Word: turgidson
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Classic performances by Peter Sellers in three roles: the crippled scientific adviser to the President, Dr. Strangelove; the effete U.S. president; and a British air force captain. George C. Scott turns in a good leer as a stodgy hawk, Buck Turgidson. Great choice of music, too--"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" as the planes head...
...that," Col. "Bat" Guano tells Mandrake as he shoots open a soda machine in order to get enough change to call the W hite House. General Ripper's discussion of Purity of Essence ranks with the great madnesses of all time. George C. Scott's portrayal of Buck Turgidson is far better than his Patton. Best of all, Peter Sellers managed to create Henry Kissinger five years before Nelson Rockefeller did. The climactic line of the film, "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk again" comes the closest I can think of to the epitaph for the twentieth century. Sellers' other characters...
...unctuous gambler Bert Gordon in The Hustler; the slithering prosecutor in Anatomy of a Murder, squinting at witnesses through slit eyes like a starving mongoose ready for the kill; the self-destructive doctor in Petulia; the cool, clipped English sleuth in The List of Adrian Messenger; General Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove, slapping his burgeoning paunch and producing a sound like a thunderclap from Olympus, wrestling the Russian ambassador to the floor of the war room as the world ends with a comic bang...
Absolutely No. Perhaps, but the good things do not always come from the predictable places. When Mike Nichols asked him to play a role in Catch-22, Scott declined-with emphasis. "I'd already played that character once when I did Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove. But even if I hadn't done Strangelove, I wouldn't have been in Catch-22. I think the hero, Yossarian, is the biggest cop-out there ever was. What the hell good does it do to take your clothes off, climb a tree and refuse to come down? What kind...