U.S. Air Force Colonel Jack Ripper goes completely and utterly mad, and sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He suspects that the communists are conspiring to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people. The U.S. president meets with his advisors, where the Soviet ambassador tells him that if the U.S.S.R. is hit by nuclear weapons, it will trigger a "Doomsday Machine" which will destroy all plant and animal life on Earth. Peter Sellers portrays the three men who might avert this tragedy: British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the only person with access to the demented Gen. Ripper; U.S. President Merkin Muffley, whose best attempts to divert disaster depend on placating a drunken Soviet Permier and the former Nazi genius Dr. Strangelove, who concludes that "such a device would not be a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious". Will the bombers be stopped in time, or will General Jack Ripper succeed in destroying the world ?Required viewing for anyone who is studying (or has studied) Cold War history and/or U.S./U.S.S.R. relations. It's an excellent satire on both. And what's funniest of all is that the book this is based on ("Red Alert") is actually a thriller...when Stanley Kubrick wrote the screenplay, he decided that some of the scenes were actually quite funny. I especially like the scenes where President Muffley is on the phone with Premier Kissoff and Gen. Turgidson's conflicts with the Russian ambassador.
Dr. Strangelove was nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture but didn't win shit.
1 comment:
"There's no fighting in the war room!"
That movie is fall down funny...I never knew it was written as a thriller.
Have you seen "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers"?
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