Sellers & Kubrick hit top form.

Rating: 10/10 (29 June 2000)

A perfect period movie that perhaps to a 21st century public feels somewhat remote & dated. But back in the early 60s people had a genuine right to worry about the bomb, since this was the era of Vietnam, Cuba, Kennedy assassinations and a rapid build up of nuclear weapons.
However, rather than play a straight bat with loads of doom & gloom, moralising & hardnosed anti-war messages etc, Kubrick goes off at a tangent and plays for comedy - black comedy in fact.
And what we are rewarded with is a superb anti anti-war film. The messages are still there but they're not shoved in our faces. Instead they are subtly written into the humour which makes the film even more accessable because you then realise that even the people supposedly on "our side" do not always have our best interests at heart.
Sellers is of course a total revelation - better than the Pink Panther roles, this time he as three characters to stretch his considerable chameleon talent and not one of them is weak.
But it's not entirely his film, he is ably supported by George C Scott and Sterlin Hayden - two American Generals who both seem to have their own agenda. The latter is the one who actually starts the attack on Russia because he is worried about his "bodily fluids!". While Scott is just as mad because he actually condones the other's actions, which says a lot about the mentality of the armed forces!
Slim Pickins, also deserves a mention as the pilot sent out to bomb "those Rooskies!" I especially loved the scene with him riding a nuke, which just adds to the dark humour.
This film is also quite superior to the other anti-war movie that came out at about the same time - FailSafe with Henry Fonda as the Prez. This film does play a straight bat - there is little or no humour, just serious expressions and lots of doom mongering. A very absorbing film, but perhaps not what the audiences of the time wanted in light of the all the real threats of war that hung over their heads.
Instead, they chose Dr Strangelove, the same message but coated in humour which at least gave some light relief for a couple of hours!
Sellers' best film by far. Kubrick's second best after 2001

****/*****