Still brilliant after 40 years

Rating: 10/10 (13 April 2005)

Many is the instance of a show that upon first viewing dazzles and charms but after it has been put snugly into the bed of our memories, when it reawakens in our eyes after a long sleep, it looks shopworn and grizzled.
What joy it is to behold the exceptions, the exceptional supernovas such as "Dr. Strangelove". Direction, writing and acting are all top-notch.
And what acting! Sterling Hayden as General Ripper who takes sexual dysfunction to a whole unimaginable level. George C. Scott as General Turgidsen who always can see the silver lining in even the darkest mushroom cloud. Topping this stellar list is the incomparable Peter Sellers in a triple role. His phone conversations as President Muffley with the unheard Soviet Premier is a classic in comedy that leaves me in stitches.
Stanley Kubrick directs the three story lines with a sure hand but yet also inspiring. I still get tingles in my spine watching Slim Picken whooping and hollering as he rides the a-bomb like a bull before triggering Armageddon.
Like the subtitle says, you've got to laugh to avoid the despairing truth that man loves his precious pettiness even while the world is literally blowing up around him.