Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Dr. Strangelove runs neck-and-neck with Network as the most incisive satire on modern society that I've yet seen. Network critiques the anything-goes voyeurism encouraged by our mass-media culture while Dr. Strangelove satirizes the military-industrial complex and esp. the insanity that lurks behind nuclear weapons. An incredibly lean, tight, and understated seriocomedy, Dr. Strangelove opens in the offices of Brig. Gen. Jack (D.!) Ripper (Sterling Hayden), who has just taken the liberty of locking down Burpelson AFB after commanding the strategic wing to attack the Soviet Union in a nuclear first strike. (He's nursed one too many anti-Communist conspiracy theories and finally snapped.) Peter Sellers plays three masterful roles in this movie: R.A.F. exchange officer Lionel Mandrake (Ripper's effete British second-in-command) as well as U.S. President Merkin Muffley and his creepy national security adviser Dr. Strangelove. Ripper has sprung a complex trap that will take the President, with all his advisors, to (if not over) the brink of nuclear Armageddon. George C. Scott plays the testosterone-soaked Gen. Buck Turgidson, who at one point begins capering and cackling, all gung-ho and golliwog over America's undeniable military prowess -- until he realizes that hundreds of millions of lives are on a matchpoint and everyone else in the war room happens to be aghast. Hayden and Scott are dead-to-rights perfect in their roles. I hadn't seen this movie since grad school but it amazes me how many of Muffley's presidential lines remained memorable and classic (from "Listen, Dimitri--" to "I'm just as sorry as you are, Dimitri! We're both sorry!" to the unforgettable "Gentlemen, this is the war room -- you can't fight in here!") Also a gem is Mandrake's stiff-upper-lip kid-glove treatment of Ripper but Sellers' ultimate coup is Strangelove as the Teutonic tutor to the ruling class -- esp. as his black-gloved right hand repeatedly takes the cigarette away from or has to get smacked down by the left hand, spasmodically salutes to an ejaculatory "Mein Fuhrer!" and morbidly tries to throttle its owner as he speaks. The military logistics are as realistic as a Tom Clancy novel right up until Slim Pickens, a-whoopin' and a-hollerin', completes his mission. Every role in this movie feels measured to perfection. This one should be on everyone's must-see list. 5 stars.