1

,,

new in the counteroffensive to ln5nL

manship.
His SAC general (Sterling Hayden)
is not only irrational on the subject
of Russia, he has lost his reason
enk e l y andlaunches manlunds fareof h i s ,
well war to protectthepurity
bodily fluids f r o m the world scourge
of fluoridation. And, the bomber pilot
(Slim Pickens). when the
go signal
reaches him at his -patrol station, exa Texas
changes his crash helmet for
cowhands Stetson and takes off after
the target with the nbald exuberance
of a sheriffs posse..
The third officer i n this lunatic triangle 1s a Pentagon
staff
general
(George C Scott) who is preserved in
innocence by an impenetrable vulgarity. Be cannot distinguish between
nuclear war and the Rose Bowl game,
he seesworldtensions only in terms
of what guys we can beat (never mind
how we beat them). The spectacle, of
George Scottsallvating over the prosRobert Hatch
pect of destroying every human being
east of the Danube a t the cost OP only
In D r . Strangelove, the team of Stan- a few million American lives i k a tour
ley Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter de force in nausea It i s matched in
thefilm only by theshots o f AmeriSellers sharpens
the
humanitarian
message of such works as O n the can soldiers killing one another for
Beach and Fad-Safe by subJecting the possession of an a x force base somebomb-induced paranoia of OUT era to where i n the Southwest.
ironlc laughter. Irony is a
very tricky
implement for operating on the mass
Peter Sellers is quite liter& all
mind,
and
i t remains to be seen over the picture-he plays thr.ee parts:
whether in sharpeningtheir position a n RAF group captain attached to the
airbase, the President of theUnited
they maynot also havenarrowed It
States and
Dr
Strangelove himself.
I n anycase,theyhavemadefrom
Peter Georges novel, Red Alert, a pic- In the flrstof these roles, Sellers estabof Britishdisdain
that
ture that ishideously funny, in the full lishesatone
by itself could alienate$a good part of
meaning of the adverb.
The events and personnel of Dr. the Americanaudience
We have beStrangelovearethefamiliaringrediMrs.
come a greatbigcountrysince
ents of a considerable anti-anmhlla- Trollope put us across her knee, but
I
thecurledBritish
lip is stillintolair forcegeneral
Thecentral theme of the Mu- tionliterature-the
who decides on his own that the hour erableanywhere in the United States
seum of History and Technology is the
struggle to make a civilization, out of to strike has struck, the safety device outsidethe Anglophile lecturecircuit.
that fails to operate, *the indoctrinated- Sellers President,on the olther hand,
the cornucopia of materialrichness
bomber
crew that commits total mur- is a work of such persuasive art that,
that distinguishes our national history.
der
with
the trustfulness ofgood chil- although he in no way resembles any
Of our technical and engineering
officer of our Chief Executives, you can
genius there can be no doubt, and it, dren,theanachronisticstaff
an inwho
sees
himself
charging
the
foe scarcely believe that he is not
is betterillustratedhere
than anyspired
piece
of
mimicxy.
President
with
the
ghost
of
Patton
at
his
elbow,
where else. But to use these resources
the
embodiment Qf the
to raise the quality of life, to increase the decent, mediocre American Presi- Muffley is
its significance, to refineits crudity, dent who reasons dessrately on the American executive ideal - a man
phone with ahystericalRussian
pre- whose sole quality is a talent for detemper its harshness,elevateitshuciding whatothermen
should domier,
the
heavily
accented
mathemanistic values - these comprise the
and
the
fiendish
notion
here is to
matical
logician
who
plays
doomsday
realeffort. It would havebeen posproject such a man into a moment of
sible toavoid thisissue, to settle for chess-none of these is a freshindecision is
the presentation given, let us say, at vention in the prophetic journalism of ultimatecrisiswhereany
the Rosenwald Museum in Chicago, or the day. But as anyone who has read irrelevant.
The t w o great scenes for Sellers are
the Victoria and Albert Museum It Flash and Filigree or The Magic Chriswould have been easy to arrange two tian would expect, Terry Southern has one in which, as. the RAF officer, he
separate,
unrelated
museums.
That keyed the script to a ghastly slapstick persuades aredneckcombatofficer
(Keenan Wynnl to commit blasphemy
+is was not done we may take as a and an unbiinlcing nihilismthatare

seum of its kind in thenation, but

that h e technical sections alone, when
completed, will rivaltheDeutsches
Museum,
What to make of # h e humanisticelements of thenewmuseum
1s
still to be decided. Will they get on top
of the engmeering allure? Can Meaning compete for interest y i t h Things?
A brave h y is being made. Never was
theresuch
a n illustration of C . P.
Snows two cultures. In contrast to
the technology collections, wherethe
classifying spirit of, the Smithsomans
founding fathers still reigns supreme,
andmachinery, tools andequipment
are arranged like butterflies m trays,
thecurators
responsiblefor
history,
politxs, personalities and arts are determined to educate. The vitrines devoted to costume are witty as well as
tasteful, and their commentary is more
than informative; i t does notshrink
from profondezw. Thebasicseries of
rooms and panels in which the evolution of our national culture is illustrated 1s fresh, balanced and courageously edited. Even such a fascinating
aside as scrimshaw, over which much
could,bemade in alessdisciplined
situation, is limited to asinglecase
of twenty-three objects which so,mehow
say everything about the art and still
suggestthe
lonely sailors life, the
frugality and ingenuity, the art as well
as thecraftsmanship
of its subject,
To compress thevaluable and extensive art,qf,-ae Shakersinto har.dly
more space, and still allow it to make
a strongcontribution
to whatmust
become the central theme of the Museum, is a similar
accomplishment
(particularlywhencontrasted
to last
years exhlbition atthe Phdadelphia
Museum of Art?.

