Still a classic: Dr Strangelove

Watched Stanley Kubrick's 1963 b/w classic, Dr. Strangelove, last night - initially worried about how it would hold up over time - and found that it held up perfectly - totally watchable and engaging film today anddoes not feel in the least bit antiquated (the b/w cinematography was a throwback even in its day). The film is a complete rarity in that it's both tense and exciting and laugh-out-loud hilarious at the same time. Peter Sellers in three roles (apparently Kubrick later quipped that he got "three for the price of six") makes the movie of course - along with the over-the-top performance of George C. Scott - but mostly it's Kubrick's genious: every single scene perfectly designed and thought through: the famous war room scenes of course, with Sellers as the president endlessly on phone with Soviet counterpart, Scott's histrionics, the tussle with the Soviet ambassador (You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"), but also the scenes on the b-52 bomber shot just as if this were an action thriller (the source book, Red Alert, was a very good and serious thriller, I read it back in the day, which Kubrick entirely transformed and reimagined), the lockdown at the air force base, with General Ripper going insane and Sellers as a British officer trying to talk him gently back to reality, the assault on the base - a gruesome and troubling scene handled with just the right understatement - it's astonishing how well Kubrick counterbalanced the various moods and elements and that he could make a great comedy out on and end-of-the-world scenario. A film entirely worth seeing for its historic, comic, and entertainment values, today as back in '63.