Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a 1964 satirical black comedy which was co-written, produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. A hit on its initial release and widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, Dr. Strangelove lampoons the Cold War fear of and attitude towards Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the idea that if one side were to bomb the other then the other side would retaliate and so on until both were destroyed. Although a seemingly brave subject matter for a comedy it is in fact part of a long line of films which poke fun at serious issues of the day. Both M.A.S.H. and more recently Team America: World Police have managed to find humour in solemn subjects but a very strong argument can be made that Dr. Strangelove is the greatest of them all.

The plot concerns a wayward and mentally disturbed US Air Force General who sends his squadron of B-52 bombers, armed with nuclear bombs towards Russian targets and then closes down all lines of communication and removes all abort codes. With the world close to its end, various men attempt to halt the planes from reaching their targets. British actor Peter Sellers plays no less than three characters here, and plays them all brilliantly. He performs as RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake who attempts to persuade the wayward General Jack D. Ripper (Stirling Hayden) to stop as well as playing US President Merkin Muffley who is in the War Room and his wheelchair bound ex-Nazi advisor Dr. Strangelove.

My Fair Lady

The winner of eight Academy Awards including the coveted Best Picture, My Fair Lady is based on the stage musical of the same name and tells the story of a young working class flower seller called Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) who is taken in by an arrogant phonetics Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) who bets that he can transform the young woman’s gutter mouth and slovenly demeanour into that of a lady who could pass for Aristocracy under close inspection in just six months. The film can rightly be called a classic and contains some of the most recognisable songs in all of musical cinema.

The film is lavishly designed and very well made, featuring some incredible sets which have such a realistic look that I wasn’t totally convinced they weren’t real, despite being more than familiar with some of the locations. The entire film was shot in California but creates a vision of London as real as I’ve seen in any American film. And not a single shot of Big Ben or a ‘London, England’ caption. Bliss. It is also a very well acted film on the whole with just one exception. Rex Harrison won a more than deserved Oscar for his performance and Stanley Holloway and Gladys Cooper were also recognised with deserved nominations but the actor who lets the film down is its lead, Audrey Hepburn.