Roger's Roundup
A few weeks ago, I wrote a list of my Top 10 favorite movies of all time.
Number One on that list was the Stanley Kubrick classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Today I thought I’d look some reasons why this is such a great film. I’ll do my best to keep it free of major spoilers, though there might be a few minor giveaways included, so reader beware.
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First, a brief plot summary. General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) is dallying with his secretary/mistress Miss Scott (Tracy Reed — incidentally, the film’s only female character.
Sorry, Bechdel) when he receives word that there’s a big meeting at the armed forces War Room because a rogue general suddenly ordered all his nuclear bomb-armed bombers to attack the Soviet Union.
From that point, the movie is split between three points of view — the War Room, where President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), top military brass and Russian Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski (Peter Bull) try to make sense of what’s happening and recall the bombers; the bomber base, where dashing R.A.F. Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) tries to calm down Air Force General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) and convince him to call off his cunning plan to destroy the Russkies; and the lone bomber which can’t be recalled due to a malfunction and is on its way to obliterate Moscow.
Unfortunately, the USSR has just installed a Doomsday Device which will automatically launch an all-out strike at America if it detects a nuclear attack against Russia.
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Second, it’s got some great actors in it.
Of course, top billing goes to Peter Sellers. This guy was a comic genius.
He also starred in 1979’s The Prisoner of Zenda, where he also played three roles. He was also the wonderful bumbling Inspector Clousseau in The Pink Panther series.
In Dr. Strangelove, in addition to the ineffectual President Muffley and Captain Mandrake, he portrays the eponymous former Nazi scientist himself, Dr. Strangelove.
The movie is certainly set up to feature Sellers, but other well-known actors play some of the most memorable roles in the film. Scott’s General Turgidson is ridiculous.
I literally cannot describe how insanely hilarious Scott’s portrayal of this corrupt, lazy, but increasingly paranoid madman is. Then there’s the crew of the bomber, including Major T.J. “King” Kong (Slim Pickens) and Bombardier Lt. Lothar Zogg (James Earl Jones).
And perhaps my personal favorite (though Turgidson is up there too), Col. Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn), an Army officer who discovers a strange situation at the Gen. Ripper’s Air Force base, and is convinced that everyone he meets is a “prevert.”
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Third, there’s Fail Safe. Fail Safe was another movie with a similar plot — a snafu causes the U.S. to launch a nuclear bombing run against the Soviet Union — but with an ultra-serious, tense feel to it. Fail Safe is the “Worrying” that Dr. Strangelove’s subtitle warns about, and the two films were set to be released in the same year. Concerned that the twin film would cut into Dr. Strangelove’s ticket sales, Kubrick and Columbia Pictures filed a lawsuit alleging that Fail Safe’s source material plagiarized Dr. Strangelove’s source material.
The lawsuit delayed Fail Safe’s opening, by which time audiences were already pre-inoculated with humor against the tone of the more serious movie.
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Dr. Strangelove is a hilarious movie that’s designed specifically to cure the worries, something that is manifestly relevant in 2020. Give it a watch.
Roger Cline is staff writer for The Snyder News. Comments on his article can be made to roger@snyderdailynews.com