Who's running the mad house?

Rating: 10/10 (27 April 2000)

The beauty of Kubrick is that he allows us to laugh at our fears, and at ourselves. I was quite young when the arms race, cold war etc was at it's height, and can remember the very real fear that any day we would be wiped out. The extreme views of the characters aren't fiction, I can remember debates about 'acceptable' civilian losses in the event of a bomb being dropped.
Kubrick satirises this wonderfully, capturing the insanity of a world gone mad. Sellers is at his peak. His performances controled and acurate; his best films are from this era.
That the Dr Strangelove should be working for the American Government is not far fetched, many escaped nazis' found refuge in allied counteries where their particular 'skills' were used. In fact all the characters are real, they were around in the 50s' and can still be heard today!
The message of the film really is: Who's running the mad house? In a world where Slim Pickens broncho rides an atom bomb and Keenan Wynn warns Sellers that if he survives the holocaust he'll have to answer to the Coco Cola Company for damaging their vending machine you know you are better off laughing at the pure insanity of it all.