Dr. Strangelove (1963)
 The
hypothetical prospect of total nuclear annihilation provided the
satiric content of Stanley Kubrick's jet-black comedy.
The question asked by the movie (based on a Peter George novel
called Red Alert) was what would happen if an insane
Communist-hating US Army General, fearful that the Reds are
fluoridating our drinking water in order to pollute our bodily
fluids) initiated a B-52 attack on the Soviet Union?
And what would happen if the General committed suicide before
deciphering the code that could recall the bombers?
Furthermore, what would happen if the Russians themselves had
their own doomsday device - a weapon with the power to eliminate
the entire planet?
In an attempt to arrive at the inevitable answers, Kubrick
created a frighteningly comic gallery of grotesque incompetents
whose titanic ineptitude tickled the funny bone while, at the same
time, tingling the spine and raising the hair on the back of your
neck.
 A
monumental sick joke whose tone was best illustrated by having
Vera Lynn sing We'll Meet Again as the bomb finally drops
on Russia, it was (and remains) the most chilling anti-nuclear
statement ever made.
In his portrayal of the bald President Muffley of the USA, his
technical expert Dr Strangelove, and the sensible British Officer,
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, Peter Sellers contributed three
more brilliant characterisations to his collection.
"I'm sorry too Dimitri . . . I'm very sorry . . . Alright,
you're sorrier than I am, but I am sorry as well . . . I am as
sorry as you are, Dimitri! Don't say that you're more sorry than I
am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are . . . so
we're both sorry, alright?! . . . Alright."
Sellers was originally cast in four roles but had trouble with
the Texas accent for Major 'King' Kong, the redneck pilot, and
told Stanley Kubrick that he would be unable to play the part.
After Sellers broke his leg while getting out of his car, Kubrick
had no choice but to find a replacement for him in the role.
 Remembering
him from the 1961 Western One Eyed Jacks, Kubrick cast
former rodeo rider Slim Pickens as Kong.
Pickens was never told the movie was a black comedy - he was
acting as if he was in a serious drama - and provided the film
with its most memorable image when in the climactic final moments,
he hurtles to his destruction straddling the atomic bomb.
George C Scott was scarifying as Air Force General Buck
Turgidson, while Sterling Hayden (as the lunatic Jack D. Ripper
whose obsession brings the world to an end) found just the right
balance between caricature and credibility.
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