One of the very best comedies ever

Rating: 9/10 (3 September 2009)

This is a great movie, with wonderful performances and an ending that is one of the greatest moments of absurdity in the history of the movies. Some of the comments in the trivia section above, however, are just silly. Slim Pickens was a very talented comic actor. It should be quite clear to anyone watching the movie that his is a comic performance, and consciously and intentionally so. Equally odd, is the claim that Sellers' President is some sort of straight man or voice of reason. He is rather a wonderful satire of the sensitive sort of lefty politician who is as worried about establishing his high level of sensitivity as in the main action of the film. If there is a normal major character anywhere in this wonderful movie, it is probably Sellers' RAF captain. I should also note that in 1964 fears about surprise nuclear war were precisely not paranoia. They were quite real. They only became the stuff of paranoia after 1991.