Let us briefly sojourn to a time when the world lived in constant fear of nuclear holocaust and political comedies were no laughing matter.  The year is 1961.  The place is Berlin, Germany, a city which Berlin Wall Online creator Heiko Burnhardt shares was newly divided by a 96 mile long concrete wall.  The massive wall, which stood as a ubiquitous symbol of the Cold War and cost many Berliners their lives, also ruined Billy Wilder’s latest comedy, One, Two, Three.  This political satire, which was set in Berlin just a few short months prior to the construction of the wall, was considered to be in terribly poor taste for creating a farce of Communist and capitalist relations in the city, and as such was a massive flop, shares Wilder biographer Gene Philips (252, 257).  People living in constant fear for their lives were not a subject for humor, and yet again and again directors of the 1960s dared to turn a critical eye on governments on either side of the wall through political satire.  Six such films were Carl Foreman’s The Mouse that Roared (1959), Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (1961), Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (copyright 1963 but released in 1964), Norman Jewison’s The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming (1966), Gordon Douglas’ In Like Flint (1967), and Theodore J. Flicker’s The President’s Analyst (1967).  Borrowing the term of critic Bosley Crowther, these films were often considered “sick”, when they were created and yet today enjoy cult status both in America and abroad for their daring and unique insights into the political climate of the Cold War.

          Social unrest in the 1960s created an era in which political criticism was a popular form of self-expression. The American people had grown suspicious of their own government.  Atomic historian Margot Henricksen writes that “the revolt expanded to encompass a broad range of issues that mirrored the larger concerns raised in the civil defense debate: the morality and sanity of America, the reliability and responsibility of the government, the fear of extinction and extermination, [and] the quest for peace and a new society” (241).  These issues acted as the fuel for screenwriters and directors who wished to lend their voice to the revolt or merely offer a biting social commentary.  Cold War comedies in particular relied upon dark humor to illustrate and criticize the absurdity and terror of the national and global situation.  These comedies were powerful tools, as Henricksen further explains “the culture of dissent in the early 1960s exploited the subversive power of laughter against the American past and the American system of power, and the many variants of humor employed-from satire and ridicule to fantasy and irony-shared a single mood: black” (245).  Absurd as they were, these were not the light screwball comedies which proliferated throughout WWII.  These comedies were on a somber mission to demand introspection and alleviate tensions.   

          Cold War comedies are a reflection of the absurd times in which Americans were living.  They were terrified, and yet the situation was so senseless that a critical examination could not help but elicit laughter.  It was a hilarious situation, a point which Cold War comedies sought to illustrate, exploit, and criticize.  They challenged audiences with three common themes: a critical eye on all governments, sympathy for the “little guy”, and a call to laugh at the bomb in order to “love” the bomb.  This formula for Cold War humor was repeated again and again and can be found to varying degrees in each of the films introduced above.  These films therefore acted both as a mirror and a model for society in the 1960s, a mirror whose reflections left many uncomfortable.  This project will consider each film to analyze how its theme, execution and reception illustrate the absurdity of the Cold War and the laughable world of the 1960s on the edge of oblivion.

Next: The Mouse That Roared