After The Mouse That Roared (1959) he developed a reputation for playing multiple parts, one which slightly dogged his career, but on this occasion all three characters are carefully thought-out and integral to the film. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Ken Adam’s production design – but in particular to the wondrous playing of Peter Sellers. Some people, including myself, might even say that it is Stanley Kubrick’s most durable achievement and if it is then that is due to various factors – Terry Southern’s script, George C. Over 50 years later, Dr Strangelove has lost none of its power to provoke, amuse and disturb.
The film as a whole remains highly underrated and one of the most interesting British excursions into noir territory. As he and Todd begin to switch roles when Meadows falls apart, Sellers never loses sight of the character and remains riveting to watch. His specificity is very much in evidence here, right down to the shark grin and the chummy northern accent. Initially brimming with bonhomie, his turns into nastiness are sudden and startling and, according to his wife at the time, often taken home with him. But good as they are, it really comes alive when Sellers is on screen as Lionel Meadows, a small-time crook who steals cars. The seedy London milieu of the film is well captured by John Guillermin and the cast, headed by Richard Todd and Mervyn Johns. It’s one of his very few non-comic parts and he’s remarkably effective in it, although the contemporary critical reception was unkind and led him to decide that it wasn’t an experiment he wished to repeat. This is a real oddity in the Sellers filmography, a straight crime thriller in which he plays a serious, villainous role.
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