The most acerbic and hilarious satirical film of its time

Rating: 10/10 (22 March 2014)

If only Stanley Kubrick were alive today, he would be making a satirical film like this about the surveillance society and the paranoia about 'terror'. In the sixties, however, the prevailing paranoia was about 'the bomb'. This earlier culture of fear was certainly heightened by the 1961 showdown known as the Cuban missile crisis. (Those of us who were alive then vividly remember how everyone was certain 'we are all about to die'.) In this brilliant film, Kubrick relentlessly and savagely exposes the madness of the system, the leaders, and the philosophy behind the doctrine appropriately known as MAD (abbreviation of 'Mutually Assured Destruction'), whereby if anyone is destroyed, all must be destroyed, the hope being that no one would be crazy enough to start it. But in this film, the world had not reckoned on General Jack Ripper, played by Sterling Hayden, drinker of grain alcohol and rain-water cocktails, obsessed by his 'precious bodily fluids' (how all we young people laughed at that when this film came out!) who did 'not avoid women' but 'I deny them my essence' (i.e. that particular bodily fluid most sought after by prospective mothers). Hayden who commits suicide during the action, has decided to wage nuclear war unilaterally on the Soviet Union with his wing of 34 B-52 bombers at Bortosdale (i.e. really Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, where the B-52s were really based) Air Force Base. (I once spent two fascinating weeks there watching those elegant birds take off: their wings dip when resting, then rise to horizontal on the runway, and curl upwards as they soar like birds. They rest overnight with their bomb-bay doors open for purposes of ventilation, but when I once thought I might try a naughty peek, I was warned that if I stuck my head up there it would be chopped off, as they are set to sever any intruder.) The film opens with an aerial scene of a B-52 being refuelled in mid-air by a K.C.135 tanker plane. (I was once inside one of those; you lie flat on your stomach on a kind of bed, looking out through a window, to feed the tube into the bomber below and behind you.) Kubrick, who was sex-mad, lovingly dwelled on the copulatory symbolism of this aerial mating dance. Inside the plane piloted by actor Slim Pickens which is sent to bomb Russia, Pickens is sitting in the cockpit reading PLAYBOY and looking at the centre-fold. Stanley was so obsessed by pornography that he had to have batches of fresh hard-core porn photos daily, so this scene came to his mind naturally enough. I knew Stanley fairly well for a couple of years, and whereas he was certainly a genius, he was a deeply psychologically disturbed one. I was especially nervous of his passion for collecting Nazi insignia and daggers, strange, considering that he was a Jew. However, I only met him after he had already made this film. Wally Veevers did such a good job on the special effects for STRANGELOVE that he was put in charge of those for 2001, where he excelled himself even further. (Wally and his team were a wonderful group of guys.) Of course, this film is also famous for featuring no less than three brilliant performances by Peter Sellers. He plays Group-Captain Mandrake of the RAF, the President of the United States, and Dr. Strangelove, who is one of the fanatical Nazi scientists imported to the USA under Project Paperclip and other such projects at the end of the War. (Considering that some of those very scientists worked for Stanley on 2001, his earlier ridicule of them was rather ironical.) If there is anyone by now who does not know about Operation Paperclip, I would be surprised, and I would merely point out to them that Werner von Braun was an Obersturmbahnfuehrer (Major) in the SS who tormented Jewish slave labourers at Peenemunde, and so go work that out along with its implications! Stanley was clever to choose some of his favourite B-film stars for this film, such as noir actor Sterling Hayden, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens, and Keenan Wynn, all of whom are positively brilliant. The script, dialogue, and scenes are so hysterically funny and hilarious that if this were not also a serious film about the destruction of the world by nuclear warfare, it would rank as one of the greatest screen comedies of all time, which perhaps it does anyway. (After all, if 'we are all gonna die', then you sure gotta die laughing.) The film is based upon the novel 'Red Alert' (aka 'Two Hours to Doom') by Peter George (writing as Peter Bryant), who collaborated on the screenplay with Kubrick and Terry Southern. Peter George (1926-1966, dying aged 42) also contributed to Sidney Lumet's film FAIL-SAFE (1964) about a similar theme. I know nothing about Peter George or why he died so young, but maybe the 'Russkies' got him, or even SAC (the Strategic Air Command under General Le May) was taking revenge. Just joking. Or possibly the American Nazis brought over by Allen Dulles did not like being made fun of. (Hitler may have loved his dog, but who ever heard him laugh?) This film is certainly unlike any other, as was its director. I have seen this classic several times, but each time it becomes both funnier and more horrifying simultaneously. Perhaps it is even more relevant now than it was then, not because 'the bomb' is still our major preoccupation, but because of the mentalities portrayed, which are even more dangerous now than they were back then, when the worst that could happen to us was that 'we will all die', whereas now, it is what happens before then that is even more terrifying.