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

“Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” has actually been on a personal list of mine for quite some time now. Jim’s already seen this and his thoughts are here. Now I admire a bunch of topics covered in this movie: America-Soviet Union Relationships, the Cold War and most importantly political satire comedy. And I am especially glad how much I really liked this film, it is easily top ten. All the details on why I liked it so much after the jump.

This movie has three sides of the story. Firstly, in the midst of the Cold War General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) deploys a full on nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, or Plan R. Secondly, once the president (Peter Sellers) is known about this attack, he is confused how this attack can proceed without his permission. General Buck Turgidson (George Scott), Dr. Strangelove (Again Sellers) and other members of the Join Chief of Staff are in the War Room with the President of the USA and Russian Ambassador as they try to sort this mess out. On the other side, RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Sellers … again), Ripper’s executive officer, is being ambushed with Ripper by his side, trying to get the recall code for the planes sent in the nuclear attack. And lastly, we are on one of the planes sent to attack U.S.S.R. This is where we see the development of the crew as they prepare to drop an atomic bomb.

"A big plane like a '52... varrrooom! Its jet exhaust... frying chickens in the barnyard!"

I found three key parts of the movie that I enjoyed a fair amount. First off, the comedy is smooth but funny. And when I mean smooth is, you don’t necessarily see it coming. And this is where the effectiveness of the comedy lies; you don’t see it coming so when it hits you it hits you hard. I just loved the satire element that mocks the Cold War. Now yes, I wasn’t on the floor laughing, but it’s this certain “Frasier” like comedy that got me.

But the comedy doesn’t end with the dialogue; a lot of it comes from the characters of Turgidson, Dr. Strangelove and of course Mandrake. And yes two of them are play by Sellers who does an amazing job, but more on that later. Turgidson is my favourite character in this whole movie. He is what I consider the typical American General. He is egotistical, hates the ‘Ruskies’ and is over-dramatic. This is best seen during the scene when he tries to explain the “Too far to come back” scenario to the members in the War Room.

But let’s bring it back to Sellers who plays three roles in this movie; President Merkin Muffley, who he plays dead seriously. I did not really care for him, but shows how diverse the characters he can play. Secondly he plays Lionel Mandrake, who is partly going neurotic trying to retrieve the code to stop the attacks from Ripper, who only he knows it. And of course, Dr. Strangelove who is an ex-Nazi physicist that serves as the Presidents scientific advisor. He was my more favourite of the Sellers’ role, mainly due to his quirkiness. I found it especially funny that his original name before he changed it when he got his citizenship was “Merkwiϋrdigliebe”, which translates into “Strangelove” from German. It is just amazing how many different roles Sellers can play, and all well.

Whole shot of the War Room.

I want to bring up the scenes of the War Room. They are probably my favourite, mainly due to Turgidson’s appearance in all of them. Because it starts off with a very serious tone, but when the Russian Ambassador arrives, all hell breaks loose. The comedy is crisp and clean, the mood turns into a mockful tone and the comedy really over flows. Not only that, I found these scenes to be amazingly shot, various angles and the cool ‘big board’, as Turginson says, was amazing to watch.

I can go on and on about this movie, but I can’t really understand why I like this movie so much. There are by far a lot of funnier movies, the pacing is slow at times (which I don’t like) and much doesn’t happen. But still at the end of the day, I wanted to see more of it. I guess the whole package of the movie is just great. It combines the characters, comedy and story all into one neat movie. I would totally recommend this to anyone that likes these satire style movies.

And yes, it does have the famous: "Cowboying the missile as I fall from the heavens on Commie turf" scene.