Video: 'Dr. Strangelove' (trailer)

(Wednesday, January 29, 1964, 10:30 a.m. EST) — Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a British-American black comedy film which satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States, opened this morning at the Victoria, 1547 Broadway (at W. 46th St.), in Manhattan.

Video: 'Dr. Strangelove (1964) - Movie' (8 clips)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the film starred Peter Sellers (in three roles), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn and Slim Pickens.

The story concerns an unhinged United States Air Force general who orders a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.

Video: 'Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove'

It separately follows the President of the United States, his advisors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a Royal Air Force exchange officer as they attempt to prevent the crew of a B-52 (following orders from the general) from bombing the Soviet Union and starting a nuclear war.

The film is often considered one of the best comedies ever made and one of the greatest films of all time. In 1998, the American Film Institute ranked it twenty-sixth in its list of the best American movies (in the 2007 edition, the film ranked thirty-ninth), and in 2000, it was listed as number three on its list of the funniest American films.