The Lighter Side Of Kingdom Come

Rating: 7/10 (30 May 2006)

At Burpelson AFB, Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) has decided the time has come to rid the world of Communist infiltration of the water supply, and sends his B-52s on a sneak attack against the Soviet Union. Months of drinking nothing but rainwater and grain alcohol, not to mention denying the women in his life his "essence," apparently went to his head.
On one of the B-52s Ripper sends out, Maj. T.J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) dons his cowboy hat and tells his men folks back home are counting on them to see this through: "That goes for every last one of you, regardless of your race, your color, or your creed."
As Kong's plane approaches its target, his progress is observed worriedly in Washington D.C. President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) tries diplomacy with a drunken Soviet premier, while Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) suggests going through with a full-scale attack.
"I will not go down in history as the greatest mass murderer since Adolph Hitler," President Muffley says.
"Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American people than with your image in the history books," Turgidson replies.
"Dr. Strangelove," like the War Room where much of it is set, is a cold and imposing work of art, impressive though distancing. As a film of its time, "Strangelove" is arguably Kubrick's most important work, a cultural crossroads between nihilism and pop where anything goes, and everything does at the end. All that, and it's pretty funny, too.
Sellers plays three roles, though his antic comic energy is largely tamped down with two of the characters, Muffley and a RAF officer assigned to Ripper's base. His third character, the titular Dr. Strangelove, is a wonderful Germanic riff and the film's zaniest figure, though the farthest removed from events at hand. He's all for war, but whether that's because he's as mad as the others or trying to make the best of a bad situation is left unclear.
I don't love "Dr. Strangelove," and there are things about it that grate, like the long inventories and protocols we see in the B-52. Scott has his great moments as the unwound Turgidson, but overacts shamelessly in others, which Scott blamed on his director. Keenan Wynn as a colonel named Bat Guano is stiff, too, but Sellers is very good and Pickens and Hayden even better, playing their roles straight with just the slightest sense of irony. (I think both knew they were in a comedy.)
For a film about mutually assured destruction, there is a nice MAD magazine sensibility to this film, in the goofy names and outré situations, that fits the mood of the times and makes this an enjoyable black comedy. The jokes hit their targets, and points are made without deference to a particular ideology, as hawks like Turgidson and doves like Muffley both take fire. Kubrick made films liberals love, but he himself wasn't a true believer of any stripe, and it shows here.
The best part of "Strangelove" for me is the titles sequence, showing B-52s refueling in flight. Even after you get the joke behind it, there's still something to those remarkable images, an aerial ballet perfectly synchronized with the Pablo Ferro titles and a violin-heavy rendition of "Try A Little Tenderness," that strikes a chord deep inside.
Maybe the chord struck by the rest of the film is not so in evidence anymore, but "Dr. Strangelove" is still a good comedy and valid social commentary worth watching.