a comedy!

(Allegedly)

Peter Sellers in his three roles: President Muffley, Dr. Strangelove, and Mandrake

The star of the film is Peter Sellers, who plays three roles in the film: Ripper’s executive officer Mandrake, President Muffley, and the titular Dr. Strangelove. I know of Sellers from his starring as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films (although I’ve never seen any of them). I’m not entirely sure just WHY he has to play multiple roles here, but I suppose that if Mike Meyers can do it and no one bats an eye, I guess he can as well. His three characters are distinct enough that the knowledge of his playing all of them doesn’t really intrude (it helps that Mandrake doesn’t share any scenes with his other two personas), although one can see the choice in edits to make Strangelove and Muffley be able to share scenes together. Strangelove is the most exhausting of the three, with strange behaviors that apparently are a result of being a former member of the Nazi party, but it’s never really explained: his black-gloved hand, which seems to have a mind of its own, becomes distracting as the film reaches its climax, where I just want Strangelove to GET ON WITH IT as he explains the world’s next steps but instead keeps getting interrupted by that stupid hand.

George C. Scott as General Turgidson

The other performances in the film are not exactly memorable, although it is interesting to see George C. Scott, not really known for comedy, displaying a somewhat more humorous side to him (although, from what I’ve read, Scott wasn’t aware that these takes would be in the final cut, and it actually led to an animosity between him and director Kubrick). There’s a young James Earl Jones who doesn’t get much to do, but overall, it’s Sellers who gets the focus.

“Peace is our Profession”

As I’ve mentioned in other reviews, I obviously wasn’t alive during the Cold War, so I admit a certain naiveté to the intricacies of the era, but suffice it to say that I generally understand that, essentially, everyone seemed to be certain that they’re going to be subject to a nuclear attack at any moment. This film takes these fears to their complete extreme and (apparently) parodies them to point out the absurdities of the situation. I say “allegedly” and “apparently” because, as a black comedy, it just…wasn’t funny. I have found my comedic tastes difficult to identify (things either are funny or they aren’t), but this film doesn’t do anything. Not that I didn’t smile at some of the juxtapositions that Kubrick highlights (my favorite probably being a large gun fight being held in front of a billboard which reads “Peace is our Profession”), but very little of the film felt very funny, which I mostly attribute to timeliness and just my own personal taste.

There was another moment that initially made me smile, but then as I reflected on the film, actually became indicative of a larger theme within the movie, one that feels fairly resonant today. I call that theme “the blindness of man”, in which opinions are formulated and decisions are made based on either incomplete or unverified information, or even worse, the complete ignorance of facts. Obviously we’ve seen this many times over in the last few years, so this feels uncomfortably timely. For example, the Soviets build their doomsday machine simply because a source for The New York Times falsely says that the United States is building one. Rather than fully investigate, the Soviets take the source at face value and ultimately DO build one, which sets the stage for the destruction of the world. There is also the pilot of the B-52 (played by Slim Pickens) who is hell-bent on carrying out his mission to drop the bomb despite a never-ending series of signs that tell him not to. Both examples illustrate the danger of rash and irrational thinking, and the damage that can occur because of it.

Perhaps because my history classes again have failed me by not touching at ALL on the Cold War, I just don’t GET this movie or why it is considered so influential. Comedy is hard to keep relevant, especially when it is dealing with such a timely and topical subject. Dr. Strangelove was probably both funny and scary for its contemporary audiences, but for me it just didn’t land all that well.

FINAL GRADE: C+