Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Stanley Kubrick's film is the darkest and funniest of all dark comedies, finding endless humor in nuclear war! When U.S. General Jack D. Ripper launches a nuclear attack against the Russians to keep them from fluoridating the water-supply (he's a psycho), the president and joint chiefs of staff have to act quickly to avert nuclear war. Doesn't sound like something to laugh at, but Kubrick's point seems to be that building fail-safe systems to guard against the unthinkable will never work, since it is fallable, flawed and occaisionally insane people who will implement those systems. As George C. Scott's character, the unforgettable, gung-ho, gum-chewing General Buck Turgidson says, "The human element seems to have failed us." Througout the film we're assaulted by images of machines and systems that either malfuntion in the worst possible way or work perfectly to create disaster -- a Coca-Cola machine squirts someone in the eye; General Ripper mows his own troops down with a machine gun; the mad, ex-Nazi title character who's metal hand has a mind of its own and who's wheelchair makes him seem more machine than man; the Russian Doomsday Device -- designed as nuclear deterrant -- works perfectly, but the Russians haven't had the press converence yet to announce it to the public. The film is an amazing indictment of the madness of nuclear proliferation, brilliantly directed by Kubrick with wonderful sets by Ken Adams (the war-room set in particular has been often imitated) and hilariously acted, particularly by Sellers (in three roles) and Slim Pickens (as the captain of a Nuclear Bomber.) If you've never seen this film see it now! Jones' film debut.