Dr. Strangelove

Have you ever seen the movie, Dr. Strangelove? Have you ever heard the term, “Dr. Strangelove” mentioned by someone in reference to politics or policy? It’s a hilarious movie that Stanley Kubrick made the same year as Henry Fonda’s movie, Failsafe. Failsafe, as you may or may not know, is a movie that offers a possible consequence of an accidental nuclear attack by America against the Soviet Union.

In Failsafe, the American president, played by Fonda, orders a nuclear bomb to be dropped on New York City, to prove to the Soviets that the bomb dropped on Moscow was an accident. I suppose the reasoning was that one city wiped out in each country was preferable to an all out nuclear war. I don’t agree with that solution, but whatever…it’s just a movie.

So, anyway, Kubrick‘s movie starred Peter Sellers in three separate roles, and he played each role with hilarious precision. He played the president of the United States, who had to speak to the Soviet premier via hotline in an effort to convince him the imminent attack is an accident. Second, he played a British officer stationed at the American Air Force base from which the attack was launched. And third, he played Dr. Strangelove, an ex-Nazi weapons expert, who is now an advisor to the White House.

In Dr. Strangelove, as in Failsafe, the bomb gets dropped, and a Soviet city gets destroyed. But I must admit the solution in Dr. Strangelove is preferable to the solution in Failsafe. Of course, the conditions are different in Strangelove, as the Russian ambassador divulges some pertinent information that redirects the thought processes of the men meeting in the war room.

I won’t spoil it for you, because if you haven’t seen it, do so, and you’ll be glad you did. It’s a comedy after all, and you’ll find out why the alternate title makes sense: “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”