Fasten your seat belts

Rating: 10/10 (6 July 2008)

I had the unusual experience during the mid sixties of seeing this movie and 'a hard days night' as a double feature, which were common in those days. What was less common was to see two outstanding movies in one setting. That night I became a Beatles fan as well as a Stanley Kubrick fan. I had never seen a movie quite like 'Dr Strangelove' before or since. This was style AND substance and a whole lot more. It was one of those rare cinema experiences that pulls you right into the story. You are THERE in the cockpit of that B52 making that unauthorized bombing run over the Soviet Union and you are THERE riding that bomb out into cold empty space with Slim Pickens. (who was, by the way, a highly unlikely but equally highly effective choice for that role). Kubrick had a storytelling style unique to himself and no other director with the possible exception of Elia Kazan. One device that comes to mind is, not only his use of the right music to fit the scene but his use of stony silence to fit other scenes. A silence that imparted a sense of awesome distance and space - a device that was to be used a few years later in '2001: a Space Odyssey', another Kubrick classic. This is not a 'happily ever after' ending and may be disturbing to some but fits very well with the uniqueness of the story - and the man.