10 Sarcastic Movie Pricks You Can't Help But Love

4. President Merkin Muffley - Dr Strangelove

President Merkin Muffley From Dr Strangelove
Columbia Pictures

€˜Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room€™

Why the President and not the mad doctor with the renegade hand? Or Private Mandrake of the €˜strange thing is they make such bloody good cameras€™ line for that matter? And is it strictly sarcasm?

Well perhaps not in the letter of the ironic law but in tone all of the Dr Strangelove film is both satirical and sarcastic. Remember how conciliatory Muffley attempts to be? Heaped in the situational irony of the War Room, with the stakes at the highest they could ever be, Sellars' turn as the beleaguered president brought about cinema€™'s greatest ever appeasement telephone cold-call.

Peter Sellers As Muffley In Strangelove
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The insane, drunk Russian against the trying-to-keep-cool American President; the cold war communique taken ad extremis, the Doomsday device, the conversation between the two most important men on Earth...

Contributor
Contributor

David Hynes is a freelance writer, working in print, online, on stage and for screen. A film and book enthusiast, he has just finished his first novel.