The brilliance of satirical
pitch and timing of “The Great Dictator”
– from Charlie Chaplin -- and “Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Bomb” – from Stanley Kubrick, and starring Peter Sellers –
cannot be summed up here. These are worthy of books. I saw these war comedies near
back-to-back and sat awed, not just at the performances of their lead actors,
but the sheer balls that both projects demanded from their creators. “Dictator”
takes on Hitler as a buffoon just as the Third Reich roared into terrifying
power, while “Strangelove” lampoons a world where nuclear war was considered a
sensible tool to save lives. We have
nothing in our present day to compare these films and real fears, so there’s no
use fishing for analogies. Chaplin’s movie follows a barber rattled by war and a
ruthlessly idiotic dictator, while Kubrick’s tale follows a crazed general
(Sterling Hayden) who sets off World War III, rattling the U.S. President and
entertaining a mad ex-Nazi rocket scientist turned U.S. war scientist. Chaplin
and Sellers are so amazing, it boggles the mind. Watching these classics now, it
shows the dearth of comedies we have now in cinemas, “Grown-Ups 2”? No. A+
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