Dr. Strangelove (Special Edition) (1964)

"The ultimate black comedy. Devastatingly funny--and at the same time nightmarishly frightening in its accuracy.  The Movie Guide
"...A brillant black comedy, which seems better with each passing year.  Leonard Maltin

Editor's Note DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB is Stanley Kubrick's Cold War masterpiece. Based on the novel RED ALERT by Peter George, the film is set at the height of the tensions between Russia and the United States, when all it would take to destroy the world was one push of a button. And General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) is just the man to do it. Convinced that the Russians have infiltrated America's "vital essence," the crazed Ripper gives the go code to the 843rd bomb wing to attack Russia, setting in motion a series of darkly hilarious vignettes involving gung-ho soldiers, wacky generals, spying Russians, drunken premiers, battles with soda machines, fights in the War Room, and the Russians' top-secret Doomsday Machine. Shot in black and white, the film has three main centers of action: one of the B-52 bombers, on which a group of loyal men know they are about to start World War III; Burpelson Air Force Base, where Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) is trying to convince everyone that Ripper has gone mad and the bombing must be stopped; and the War Room, where President Merkin Muffley (Sellers again) is trying to make peace with the Russians. The finale featuring Sellers as Dr. Strangelove is a comic gem. Hayden, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens, Keenan Wynn, and Sellers (in three roles) are especially terrific in what may be the funniest, most poignant black comedy ever made, a vicious satire on the farcical aspects of the military and the cold war.

	George C. Scott
	Peter Sellers
	Slim Pickens
	Sterling Hayden
	Peter George - Based On Novel By
	Stanley Kubrick - Director
	Gilbert Taylor - Director of Photography
	Laurie Johnson - Musical Score
	Stanley Kubrick, et al. - Producer
	Stanley Kubrick, et al. - Writer

"I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."----General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) to Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers)

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!"----President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) to General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) and Ambassador de Sadesky (Peter Bull)

"This is preposterous. I've never approved of anything like that."----President Muffley "Our source was the New York Times."----Ambassador de Sadesky

"You're gonna have to answer to the Coca--Cola Company."----Colonel Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn) to Mandrake

New York Times
"...A supremely scary classic....If DR. STRANGELOVE is the most warmly remembered of cold war artifacts, thank its pitch-black humor..." -- Critic's Choice 11/04/1994 p.C14

Chicago Sun-Times
"...DR. STRANGELOVE is filled with great comic performances....Arguably the best political satire of the century..." 07/16/1999 p.5

USA Today
"...The film, of course, hasn't lost a thing, starting with three exceptional performances by Peter Sellers and another by underrated Sterling Hayden..." 06/19/1992 p.3D

Entertainment Weekly
"...A movie that shocked the world into a new death-rattle irony..." 01/11/2002 p.33

Rolling Stone
"The blackest satire on the madness of war has grown more apt over time." 11/11/2004 p.118

Uncut
"Kubrick's atomic-powered black comedy, scripted to perfection by Terry Southern." 04/01/2005 p.142

Empire
"Despite the despairing theme, it's still among the funniest films ever made -- and, in his three roles, Peter Sellers delivers several classic speeches that will live forever..." 12/01/2008 p.215

Wall Street Journal
"Stanley Kubrick's quintessential Cold War Comedy is also one of the savvier movies, period, about politics in the postnuclear era." 07/23/2010

Reel Views 10 of 10
When you consider the history of motion pictures, certain watershed films leap to min...Without a doubt, one of those is Stanley Kubrik's 1964 masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove...As political satire, few movies...come close to this level of accomplishment..the barbs and quips hold up as well today as they did thirty years ago. - James Berardinelli

Boxoffice Magazine 8 of 10
...Kubrick has fashioned a fantastically satirical picture with many chuckles and a goodly amount of suspense...Peter Sellers demonstrates his versatility and comedy sense with three widely varied portrayals.