Believing that Commie-instigated water fluoridation has made him impotent, Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) launches an attack against the Soviet Union. Pretty soon President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) is sitting around the war table with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a gaggle of gimcrack generals led by Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), fielding doomsday scenarios. Desperate, the prez turns to ex-Nazi physicist Dr. Strangelove (Sellers, again), who calculates that the gene pool can survive such a theoretical annihilation. Dr. Strangelove’s look—tightly designed sets illuminated with expressive pools of light—created a militarized zone of otherworldliness for Kubrick’s brilliant farce.