A Kubrick classic made at the height of the Cold War as a crazed American brigadier general orders a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.
A paranoid Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden – The Godfather, The Long Goodbye) shuts down his air force base and deploys a nuclear attack without his superiors’ knowledge. A desperate War Room headed by Joint Chief of Staff General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott – Patton, The Hustler) makes every effort to avoid an all-out nuclear war. Back at the air force base, Ripper’s executive officer on exchange from the RAF, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellars – The Pink Panther, Being There), attempts to discover the codes to recall the B52s heading for Soviet airspace.
Nightmarish yet at times devastatingly funny macho strutting as Stanley Kubrick (Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange) unleashes his damning, irreverant and dangerous satire – boys with their toys putting humanity’s very existence at risk. And then there’s the superb Peter Sellars as Mandrake, the ex-Nazi Dr Strangelove sitting in the War Room and the American President himself.
Nominated for 4 Oscars in 1965 – best film, director, actor (Sellars), adapted screenplay.
Rating: 84%
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