Can anyone forget the sight and sound of actor Chill Wills, riding an atomic bomb like a bucking bronco all the way down to Russia somewhere? If there is one sure sign of American patriotism cloaked in paranoia, or is it the other way around) this scene is surely the highlight of the very BLACK comedy. Yes, it is a comedy, even though it was produced and released after Kennedy's assassination and while the Vietnam War was escalating and Americans still feared Communism as much as ever.
The film is also a tour de force for actor Peter Sellers, especially when he portrays what is obviously a parody of Werner von Braun, the ex-Nazi brought to the U.S. at the end of the war to continue his work on the A-bomb that he started under Hitler. The fact that, from time to time, he couldn't help raising his arm in a Hitler salute, as if it were merely a nervous tic, only highlights the disdain with which Stanley Kubrick held those who changed politics at the drop of a dollar.
If there is something truly frightening about this film, aside from the over-the-top scenario and plot lines, it is the ineptness with which the leaders of the world act. Perhaps, in retrospect, the entire screenplay was not so imaginary and far-0out as it seemed. Over the years, the idea of an atomic bomb has been overshadowed, of course, by Reagan's Star War Initiative, a defense system that spent billions of futile dollars and achieved neither world peace nor American peace of mind; and now, of course, the new war not merely on Muslim terrorists, but seemingly anyone in America who looks swarthy and "could be" dangerous. With just a few changes of scenes and actors, Dr. Strangelove could take place in the 21st century, with a vital "Strangelove" role assigned to the Chinese-American scientist at Los Alamos who was hurriedly arrested and accused (and painstakingly slowly released and found not guilty)
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