What would happen if a crazy (or, to quote President Merkin Muffley, "a little funny in the head") US general single-handedly decided to attack the USSR? This picture tries to answer this question, albeit in an unconventionally humorous manner.
The film's impact is twofold: on one hand, it works incredibly well as a comedy. Even though, quantitatively, there aren't that many jokes in the movie, they are outrageously funny. On the other hand, it's effective as a harsh satire of the reality of the Cold War. The ridiculous humour succeeds in expressing the sheer madness of the whole situation, with generals who believe in conspiracy theories about fluoridation and presidents that, with the threat of a nuclear Holocaust, prefer to argue about who is more sorry for the situation, like a married couple.
The whole craze is brought to its logical conclusion: the end of the human species. There is really no alternative: the world is just going crazy and irrational fear prevents any logical reasoning. After all, to quote a more recent flick, "the only winning move is not to play".
Peter Sellers steals the show, in his three roles as exchange officer Mandrake, President Muffley and, famously, crazy nuclear war expert and former Nazi Doctor Strangelove. The supporting cast is also great, with George C. Scott portraying the over-the-top anti-communist General Buck Turgidson, Sterling Hayden in the role of the mad general Jack D. Ripper and Peter Bull, playing Soviet Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski.
One can be tempted to dismiss this movie as fantasy and say that something like this would never happen in reality. The message of this black comedy, though, is extremely frightening: after all, the final scene in the movie is real footage of nuclear tests, with which Kubrick is reminding us that what we just saw is far more real than we would like to believe.
The film's impact is twofold: on one hand, it works incredibly well as a comedy. Even though, quantitatively, there aren't that many jokes in the movie, they are outrageously funny. On the other hand, it's effective as a harsh satire of the reality of the Cold War. The ridiculous humour succeeds in expressing the sheer madness of the whole situation, with generals who believe in conspiracy theories about fluoridation and presidents that, with the threat of a nuclear Holocaust, prefer to argue about who is more sorry for the situation, like a married couple.
The whole craze is brought to its logical conclusion: the end of the human species. There is really no alternative: the world is just going crazy and irrational fear prevents any logical reasoning. After all, to quote a more recent flick, "the only winning move is not to play".
Peter Sellers steals the show, in his three roles as exchange officer Mandrake, President Muffley and, famously, crazy nuclear war expert and former Nazi Doctor Strangelove. The supporting cast is also great, with George C. Scott portraying the over-the-top anti-communist General Buck Turgidson, Sterling Hayden in the role of the mad general Jack D. Ripper and Peter Bull, playing Soviet Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski.
One can be tempted to dismiss this movie as fantasy and say that something like this would never happen in reality. The message of this black comedy, though, is extremely frightening: after all, the final scene in the movie is real footage of nuclear tests, with which Kubrick is reminding us that what we just saw is far more real than we would like to believe.