Still a riot

Rating: 9/10 (14 February 2003)

George Scott's best role and performance of all time. Scott, Sterling Hayden, and Slim Pickens made this movie work. After Strangelove, Scott took himself too seriously.
When I first saw Strangelove in 1963, my friend and I were alone at the matinee in a very large theater in the midwest. We howled unabashadly throughout. The next time I saw it was at a 1985 peace conference in Honolulu - the movie was evidently selected by someone who had never seen it (or a prankster who had). I started laughing from the start and all the peaceniks looked down their noses at me as blasphemous. Within twenty minutes they were howling too.
This is a masterpiece of exaggeration. Don't bother with trying to make deeper meaning out of it. It is pro- and anti- everything. The names tell you that it is meant to be high comedy from the beginning - "Burpelson", "Turgidson", "Kong", "Kissoff", "Bat Guano", and "Strangelove".
See it. Again and again.