Dr. Strangelove Movie Review
The ‘60s was an eventful decade for the American public. Civil Rights, Hippies, Vietnam, the Apollo missions, The Cuban Missile Crisis, Student Protests culminated a decade that had some reasons to please, but many more to annoy. In the backdrop to all this chaos, Stanley Kubrick directed and produced Dr. Strangelove, a satirical film on the threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Dr. Strangelove, one of Stanley Kubrick’s great directorial ventures, was released in 1964, when the anti-Soviet, anti-Communist propaganda in America was at a relative peak. While Brig. General Ripper gives arbitrary orders to dispatch nuclear weapons on the Soviet Union, The President and his War Cabinet learn that the Soviet Union’s Doomsday Device will automatically set off reactions that would annihilate the whole world in case nuclear weapons were dropped on it. What follows the potentially apocalyptic circumstances is a hilarious treat full of ironies, Peter Sellers’ triple role (as a frantic President, an ex-Nazi scientist, and a nervous British Group Captain cajoling an American General) coupled with the idiosyncratic acting of George C. Scott (as General Buck Turgidson) and Slim Pickens (as Major T.J Kong).
Dr. Strangelove isn’t among today’s expensive, tasteless Sci-Fi films, and especially because it was released in 1964. Instead, the movie was shot in three principle settings; The President’s War room, Brigadier General Jack Ripper’s office, and the inside of a B-52 bomber. The movie doesn’t have too many movements either; President Muffley and his Cabinet remain seated around a table, Major T.J. Kong and his flight crew is confined to the cockpit, and General Ripper and Group Captain Mandrake converse inside an office.
Nevertheless, Dr. Strangelove never even allowed an impatient teenager like myself to get up from the couch and refill my popcorn. Part of that was based on the fact that I was watching the world’s leaders stop a
Dr. Strangelove, one of Stanley Kubrick’s great directorial ventures, was released in 1964, when the anti-Soviet, anti-Communist propaganda in America was at a relative peak. While Brig. General Ripper gives arbitrary orders to dispatch nuclear weapons on the Soviet Union, The President and his War Cabinet learn that the Soviet Union’s Doomsday Device will automatically set off reactions that would annihilate the whole world in case nuclear weapons were dropped on it. What follows the potentially apocalyptic circumstances is a hilarious treat full of ironies, Peter Sellers’ triple role (as a frantic President, an ex-Nazi scientist, and a nervous British Group Captain cajoling an American General) coupled with the idiosyncratic acting of George C. Scott (as General Buck Turgidson) and Slim Pickens (as Major T.J Kong).
Dr. Strangelove isn’t among today’s expensive, tasteless Sci-Fi films, and especially because it was released in 1964. Instead, the movie was shot in three principle settings; The President’s War room, Brigadier General Jack Ripper’s office, and the inside of a B-52 bomber. The movie doesn’t have too many movements either; President Muffley and his Cabinet remain seated around a table, Major T.J. Kong and his flight crew is confined to the cockpit, and General Ripper and Group Captain Mandrake converse inside an office.
Nevertheless, Dr. Strangelove never even allowed an impatient teenager like myself to get up from the couch and refill my popcorn. Part of that was based on the fact that I was watching the world’s leaders stop a