Classic of the Week- “Dr. Strangelove”

It’s hard not to wonder what is going to happen when a movie opens with a disclaimer from the US Air Force followed by a grim narration about a Soviet Doomsday Machine. And then there’s a cut to planes having sex in midair.

To clarify, what’s actually happening is a B-52 bomber is being refueled by a tanker, but the manner in which the scene is filmed left no room in the audience’s imaginations. Thus begins “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 comic masterpiece about the end of the world.

With all of the apocalyptic films gracing movie screens lately, it’s refreshing to see a filmmaker take a look at something serious and find the humor hidden underneath. Though “Dr. Strangelove” deals with the end of the world due to nuclear annihilation, it works as a comedy because it shows how absurd the notion of “Mutually Assured Destruction” is and how those in charge of our nuclear stockpiles may not be nearly qualified enough.

Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" promotional poster courtesy of Columbia Pictures

After the airborne intercourse, the scene shifts to Burpelson Air Force Base, where Gen. Jack D. Ripper orders a squadron of B-52s to nuke the Soviet Union. Ripper claims this is in response to a Soviet strike on Washington, D.C., but it soon becomes clear no such attack has taken place and Ripper issued the order on his own authority. His reason for ordering the attack?

“I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids,” Ripper says, deadly serious.

From here on out, the plot follows three tracks: Ripper at the base, the President and his advisers meeting in the Pentagon’s War Room (the military later based their actual war room on Kubrick’s set) and one of the bomber crews as they prepare to drop their load of radioactive death on the Soviets.

The comedy in “Dr. Strangelove” works on two different levels. The first is mostly satire as it shows how the rigid structure of the Mutually Assured Destruction system can backfire and actually cause catastrophe instead of preventing it. Kubrick presents the process of nuclear war as something carried out by witless politicians, jingoistic generals and stubbornly by-the-book soldiers.

An example of this can be seen when the president asks an ex-Nazi scientist, Dr. Strangelove, if the Soviets could have built a Doomsday Machine that can’t be turned off. After outlining the particulars of why a Doomsday Machine works as a deterrent, Strangelove gives us this gem:

“The whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep if a secret! Why didn’t you tell the world?” Strangelove says to the Soviet ambassador. The ambassador responds with “It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.”

The other comic elements of “Dr. Strangelove” come from the sly dialogue of Terry Southern’s screenplay. The key here is that all of the characters say their lines with total seriousness, regardless of how stupid they sound. This results in some absolutely priceless one-liners.

Some of the best include: “Gentleman, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!”; “I think the self-destruct mechanism blew itself up!”; and “Well, I’ve been to one world fair, a picnic and a rodeo, and that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones.”

Finally, “Dr. Strangelove” features some of the most brilliant comic portrayals ever committed to film. Peter Sellers has three roles, all of which he plays to perfection. He has no trouble switching between the stoic RAF Officer Lionel Mandrake, the hysterical President Merkin Muffley and the borderline psychotic Dr. Strangelove. George C. Scott, best known for his work as Gen. Patton in the film of the same name, switches gears and has a ball as the gung-ho Gen. Buck Turgidson. Sterling Hayden and Slim Pickens fill out the cast as the paranoid Gen. Ripper and the Texan pilot Maj. “King” Kong. New viewers will recognize the famous shot of Maj. Kong riding a nuke like a bronco as it falls to Earth.

Because “Dr. Strangelove” doesn’t take itself too seriously, it functions much better as commentary on a serious issue than many films or documentaries. It addresses all of the reasons why the world should have been scared by the Cold War, but gives the audience the relief of laughter to put it out of their minds, at least temporarily. If any of the upcoming End-of-the-World movies being released in the future (I’m looking at you, “2012” and “The Road”) deal with their premise as well as “Dr. Strangelove” does, I’ll be thoroughly content.

Contact CU Independent Entertainment Editor Rob Ryan at Rryan@colorado.edu.