Dr Strangelove or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Dr Strangelove wins an explosive 10 mushroom clouds out of 10.

Dr Strangelove or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, to give it it's full title, was released at the height of the Cold War in 1964. It was Stanley Kubrick's fifth film and followed closely on the heels of Lolita (in which the brilliant Peter Sellers first impressed Hollywood). Kubrick was - and remains - a filmmaking phenomenon: writer, director, producer, cameraman. His first exposure to the world of photography was as a teen in New York where he worked as a freelance stills photographer, from where he graduated to documentary shorts and eventually to feature films. His love of the camera remains visible through much of the composition of both Dr Strangelove and Kubrick's later films. The Shining, for instance, pioneered the haunting Steadicam.

Dr Strangelove (as it shall henceforth be known) began life as a straight thriller but during it's scripting transformed into a dark, terrifying satire. In a masterpiece of man management, Kubrick neglected to mention to one of his actors that the film was a comedy; he deliberately hid the script from the actors of one third of his film. Slim Pickens plays the role of Major Kong, commander of a bomber en route to Russia, completely straight. Pickens, a genuine ex-cowboy, plays the role with such earnest hillbilly patriotism as to create some of the darkest - most morbid - moments of the film. Watching him struggle gamely on to deliver his payload to Russia (with love?) gives us a feeling of creeping inevitablility.

Meanwhile, in an American air force base, a paranoid psychotic officer (the one who orders the attack on Russia) is brilliantly juxtaposed with the multi-faceted Peter Sellers. In one of three roles in the piece, Sellers is a British Group Captain on an officer exchange. His dutiful, logical, and overwhelmingly English character stands firm in the face of Bdr Gen. Ripper's crazed ravings: The Communists want his bodily fluids, ladies and gentlemen. It's a good job that he denies women his essence. This is where Mr. Kubrick demonstrates his love of the camera and it's versatility. In scenes involving the US military the shooting is done (by the director himself, naturally) on a handheld, grainy, shaking, reel camera; the sort used by crews during World War Two. The quality is reduced, the screen sways as the cameraman runs after his targets, and objects obscure the screen. We are immersed in the fraught world of the soldier.

And then we return to the War Room, where Peter Sellers' amiable President Muffley is desperately trying to inform the Russian Premier of recent developments and struggling against loud music, whores, vodka, and phone lines and we are reminded that it's a comedy after all. Very little of Sellers' script was set down. Most was improvised by the Englishman, calling on his natural comedic brilliance honed by years of The Goon Show. In one scene, the actor playing the Russian Ambassador visibly breaks into laughter at Sellers and has to quickly regain his composure. In the brewing resentment between the Ambassador and General Buck Turgiston lies some of the more pointed satire in the film. The President is forced to remind them that they can't fight in here; this is the war room!

Fast forward 40 years and you wouldn't find a studio with the stones to make Dr Strangelove. Stanley Kubrick moved to Britain to find a studio that would take him and his project on, although he recieved money from American backers. Not content with making a cinematic masterpiece, Stanley Kubrick provides us with the finest satire set to film. It's also beautifully shot and cripplingly funny.

To cap it all, it's black and white tone matches my colour scheme charmingly.