Which 1964 film had Peter Sellers playing three roles?

Which 1964 film had Peter Sellers playing three roles? The answer is Dr. Strangelove.

Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a black comedy about a nuclear crisis triggered by a paranoid United States Air Force general. Peter Sellers plays three distinct characters: U.S. President Merkin Muffley, British Royal Air Force officer Lionel Mandrake, and the wheelchair-using nuclear adviser Dr. Strangelove.

The performances let Sellers shift among contrasting accents, mannerisms, and political personalities. Muffley is controlled and diplomatic, Mandrake is an anxious but proper British officer, and Strangelove is an eccentric former Nazi scientist whose involuntary arm movements add to the film’s grotesque comedy. Sellers was originally expected to play a fourth role, Major T. J. “King” Kong, but an ankle injury and difficulty with the character’s Texan accent led to Slim Pickens taking the part.

The film was loosely based on Peter George’s 1958 thriller novel Red Alert. Its satire turns Cold War nuclear strategy, military bureaucracy, and deterrence theory into absurdist comedy. A common mix-up is saying Sellers played four roles in the finished film; the studio wanted four, but only three were ultimately completed by Sellers.