Dr. Strangelove
- Jun 7
- 2 min read
It’s a one-of-a-kind dark, comic satire.
Of the ten or so classic movies that Stanley Kubrick directed and co-wrote in his brilliant career, Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a favorite. Made in 1964, it’s a one-of-a-kind dark, comic satire about an American brigadier general named Jack D. Ripper who goes bonkers and orders a B-52 plane under his command to drop a nuclear bomb on the Soviet Union. Ripper is played with crazed, rugged gusto by actor Sterling Hayden, in one of his finest roles. Chewing on a cigar the size of a nunchuck, Ripper ordered the attack, he says, because “the commies” are plotting to “taint” America’s water supply, which will deplete our “precious bodily fluids.”
Made during the Cold War, at a time when the Soviets and the U.S. were threatening each other with nuclear annihilation, the fear of The Bomb bring dropped was palpable. I remember being trained in grade school how to hide under my desk if the bomb dropped while we were in class.
The fact that Dr. Strangelove portrays this very real and deadly scenario not as a dramatic thriller but as a farce laced with savage comic glee—and does so with high-wire perfection—is what makes it such an incomparable, entertaining work of art.
Working from a screenplay by Kubrick and Terry Southern, Dr. Strangelove strikes comedic gold at every turn as the President of the United States and his advisors feverishly argue how to stop the B-52 from delivering its payload.
The great British actor Peter Sellers portrays three different characters in the film, including the President and Dr. Strangelove himself, a German scientist and former Nazi who now works for the U.S. government. Confined to a wheelchair, speaking in a thick German accent, and unable to stop one of his hands from suddenly shooting up into the air in a fierce Nazi salute, Sellers’ performance as Strangelove is a thing of wild genius.
And then there’s the terrific, outlandish performance of George C. Scott as Pentagon Chief General Buck Turgidson. Scott blusters and erupts with enough facial tics to fill a Loony Tunes cartoon, especially in the scene where he argues in favor of getting into a nuclear slugfest with Russia; where he estimates that only twenty million people are likely to get killed. Turgidson’s jolly menace would be frightening if it wasn’t so funny.
And finally, famed character actor Slim Pickens—wearing his trademark cowboy hat—memorably plays Major “King” Kong, the pilot of the B-52. The scene at the end of the film with Pickens and the bomb that may or may not bring about the end of the world is one of the most iconic moments in all of movie history.
Dr. Strangelove is utterly original, a wickedly hilarious, four-star masterpiece.
