Producer/director Stanley Kubrick had intended to make a serious film version of Peter George's apocalyptic novel Red Alert, but halfway through the adaptation process, he switched gears, and the result was Dr. Strangelove, one of the funniest and blackest comedies of the 1960s. At Burpleson Air Force base ("Peace is Our Profession"), psychotic general Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) pontificates on the subject of Godless Communism. Convinced that the Kremlin intends to sap Americans of their "precious bodily fluids," Ripper has ordered a presumptive air strike against the Soviet Union. Apprised of a potential nuclear crisis, US President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) tries to phone the Soviet premier, who is too drunk to grasp the situation. As apelike General "Buck" Turgidson (George C. Scott) struts about the War Room, discussing possible losses in an atomic war ("I don't say we won't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops-depending on the breaks"), Captain Lionel Mandrake (Sellers again) tries to infiltrate Ripper's office, hoping to retrieve the secret code that will recall the bombers. Learning that the Soviets have developed a "doomsday device" that will wipe out all mankind in case of a nuclear attack, the President orders that Ripper's bombers be blasted from the skies. But one of the planes, commandeered by Major "King" Kong (Slim Pickens-though Peter Sellers was slated to play this role, too!) manages to slip through and continue its mission. With time running out, Mandrake attempts to reach the President with the crucial code, only to be slowed down by over-militant Colonel "Bat" Guano (Keenan Wynn), who regards Mandrake as a "prevert". The president manages to relay the code to Kong, who disregards this vital information as a Russian trick. Reaching his target, Kong dislodges his recalcitrant A-bomb, straddling the deadly weapon and "riding" it to destruction like a bronco-buster. With the world at large doomed to annihilation, it is up to Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers yet again!), the President's crippled, half-lunatic nuclear adviser, to come up with a plan to repopulate the Earth-a plan that meets with the drooling approval of the lecherous Turgidson. He was secure enough in his comic vision to blow up the world at the end, even though the original novel has a happy ending. The film's subtitle How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb is beautifully elucidated in the closing scene: as mushroom clouds spout up all over the earth, the soothing voice of Vera Lynn, singing the wartime morale-booster "We'll Meet Again" assures us that, indeed, there is nothing left to worry about. As for the film's best line of dialogue, it's a toss-up between President Muffley's "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room" and Dr. Strangelove's exultant "Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!"