It has been said that George C. Scott was very upset with the choices director Stanley Kubrick made concerning his performance in Dr. Strangelove. Reportedly, Kubrick picked Scott's most over-the-top takes for the film, even after assuring the actor he was going to pick more subdued ones. Kubrick's deception was fortuitous, however, because the near cartoonish performance by Scott as General Buck Turgidson is one of the most memorable in the film. With all his joyous mugging and full on war hawk bravado during what should be a sobering moment for humanity, Scott encapsulates what makes this movie a near perfect black satire.
While the apocalyptic events of Strangelove would seem to imply a bleak film, it is actually a pretty gleeful, freewheeling comedy. And no one in the cast seems to be brought down by the impedning End of the World scenario. Kubrick exposes something as absurd as the arms race for just that, complete absurdity. When only a few atomic bombs could single-handedly destroy the world as we know it, it seems like it HAS to be a joke that the world's major powers want to make sure they have more than the other guy. And military men like Buck are in on the joke. Shown through his cavalier attitude to collateral damage and eagerness for the success of the US military, despite the tragic outcome.
The film is ludicrous though out though. The very title itself seems almost an offhand addition. As if the filmmakers were struggling to find one and just chose Dr. Strangelove, because he made them laugh the most during filming. The alternate title to the film doesn't shoot for anything more serious either.
Bringing to mind that title, the characters in the film DO seem to stop worrying about the bomb. While President Merkin Muffley does show the most concern out of all the characters, he really can't bring himself to express emotions any stronger than mild discomfort and anger at the bureaucrats around him.
The bureaucratic fail-safes that keep the calamities going until inevitable doomed climax are all beautifully constructed as well. It's a perfect satire of a system that has so much concern for protocol that it never stops to see if it's being tripped up by it's own red tape. Each safeguard is so cautious that it has another series of safeguards that only make matters worse. The film is so meticulously over-constructed in the way it depicts the real life meticulous over-construction of a bloated war chest a nation uses that it's almost a perpetual motion machine of doom.
Which is why characters like Buck do-and should- slap themselves on the back. They've done an air tight job guaranteeing all their weapons systems work perfectly. As Dr. Strangelove states in regard to the Doomsday Machine at the end of film, a machine that is so complex as to be triggered but then never untriggered is "essential." Of course, it's essential for military men and mad scientists, because they are really only dealing in an abstract war of fear. But translate that fearmongering into reality, and they're at a loss to appropriately assess the problem. So, they just congratulate themselves on a job well done, without thinking of what the job is they've actually done. Which is pretty ridiculous if you think about it.
