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Dr. StrangeloveStanley Kubrick's anti-miltarism, first revealed in the bitter First World War drama Paths Of Glory (1957), is given full satiric rein in this supremely ironic comedy about the possibility of nuclear annihilation.
Coming closer than ever to a twentieth century nightmare, Kubrick elected to view the end of the world not as tragedy, but as the ultimate absurdity, in the process creating a film that is far more effective than more sombre efforts, such as Sidney Lumet'sFail Safe of the same year, and Stanley Kramer's On the Beach(1959).
George C Scott and Sterling Hayden frighteningly embody the crazy military mind, while Peter Sellers gives three brilliant caricature performances, as liberal US Presdent Merkin Muffley, stiff-lipped RAF officer Lionel Mandrake and as the sinister doctor of the title, with his artifical arm jerking involuntary into a Nazi salute. How Sellers didn't win an Oscar for his work says much about the worth of the awards. And, while we're about it, the Academy's failure to recognise Terry Southern's superb screenplay is another dark stain on its record.
Incidentally, the movie's message - that we're riding headlong towards the end of the world - was contradicted by Kubrick's next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey where it emerges that we're already living in the future, and that it's full of stars. Oh, yes, and massive space babies.
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