Buck Up!

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is equal parts frightening and funny.  And between the laughs and sheer ridiculousness in the War Room, there is a real sense of panic that transcends the screen (I can only imagine how intensified this was in context).  I suppose the panic starts to live and breath and grow with the disclaimer that precedes the movie because it’s an unexpected piece of nonfiction that isn’t normally required in our fantastical little movie universes.  And then, when General Ripper, a powerful man whose craziness does nothing to diminish his control until his death, warns us to trust no one and fire on anything within 200 yards, a little piece of our minds discards that disclaimer . . . because we’ve seen what American politics and military are really capable of.

But this is a masterful black comedy because hilarity is perfectly juxtaposed with the grim.  People marvel at Peter Seller’s triad of performances a la Alec Guiness in Kind Hearts and Coronets.  And he is fantastic.  And I’m a big Peter Sellers fan.  But, for my money, in this film, I’ll take George C. Scott as Buck Turgidson.  He absolutely killed me.    He is so frightfully, deliciously, stereotypically American, but he manages to create a very individual character within that broad range of possibilities.  His qualm with allowing the Russian diplomat into the War Room, even in time of immense crisis?  “But he’ll see the big board!” delivered in the brash whine of an impudent child.  The slurs and insults he slings at will, completely unaware of the social situation, make him the War Room Rube.    When he finds out that the Russians have a Doomsday Machine, we expect a full-scale tantrum of pounding fists and kicking legs . . . and George C. Scott lets us know that that’s what ole Buckie really wants to do.  This man with so much power and national presence is, at the core, the brattiest of little boys: picking fights and eyeing the other boys’ toys in the big, bad War Room, his own very expensive playground.  And when Buck has managed to make this have some semblance of a game, we can laugh a little, albeit uneasily.