Dr. Strangelove--A Genuine Classic Now Playing At The Nick

Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb plays three times in the next three days at The Nickelodeon Theatre, 1607 Main Street in Columbia. Showtimes are: Saturday 12:30 p.m., Sunday 3:00 p.m. and Monday 8:00 p.m.

Imagine a movie being released in 2013 with the following plot: An American general hijacks the country’s nuclear arsenal and attacks terrorists, ultimately leading to an exchange that brings about the destruction of the planet.

Substitute enemies and that is the plot of Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

It was bold enough that the movie was made at the peak of Cold War mania in the early 1960s. But it was also released just two months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy (at least two lines of dialogue were over-dubbed to avoid appearing insensitive) and the events depicted in the film are an eerie reminder to the near-miss that was the Cuban Missile Crisis from two years earlier.

And most brazen of all? Dr. Strangelove is a comedy.

Characters in Strangelove have names yanked from a pulp novel. George C. Scott, plays the philandering Gen. George C. Scott (a reminder that some things haven’t changed about generals in the last 50 years) who is trigger happy in more ways than one. Sterling Hayden plays Brigadier General Jack Ripper, the lunatic who sets off the mayhem. The featured performer, however, is Peter Sellers, who plays three roles: the title character (based loosely on Henry Kissinger), US President Merkin Muffley (modeled on Adlai Stevenson) and Capt. Lionel Mandrake, who does his best to try to undo Ripper’s mistakes.

Slim Pickens portrays Maj. “King” Kong. And be sure to look for James Earl Jones in his first film role.

Directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, the film, like most of Kubrick’s work, operates on a multitude of levels. By itself, the plot moves along swiftly, a mocking the premise that Mutually Assured Destruction (note the acronym) can be considered a viable defense strategy.

At another level, Strangelove operates in a subtext that is highly sexualized, a big no-no in the early 1960s that required some ingenuity to get past censors.

At a deeper level, Strangelove is at the center of Kubrick’s filmography. Time and again, the director returned to the theme of maintaining one’s humanity in an increasingly dehumanized world. This theme is fleshed out to an even greater effect in Kubrick’s two subsequent films, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, both classics in their own right.

In terms of Kubrick’s career, Strangelove also serves as a bridge of sorts. On the one hand, it links to 2001 and Clockwork, but on the other it addresses another of Kubrick’s major themes: the effects of war on a man’s psyche, which Kubrick explored in 1957’s Paths of Glory and 1987’s Full Metal Jacket.

Both these themes are dealt with in Strangelove’s now-iconic closing scene.

The movie isn’t a work of perfection. Some sections of the War Room scenes are staged a bit clumsy. And there is a literally one female character in the whole movie, and she exists solely as an object of lust.

Nevertheless, the films willingness to poke the eyes of authority has made it well-deserved masterpiece.

Considering the timing of its release and its subject matter, Strangelove has an irreverence that is to be revered and sorely absent from current cinema.

Note: Dr. Strangelove is being screened as part of the National Treasures: A Retrospective of American Classics series. For twelve weekends this summer a classic American movie will be screened. The remaining schedule:

June 22-24: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
June 29 - July 1: Little Shop of Horrors
July 6-8: Chinatown
July 13-14: The Evil Dead
July 20-22: Bonnie and Clyde
July 27-29: His Girl Friday
August 3-5: Airplane
August 10-12: Sunset Boulevard
August 16-17: Grease (Sing-A-Long)