by Rosemary Benton

The Thin Line between Comedy and Terror

The newest movie by maverick filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, known for Spartacus (1960) and Lolita (1962), has hit theaters to the delight of film critics and the apprehensive joy of moviegoers. Behold the masterpiece which is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and be amazed. Never before has a movie been so utterly terrifying, and yet so funny. It was a film that had the audience sitting on the edge of their seats, giddily laughing with nervous energy. For a film with so few action sequences, the story is absolutely riveting. I was completely captivated, and based on the reactions I witnessed from my fellow movie goers they too felt the simultaneous deep unease and dark humor just as intensely.

The plot of Dr. Strangelove is loosely based on the 1958 thriller novel by Peter George, Red Alert. Both the book and the film describe a situation that could be considered as far from comical as possible: the initiation of a nuclear attack on the Soviets by a rogue United States Air Force general. In Kubrick's film the logic of this loose cannon, named Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (played by Sterling Hayden), is that Communists have made the “bodily fluids" of Americans impure by fluoridation. By his reasoning this has already counted as a preemptive strike: fluoridation has rendered politicians including President Merkin Muffley (played by Peter Sellers), impotent and incapable of proper leadership.

Meanwhile in the War Room of the Pentagon the situation continues to escalate as President Muffley consults with his military counsel General Buck Turgidson (played by George C. Scott), and the Soviet Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski (played by Peter Bull). Eventually it is concluded that the Soviet Premier, Dimitri Kissov, must be informed of the situation and given the deployed bomber squadron's flight path. The situation couldn't be more dire — until the Ambassador then imparts to the room that the Premier has just made him aware of a doomsday device that has been built in secret and was to be unveiled within the week. If the American bombs are not stopped in time, a network of interlinked Soviet bombs enhanced with “cobalt-thorium G" will trigger and the Earth will be shrouded in a “Doomsday shroud," killing all human and animal life. Worse yet, there is no way to deactivate the doomsday device without triggering it. A precaution that was taken to avoid human error.

After managing to secure the recall code from General Ripper all bombers but one are recalled. Due to damage to the plane's radio and fuel tanks sustained when the Soviets launched a surface-to-air missile to intercept the B-52 Stratofortress carrying the payload, the pilot and crew are unable to communicate with the American forces, nor are they able to fly back. At the order of the bomber's commander and pilot, Major T. J. "King" Kong (played by Slim Pickens), the crew decides to fly onward to a nearer target knowing that it will be a one way flight. In perhaps the most memorable scene on the film, Major Kong jumps on the back of the bomb and rides it down to a Soviet ICBM site whereupon it explodes.

Back in the War Room the attendants have begun to consider how they will survive the coming 93 years of darkness. Dr. Strangelove (also played by Peter Sellers), the wheelchair bound, ex-Nazi, nuclear war expert in the employ of President Muffley advises that a small population of several thousand should take up residence in deep mine shafts so as to repopulate the Earth. To that end there should be a 10:1 ratio of women to men. Comically, despite the reality of planning for the end of the world, General Turgidson is very concerned that the Soviets will think of the same thing and warns against a “mine shaft" gap. As the arguing and planning escalates in volume the Soviet Ambassador slips a discreet shot of the War Room with a hidden camera and slinks away. The movie ends to the dulcet serenade of “We'll Meet Again" as nuclear blasts go off one by one.

Too Close to Home

These last two decades, indeed the last three years, have brought the continued struggle between the USSR and America, between Capitalist and Communists, Democracy and Dictatorship, to the average American's door on a daily basis in the news, in magazine articles, and through social organizations such as the local Civil Defense officers conducting surveys of urban preparedness. The fear has been stoked that the international war of ideology, trade and survival could come to us civilians very literally in the form of a coordinated nuclear attack.

The Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950, initially designed to guide civilian preparedness in a series of committees from the federal level all the way down to the community level, found little traction with the general public in its day. Recently, however, given the Soviet military buildup in Cuba, the use of fallout shelters has come back into the public's eye. But science has far surpassed the weapons of over ten years ago, and one must wonder how useful the leftover pamphlets on nuclear survival from 1951 will be to the American citizen today.

In a general sense any nation's international policy making has consistently been about the division of land and wealth, with the extraction of natural resources and the mobilization of man power either resulting in economic success or failure. On top of the core responsibility of leaders to ensure their country's economic success are layers and layers of rhetoric to justify the means to this end. But only recently has that rhetoric reached a dangerous pinnacle on which both sides consider the virtual hostage taking of millions of civilian lives to be a worthy deterrent to foreign challenges that could come from halfway across the globe.

Being in a competition of military prowess has unfortunately resulted in inflammatory saber rattling in a long line of US presidents. From President Truman's 30 November, 1950 refusal to rule out the use of nuclear weapons to halt Communist advances after Chinese troops crossed the Yalu River to aid North Korea, to President Kennedy's repeated call to close the missile gap during his 1960 election campaign. Ultimately the natural escalation of “anything your bomb can do, mine can do better" has seemed to end in a standoff. Hence the development of unsettling strategic theories such as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). 

The Satire Bites Deep

The writing, cinematography and special effects of Dr. Strangelove are ingenious, but more than anything I have to comment that this is a profoundly dark satirical film. Not only does the plot highlight the precarious position that current world leaders and their military advisors have found themselves in since the fracturing of the Allied forces after 1945, but it highlights the very real and very frightening attitudes that have come to encompass the policy making of modern superpowers at home and abroad.

Co-writers Stanley Kubrick, Peter George and Terry Southern really understood this last point, and put it front and center within Dr. Strangelove's satire. General Turgidson's excitement at the destructive capabilities of the B-52 Stratofortress borders on buffoonish megalomania. His enthusiasm and envy when he says that he wishes the US too had a doomsday device like the one the Soviets have concocted is astounding given the situation. It is horrific that General Turgidson considers the launching of an all out attack an acceptable plan of action considering the “modest and acceptable" civilian casualties of 10-20 million lives “depending on the breaks". Most importantly, the film masterfully picks apart the lunacy of having to have a post-apocalyptic plan in the first place.

Indeed, everything about Dr. Strangelove’s indignant rebuke to the Russian ambassador feels as if it were lifted from an exchange between Herman Kahn, the RAND corporation’s renowned military strategist, and a chastened government official. “The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost, if you keep it a secret. Why didn't you tell the world, eh?!" Ambassador Sadeski replies, “It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises."

In the skillful hands of such an intrepid writing team the catalyst of the whole nuclear attack comes into question: is such a scenario so far off? Yes, Brigadier General Ripper is clearly insane to believe that Communists would plan an attack on “bodily fluids" by putting fluoride in the drinking water, but if the military personnel who hold the power to initiate a nuclear attack were unstable but methodical, would such a cascade of fail safes work against us as they did in the film? And if worse came to worst, would our leaders be able to accept the figurative and literal fallout with the same calm equanimity as the assembly in the war room did? If mine shafts would make such excellent hibernation holdouts for humanity, as Dr. Strangelove hypothesized, would the public even be made aware for fear of a mine shaft shortage?

For the answer to such questions I would highly recommend that everyone see this film, watch the evening news for a week, and come to their own conclusions. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is an exceptionally cutting and cheeky movie, and I happily give it five stars.