Dr Strangelove (1964)

 

"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"

This one hilarious line tells you pretty much all you need to know, as this is one of those absolutely perfect satires and - I am sorry to say - still painfully relevant after so many years. This one is funny in every way and the more you see it, the better it becomes.

General Jack D Ripper has gone off his rocker and has ordered all B-52 airplanes to go into Russian airspace and drop their nuclear bombs. Naturally, this upsets pretty much everyone and the entire US head honchos are now gathered in the War Room to try and stop this apocalyptic event from happening. They need the abort code, so to do this, they send out soldiers to attack the base where Ripper is holed up and try and convince the prime minister of Russia that this is all a big mistake. 

The telephone call president Muffley makes with his colleague Dimitri is sidesplitting.

There is so much to love on display here. The black and white photography makes it absolutely timeless and because Kubrick has always been a stickler for detail, every shot is pure eyecandy. Take a gaze at the design of the War Room and see how influential it has been for umpteen other films. But everything stands or falls with the satire and that is totally on point. The situation is dire, yet everytime there is a laugh to be had. Some of the conversations have since been etched in the minds of everyone who has seen this masterpiece. 

You want examples? Of course you do.

There's Ripper explaining to Mandrake that the Russians are after our bodily fluids; the aforementioned telephone call to prime minister Dimitri who's drunk as a skunk; a US soldier talking about 'preversion' and 'preverts'; George C Scott trying not to be too enthusiastic about global annihilation... The list goes on and on!

And of course, there's the inimitable Peter Sellers in three different roles: the voice-of-reason British officer Mandrake, who is trying to keep it together when Ripper has gone cuckoo; a surprisingly understated US president Merkin Muffley, who desperately wants a solution yet understates and undersells nearly everything so as not to cause panic and of course the titular character of Doctor Strangelove, a former Nazi scientist now working for the US who is a bit too keen on the prospect of total destruction of the Earth and whose mannerisms (like stifling a Nazi salute) are sure to cauise many a giggle and laughter. 

And you probably won't ever forget the image of Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb like a stallion during a rodeo. 

Must see? 

Must see.