A child and adult of The Cold War. I saw Kubrick's classic, 'Dr. Strangelove' many times when it opened at ten years old.
The cast, plot, believeable sets, comedy, biting satire that I'd no problem understanding grabbed me then and is still on my personal Top 10 films.
What set the hook was the authenticity of the B-52 piloted by Slim Pickens. I've no idea how he managed to get the correct look and feel of the huge aircraft. Or managed to film within its confines. That secret died after the film was completed and the sets were destroyed.
Kubrick couldn't have asked for a better cast! Sellers was phenominal as Mandrake, Muffley and Dr. Strangelove. He'd also been cast to pilot the B-52, buy Slim Pickens became available and a classic was born!
George C. Scott performed flawlessly. As did Sterling Hayden in his lampoon of Curtis E. LeMay. Keenan Wynn (Maj.'Bat' Guano)brought the theater down when he blasted the Coke machine and got sprayed in the face.
I'll definitely be in line when the 40th Anniversary DVD hits the market!
Jack.
What was REALLY funny about the coke machine "shooting" scene (in order to get change, to use a pay phone to relay the call-back code, in order to avoid an all-out thermonuclear war), was Major Guano's deadpan reply to being quite literally ordered "to shoot that machine"----
"Ok, but you'll have to answer to the Coke-Cola Company for this..."
The checklist scene has long been amongst my all-time favorites, as others here also have mentioned.
I can see and hear it in memory, not having seen the film in twenty years or so...
I think Sellers played at least one more role in the movie.
Early on in the film, (in the first minute?) he was a flower deliverer.
Curtis LeMay was our dangerous doberman, selected early on in the cold war, to "send a message" to the roos-kies, along the lines of "don't even make us think you're attempting to pull something, and if you do actually "commit", this dog of ours will bomb the shi-ite out of you, without hesitation..."
He lives breathes dreams bomb 'em bomb em bomb em!
No joke, that.