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Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964): 7/10

Poster art from filmsite.org
The title character in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is in less scenes than the number of words in the title, yet he is still an eerie presence. General Jack D. Ripper (Jack the Ripper…get it) goes mad and orders us to bomb Russia in the height of the Cold War. Everyone in the American government tries to stop it.

Peter Sellers has a tri-role: as Capt. Mandrake, assistant to Ripper, President Merkin Muffley, the slightly slow President of the USA, and Dr. Strangelove, an eccentric German doctor in the War Room. George C. Scott is Buck Turgidson, who is a crazed “Ruskie”-hater. Is there anyone in this movie who isn’t crazy?

All along the way of this seemingly short movie, I was reminded of MASH. They’re both classic black comedies that I feel are overrated and I enjoy immensely but I don’t find that funny. I thought Sellers was excellent in all three of his parts. I had forgotten that he was also the President. He’s hilarious as Strangelove. I felt like that the characters weren’t as developed as much as they could be, though. I also wish that there were more shots of inside of the bombers, since I thought they were quite funny, especially with Slim Pickens at the helm.

Movies like this I love to sit through, but I always pine for more laughs. I’m not saying that this is a bad movie; in fact, it’s genius at the director’s chart-Stanley Kubrick. This marks the third one of his I’ve seen, after 2001 and The Shining. And, alas, I am sad that he has passed, and I also am sad that this review is shorter than his list of movies he directed.

Rated PG for language and war.

Review Date: March 27, 2003