I'm just as sorry as you are Dmitri ...

Rating: 9/10 (2 February 2006)

After having the pleasure of viewing Dr.Strangelove for the first time, I felt compelled to comment on the sheer cleverness of it ...
I knew going in that I was in for a cold war satire, but little else -
The contrast between the serious, documentary-style direction with the at times over-the-top characters and dialogue works brilliantly to keep the movie in motion, and the sense of impending disaster is palpable, whilst still allowing the mostly subtle humour to play out.
Fairly early in the film, we're given a close up shot of General Ripper's brooding face from an unusual angle, the camera looking up at his visage as if his face were a huge, insurmountable rock - as soon as this superb shot revealed itself I had the uneasy feeling that Ripper might be a bit 'funny in the head' as President Muffley later explains.
In his apparent insanity, army base commander Ripper concocts a 'plan' to wipe out the threat of Communist invasion once and for all; unfortunately it involves nothing cleverer than tricking his men into nuking the unsuspecting Ruskies ...
The only person in a position to get through to Ripper through his apparent madness is Captain Mandrake (an English officer stationed via the 'officer exchange program'), one of the three characters to appear in the film to be portrayed by Peter Sellers. At one stage Ripper confides in Mandrake as to the extent of the conspiracy theory that led him to his drastic course of action : the Commies are contaminating our 'precious body fluids', most likely through fluoridation of the water supply. How had he come by this umm, interesting theory, Mandrake quite reasonably asks at one point ? - Here, I believe, one of the films key themes and elements are revealed - Ripper tells Mandrake that he first became aware of the Communist 'conspiricy' "during the physical act of love" - Ripper goes on to explain (in rather cryptic terms) that after failing to become aroused, or perhaps losing his erection, he came to 'realise' that his bodily fluids were being taken or contaminated. He then goes to some pains to make it clear that the problem had *not* happened again, and that women still found him 'powerful'.
In essence, Ripper's failure to cope with his own compromised masculinity led to his insanity and subsequent order to attack the dreaded Ruskies !!
So a madman has potentially started world war 3. No real surprise there, as the focus turns to larger-than-life character General Buck Turgidson - the General is at first unconcerned over a phone call from a base commander, accepted by his bathing-beauty 'secretary', and continues his business in the 'powder room' for a painfully long time before finally deigning to speak to the worried base commander himself.
Turgidson decides the situation is serious enough to warrant leaving his young, barely-clad lady friend in their hotel room whilst he puts in a little overtime in the War Room. In a later scene, Ms. Scott, his secretary, thoughtlessly rings Turgidson in the War Room - before hanging-up, Turgidson ever-so-briefly reflects upon the precarious situation at hand and thoughtfully advises Ms. Scott not to forget to 'say her prayers' ...
Hilarity and double-speak ensues throughout the entire first War Room scene, Turgidson's zealousness to turn the accidental encroachment on soviet airspace into a full scale strike is demented logic at its finest. Somewhat fortunately, the President, once again played by Peter Sellers, is less of a war-monger than the General, and he enlists the aid of the reluctant and shifty Russian ambassador to contact the Russian Premier, the apparently drunk Dimitri Kissoff. Sellers one-sided conversation with Kissoff is a side-splitter, desperate not to offend the Premier whilst still trying to gently break the news of the impending air strikes. The Russians go one-up on the Yanks though, when it comes to light that they have constructed a 'Doomsday device', which is deadly enough to pretty much f*ck up the world - if the rogue B-52's commissioned by Ripper accomplish their illicit mission, they will unwittingly be activating the Doomsday device ! This is when Sellers' third, and most bizarre, character is introduced, the titular Dr. Strangelove. As he 'helpfully' points out, a Doomsday device is an excellent deterrent for Nuclear War - er, provided the rest of the World is aware of the *threat* first ! However, as the Russian Ambassador points out, the existence of the Doomsday device hadn't been announced to the world at that stage as the Premier had planned to announce it at an upcoming conference, due to his love of 'suprises' hehehe. And so it's all set-up for a tense finale, as Mandrake tries to obtain vital codes from General Ripper to recall the B-52's, President Muffley and his cohorts try to work with the Russian government to blow their own men out of the sky to avoid mass destruction, and a B-52 flown by Major 'King' Kong attempts to deliver it's mother lode upon it's intended target before they're shot out of the sky.
I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed this film, it's sharp humour, it's psychological profiles of the egomaniacs that would end the world, their sexual insecurity, the petty bickering over relatively insignificant matters while the fate of the world is being decided - but I'll wind it up here and just urge anyone who enjoys movies that encourage you to think to seek out Dr Strangelove : or How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bomb.