February 3, 1964

sign of maturityand a n effortthat

deserves our best hopes.
Jibes at the nationalattichave
long been fashionable. The Smithsonian contains as muchplain
memorabilia as more provincial collections.
It IS individual and corporate as well
asnational memorabilia. No serious
questionaboutdumping
it has been
raisedsince
thatday
following the
Philadelphia
Centennial
Exposition
when sixty freightcars of exhibition
materialwas delivered to the SmithsonianThe Issue is how i t shall be
being
used A long step forwardis
taken,andtheunfolding
of thisrebuilt collection and its wealth of new
m,aterial will deserve careful attention.
One only wishes It were n o t in that
terrlble buildmg

FILMS

127

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O s f d d , 744 Broad Street, Nelvamk, N. J. '

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W A 0 0 N , ALgonquin 5-1788 (N.Y.C.)

TEE

i y shootingopena
' Coca 'Coia-dispenser so that he can .getenough
change to phone 'the President, and
one iri which, a s President, he tries by
sweet Rotary Club reason to convince
a slightly drunk Russipn premier that
America is
the
most
confiding
of
friends despitethe factthat the entire Strategic Air Force is careening
toward the
industrial
and
military
heartland of the USSR.
Dr. Strangelove may well be the
partthat
Sellers most enjoyed, but,
despite the picture's title, it is curiously peripheral 'totheactionandthe
least persuasive element of the script.
That may be in part because the status
of the games-theory warriors has been
severely degraded in the months since
work began on thls picture. Aside from
that, however, Strangelove takes no
effectwe part in the events narrated
and he is conceived i n terms that go
beyond the- biting exaggeration of the
other roles, intu virtuoso fantasy. The
ex-Nazi theoretician's- computerized
brainis paralleled by a largely synthetic body, whose eyes floatbehind
glasses as thick as quartz, whose false
teeth click andclashlikeintricate
gears, and wh,ose.prosthetic right arm
snaps up i na n involuntaryFascist
in
salute ,as he writhes
spastically
his wheel chair. He is clearly intended
as theparticular'.horseman,
of o'ur
apocalypse, but in the pidure he never
becomes more than , an actor's ingenious conceit.

!.

Mr. Icubfick 1s a bokd man: b d

has talren a. whole complex of Ainerlca's basicassumptiom by the shoulders and given theln a rough shaking.
And h e has done ~t in arough style
that payslittle hecd to camera niceties or the n o r m ~ lluxury of commercial f h m ~ ~ a l r i n gbut
,
throws dl Its
emphasis on bravado acting and rapid,
uncompron~isingmelodrama. The gicture son~etimes falters intotoo o h o u s
gags (praiall's, the hussian ambassador wlth the hidden camera, the pi.1vale secretary with the Playboy vbick),
bbL overall 11 holds a cold blade of
scorn against the spectator's throat.
The danger is that i t Will be cheered
by the people who already abree with
i t and resented by I those shh unconverled. I<Librick can argue with good
logic (that if you are to expose the
fallacy of depending o n the hydrogen
bomb as the last bastioh of a free society, you must also ex$ose the ignorance of bigotry that intents and fosters such nonsense. But he and Terry

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Klille

128

Z I ~ No.
I

Z-;-(),j

Southern take a pleasure in flaytng

the& colAemporaries kat; may be more

effective as sadistic humor than as
adult education.
Elia Kazan's America, America
runs for threehours. It is a slow, a
tedious, picture. Partly, the tedium
resultsfrom Mr. Kazan's screen style.
He works methodically, filling
his
scenes w1th factitiousdetailandapparentlyuninterested in thewit and
is
allusiveness of whlch thecamera
capable. Every eplsode, almost every
shot, hasits ownbeginning,middle
and end, and the numberless playlets
are cemented together into a strip
which,
after
the first two hours,
threatens to stretch grimly to eternity.
also seems endless
Butthepicture
because it has nothing very interesting
to say. It is an account of how Mr
Kazan's uncle, a, Greek boy living underthe epicene cruelty of the Turks,
made good his determination to reach
this coulitry. The author-dlrector seems
to, feel that we should all.be deeply
moved by this peasant boy's vision of
the Statue B f Liberty. But dreams are
niovmg'or not according to the quality
of thedreamer,and
Mr. ICazan has
portrayed his relative-hero (in the person of a . singularly lumpsh young
actor) as uirrekponsive, ~rrespom~blc,
gullible, dlshonorable, slow-wltted and
very lucky-an urnmaginatwe egotist
who hadheardthat
Amerlca was' a
f a t lalld and who ckaved f a t as a pig
cravestruffles.
The Pu%.ire was shot largely on locatiolj. in Constantinople and 011 l l ~ e
conplains d f Anatolia, but itis
sttucted of what lodlc like stock shots
" m o b scenes, thieves' dives, burning
vdlages,cavalrychargesthroughterror-striclren lanes,withatouchhere
of cynicalsexuality,
that
andthere
could well have been culled h o m late,
late television. And theactors,
who
sbeak English i n ,avariety of comic
accents, malre almost no pretense to
being anything but actors enduring a
ralher Spartan life 011 location.They
are ~ i o ta'slrecltogive much, and they
surely do not voluntcer. ,
Mr. Kaza-11 apparenLly saw somcthmg beauh1ul and uplifting 111' hit;
uncle's pilgrimago, but he has had the
misfortune to mislay whatever i t was
in the character
thal
might
haw
given thedccount Its general human
slgnif1cance. The tone is all wronglnatvkish cyfiicism isan
impossible
key or heroic narative; and 111 three
hours one can develop a very actwe
dislike f6r a picacsque character who
utterly lacks a d t y or charm.
I

'The NATION

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