Stanley Kubrick directs Peter Sellers, George C Scott and Sterling Hayden in this Cold War comedy.

The second Kubrick I’ve watched this year that has gone down just a slight notch in my estimation. The slow methodical pace gets a little in the way of the satire, there’s definitely room for a few more gags. That does not downgrade its masterpiece status though. Still as a comedy it aches in your bones afterwards, as an imaginative take of the how world might have ended it feels eerily accurate. Superb production design, a relatively restrained Sellers straightmanning while “proper actors” Scott and Hayden blast out these big, masculine but terrifyingly daft turns cut this above pretty much any comedy churned out by professionals clowns. Amazing stuff moment by moment.

9