The greatest 'black' comedy, if not the greatest comedy ever

Rating: 10/10 (12 August 2002)

Peter Sellers was a comedic genius, pure and simple. Although this term has been horribly overused in recent years, it is the only phrase that can aptly describe his wonderful abilities. You would be hard-pressed to find a performance of his that did not reveal some subtle fact about the human condition, or a performance which did not simply overshadow every other actor in the film. Dr. Strangelove was, I feel, Sellers' greatest achievement on screen, a performance for which any sane person would have given him an Oscar (but who said the Academy Awards made sense?). All three of the characters he portrays are done to perfection, but the character of Dr. Strangelove, the crazed, former Nazi nuclear scientist that calls the President "mein Fuhrer" and has battles between the left and right sides of his body, will forever live in our collective conciousness. Aside from having the greatest performance of arguably the greatest film comedian of all time, this classic has a perfect supporting cast, from George C. Scott as the crazy Air Force general Buck "I'm not saying we won't get our hair mussed" Turgidson, to Sterling Hayden as general Jack Ripper that decides on his own that we have to annihilate all of the Russians to stop them from stealing and polluting our "precious bodily fluids", to finally Slim Pickens, the gung ho captain from Texas that wears a cowboy hat in combat and rides the bomb like a bronco (that moment is, I think, the greatest moment in the film, perhaps one of the greatest moments in film history). Also, there is superb directing on the part of Stanley Kubrick, who after making this masterpiece, unfortunately, went over the deep end with 2001 and A Clockwork Orange. This mighty team of artists brought together a plot which is at the same time both poignantly tragic and completely hillarious (if only the 'comedians' out there could take a lesson from this film, Hollywood would be a far more cultural, sophisticated place). The basic premise is nuclear annihilation: Ripper wants to annihilate the Russians, while the Russians have just completed a domesday machine that would automatically kill all life on Earth if any foreign power attacked Russia. How could such a dark premise be so funny, you ask? I say, watch the film, and you will find out while busting a gut.