I'm not even sure how to start. Dr. Strangelove; Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb is one of the most incredible movies ever made. Very few movies can simultaneously show off the horror and the insanity of war in a way that is consistently funny, but this one pulls it off. The events of the film take place over the course of what is very likely the last evening on Earth, because the pressure of living in the Cold War finally caused a high-ranking USAF General to snap and launch a preemptive strike against the USSR. The movie follows the events in three locations: on General Ripper's Air Force base, he uses fear to turn his troops against the rest of the American military; in Washington, D.C., President Merkin Muffley has convened the Joint Chiefs of Staff in his "War Room" to figure out how to deal with the crisis; and Major "King" Kong commands his B-52 bomber into Russia on its fateful mission that could end the world.
Why is the fate of the world in danger if the US is attempting to launch a preemptive strike to eliminate the Soviet threat? For those of you unfamiliar with the term, "brinksmanship" refers to the practice taking a dangerous situation as far as you believe your enemy thinks it is possible to go in order to make them believe that you are willing to do harm to both yourself and the enemy to get what you want. Mutually Assured Destruction is also relevant; basically, this is meant to show that if your enemy attacks you, you will respond with such force that the enemy will also be destroyed, and it is in the enemy's best interest to leave you alone. The arms race during the Cold War was an attempt by the US and the USSR to engage in brinksmanship and MAD to ensure that neither side would attack the other. Well, in Strangelove's world, the cost of the arms race finally took its toll on the Soviets, and they came up with a new solution: the Doomsday Device. The Soviets placed nuclear bombs in strategic places around the world, hooked them up to a central computer, and programed the computer to detonate them all if the USSR were ever to be attacked. And if anyone were to try and disable the device, the computer would send the detonation signal. Unfortunatley, the Soviets hadn't yet made this public knowledge yet (which defeated the purpose of such a deterrence).
Meanwhile, Gen. Ripper, who was completely unaware of the Doomsday Device (but probably would have gone through with his plan anyway), found a way to supersede a supposedly foolproof plan that would allow him to launch a nuclear strike without presidential approval. He gave his wing group a top secret order that was only meant to be used if Washington had been attacked, and when his XO tried to prove that everything was fine, Ripper convinced his men that any evidence to the contrary was an elaborate Soviet trick. So why did Ripper choose to attack the Soviets? He had begun to fear that the Soviets were trying to poison American water supplies by adding fluoride and sapping away our vitality. How did he come to this conclusion? After sexual intercourse, he felt an intense feeling of fatigue.
Yes, this movie blames most aspects of the Cold War on sexual inadequacy. In many ways, the arms race was a pissing contest, meant to show which side had more money and more firepower. And the two superpowers were fighting over different ideals, and trying to win over the world. The US felt it was its duty to stop the spread of communism and preserve the American way. Therefore, sex permeates the movie. President Merkin Muffley's name is derived from the words merkin (an 18th century female pubic wig) and muff (slang for the female groin). The President was kind of a pushover or, as his name would lead you to believe, a pussy. On the B-52, the crew is going through the survival kit in case they get shot down, and most items in the kit are meant for sex purposes (it includes a condom, nylons, and a small amount of rubles). Kong commented how a person could have "a pretty good weekend in Vegas" with the contents. There is only one woman in the entire film, and she is basically the sex slave of one of the Joint Chiefs. And at the end, when the government officials are trying to decide how to carry on the human race, they decide to create underground societies in abandoned mineshafts, and reason that there should be 10 females to every male.
General Turgidson, one of the Joint Chiefs, also points out that the Americans have to ensure that they will have more shaft space than the Soviets, in order to prevent a "mine shaft gap". In addition to all the sexual references, the film points out the absuridity of various Cold War actions. The mine shaft gap goes back to the idea of a missile gap, where each side feared having fewer nukes than the other. One of my favorite jokes was the "peace race"; the Soviet ambassador explained that the Soviets could no longer afford to keep up with the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. As I said, the Cold War can be likened to a pissing contest, and the US and USSR competed to get more weapons and to get a man in space first. Then, when the world wanted the Cold War to be over, each side wanted to look like it was doing more to promote peace. Hence the peace race.
And then there is the good doctor himself. It's weird to think about how the Soviets were our allies during World War II, when we needed their help to stop the Nazis, but as soon as we lost our common enemy, we became adversaries. But even stranger is that both sides employed ex-Nazi scientists in the building of our bombs and space rockets. I doubt either side would have gotten a man in space at the times we did if we hadn't used the German scientists. Dr. Strangelove serves as an expository character, revealing how the Doomsday Device works, explaining brinksmanship, and being all-together hilarious. He is an odd fellow who seems pathalogically loyal to Hitler despite the war being over for a few decades.
This is one of the greatest movies ever made, and I guarantee it will make you wet your pants from both laughter and fear.
Up next: Yossarian on Pianosa...
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