Blast From The Past Reviews: Dr. Strangelove

It’s been a minute since I’ve done a movie I’d consider “truly old” for these Blast From The Past reviews.

Boy, that’s a loaded term. I can absolutely see some folks looking at the movie we are doing here and saying “Dr. Strangelove is ‘truly old’? Well then I’m a dinosaur”. But I can see others saying “Mate, you’ve done flicks from the 80’s recently; that’s truly old!”.

(Also, why are young people Australian in my head? Weird)

Anyway, for transparency’s sake, I am using the term “truly old” to delineate movies that came out before my birthyear. So we are talking anything older than 1980. I consider myself “old”, so older than I am is “truly old”. If you have an issue with that, take it up with… uh… me, I guess. I’m the arbiter of this for today’s purposes.

But yes! We are covering the Stanley Kubrick classic, Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. I came across it recently on Tubi, saw its more than palatable runtime, and decided to give it a go.

Dr. Strangelove (we’re all okay with my abbreviating this and not using the full title, right?) is the story of a mad general during the Cold War era who has decided that politicians have no place in the matters of war, so he takes the ordeal into his own hands and initiates a little known operation where he can order a nuclear strike instead of the President of the United States.

As thirty-four nuclear aircraft bear down on the Soviet Union targets, the President and his war room find out about the general’s doings (to be fair, he calls another general up and tells him what he did) and start working to undo the coming disaster before it leads to the fall of mankind.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ Dr. Strangelove is impeccably well made with great framing and camera shots and long takes where the characters command the screen and carry the movie through to the next moment. And given Kubrick’s propensity for multiple takes, those latter long shots had to be a nightmare to film. But everything on a technical level is absolutely superb. This is arguably Kubrick at the height of his [admittedly substantial] powers.

I will confess to being someone who doesn’t have the longstanding love and appreciation for Kubrick that others do. I just haven’t seen tons of oeuvre, and what I have seen, I have sometimes not particularly found to be as good as I might like (I felt distinctly let down by Eyes Wide Shut recently). But there’s nothing to dislike about his work on this picture; I can clearly start seeing where the admiration for his craft comes from now.

+ All the different story aspects work individually and as pieces of a whole. You’ve got the bomber crew flying their mission to nuke the target. You’ve got a British RAF officer trying to talk down a madman general set on eradicating a perceived threat. And you’ve got the President’s war room frantically working to avoid doomsday. The way the film cuts from scene to scene is very engaging, and it keeps all three aspects feeling relevant. All three are entertaining and effective.

If I had to choose, I’d say the scenes in the war room were a favorite off mine. I was shocked to read that Peter Sellers had three roles in this film, and one was as President of the United States, Merkin Muffley. He was my favorite character in the whole flick, and I loved Sellers’ one-sided playing of his phone calls with the Soviet Premier.

But even with that choice, I greatly enjoyed all three of the movie’s tales as the film spun along to its conclusion. It’s often the case where, when stories try to separate all of their characters and tell disparate elements of the same story, one aspect will stick out to you. But here, I thought all three were pretty equal in quality.

– It’s 1964 so I GET IT, but the visual effects of the bomber flying its mission are pretty rough looking. I’m kind of surprised so many exterior shots of the plane were left in the film because they just aren’t appealing. The usually meticulous Kubrick should probably have cut these. I know this is a pretty minor and ridiculous Down to level at a film the caliber of Dr. Strangelove, but hey… it’s a good movie, and you have to take what few negatives the film gives you.

– We are introduced to George C. Scott’s character by seeing him with his lover/secretary. And later in the film, during the war room discussions, he gets a call from her that he takes and promises her that he intends to marry her. Ultimately, this subplot doesn’t go anywhere, though. The secretary never matters to the proceedings, and after the phone call scene, she is never referenced or thought of again. It just feels like an unnecessary afterthought that the film left in and forgot to either cut or develop further.

It’s Kubrick, so I’m sure he included her just as much as he did for a specific reason, but that reason eludes me. Perhaps she was just there to show more of General Turgidson’s character, but I feel like we got enough of that elsewhere in the picture. Like I said, though: I’m sure I’m the one who is missing something here.

8.5

The final score: review Very Good

The 411

While Dr. Strangelove is humorous, I probably only found it Laugh Out Loud funny once or twice. That said, it's a highly clever film with some truly spectacular performances, most notably from Sellers in his multiple roles and from George C. Scott. Being someone who generally doesn't enjoy war pictures and who isn't as enamored with Kubrick's works as others are, I was a little wary going into this. I needn't have been; it's great.