Movie Review –Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
A nightmare scenario, a rouge general wanting to start an all-out nuclear conflict. Dr, Strangelove is a black humoured comedy. Brigadier-General Jack D. Ripper, orders B-52 bombers, loaded with Hydrogen bombs to attack the Soviet Union. Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, a British RAF exchange officer finds out this was not ordered by the Pentagon. Only Ripper knows the three-letter code to stop the attacks.
In the war room at the Pentagon, apparently a realistic adaptation of what would be live in an event of a world-wide crisis, United States President Merkin Muffley, discusses what to do with his military staff in a giant round table what to do to stop the planes. The president never authorised it, but no one knows the codes to stop the B-52’s from dropping the bombs which would start a nuclear war. President Muffley thought it was necessary to have Soviet Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski in the war room during this emergency as well. One of the advisers, wheelchair bound Dr. Strangelove, a former Nazi scientist warns that Russia as an automatic doomsday bomb, that when activated will destroy all live on Earth. Can disaster be averted? Could Mandrake convince Ripper to give up the codes? Time is something Mandrake, the president and his war room doesn’t have.
I don’t want to give anything more away. I really need to watch this movie again. Especially for the comedy and the satire aspect of the film. Apparently, this is a realistic way such an emergency would have been conducted in an event of a major conflict, such as a nuclear war. Peter Sellers was noted for playing three of the characters, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the US president and Dr. Strangelove, whom I had the impression that maybe, he may be just a little bit insane. Peter Sellers was at his best. Dr. Strangelove really is actually a gripping and intense on the edge of your seat movie. It must have been one of the last black and white movies to be nominated for Best Picture in the Oscars. But nothing was going to best the musical My Fair Lady where Audrey Hepburn acted well as usual, but she didn’t sing. She was meant to for a couple of songs…. that is another story, for another review for another day. Maybe the best way to stop fearing death and the of the end of the world, like a nuclear war, is to make a comedy. Plus, we should also put our trust in God himself.
Directed: Standley Kubrick
Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens & Tracy Reed
Genre: Black Comedy
Rating: 12+
Year: 1964
Note: This book review is from Carl Strehlow, a valued member of Coffin Nation.
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