Dr. Strangelove was Stanley Kubrick’s satire about the end of the world. The
essential plot involves a commander of a nuclear bomber wing, Jack D. Ripper,
played by Sterling Hayden, who goes insane and launches a strike against the Soviet
Union on his own authority. His beef against the godless commies
is that their fluoridation of the water supply is ruining his “purity of
essence.” Peter Sellers plays a triple role as RAF Group Captain Lionel
Mandrake, the President of the United States
(a kind of nebbish Adlai Stevenson clone), and the creepy Dr. Strangelove, a kind
of cross between Kissinger, Von Braun, and Herman Kahn. George C. Scott is
General Buck Turgidson, who seems to think this catastrophe is a great
opportunity to end the Cold War once and for all. Slim Pickens is a gung ho B
52 pilot named Major T.J. “King” Kong.
The comedy of the film, which depicts the desperate and yet doomed efforts
to head off the end of the world, stem from the over the top performances of
the actors. George C. Scott is a cigar chomping, belly slapping parody of a war
crazed General. Hayden plays his General with a kind of creepy madness that
seems to have its own logic. Sellers shines, as the fussy RAF officer, the
calm, over rational President, and as the crazed Dr. Strangelove, who keeps
having Nazi era flashbacks. And, who can forget the scene when Slim Pickens
rides that nuclear bomb down to its target, whooping and waving his Confederate
cavalry hat?