My favorite films--social satire

I've grouped my favorite movies into some rather arbitrary categories for purposes of review; feel free to argue that my categories are wacked or that a particular movie doesn't belong where I've put it. First up, movies I'll label as social satire.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), and Network (1976) are my favorite films of social satire. The Manchurian Candidate takes on the paranoid, McCarthyite political far right, and, less obviously, the extreme left; Dr. Strangelove takes on paranoid far-right militarism; and Network takes on the television news business.

Network is the most sharply satirical of the group--and, some might argue, the scariest in its prescience about the future of the institution it satirizes. Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duval, and Ned Beatty are hilariously over-the-top in the film, and Finch's "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" because a catchphrase during the mid-1970s. The plot involves cynical, unscruplous network executives who take advantage of an anchorman's on-the-air meltdown to boost ratings. Network is a great dark comedy, chock full of extreme characters and great performances. Holden's lectures on the evil of television are a downer, and they're totally unnecessary given the wackiness in the film. There's even a sex scene with Holden and Dunaway (their characters had a fling) in which she continues talking about ratings even as she achieves orgasm. It's a very, very funny movie, and one in tune with its post-Watergate times, when even the most trusted institutions in the country were being doubted.

Dr. Strangelove and The Manchurian Candidate are very different films, but they both satirize the paranoia of the McCarthy era and the Cold War. Dr. Strangelove is a dark comedy with a deadly ending--who can forget Slim Pickens riding atop an atomic bomb?--while The Manchurian Candidate demonstrates in the person of Angela Lansbury (a McCarthy-ite who actually was a Soviet agent) that the far right and the far left have more in common with each other than with the moderate wings of their own movements. Frank Sinatra was a much better actor than one might think, and, in the Manchurian Candidate, he makes smoking a cigarette look very, very cool. Peter Sellers was a comic genius, and Dr. Strangelove featured some of his best characters . The scary thing when I watch those movies now is the thought of how scary, uneasy times can present opportunities for opportunistic political leaders who will think nothing of taking away liberty in the name of security. This is not meant as a dig at George W. Bush or anybody else who is currently in office; it's just an observation. Both movies are heavy on the politics, but both are great works of political satire.

IMHO, social satire, in whatever form, is significant to the functioning of a free society. Every institution needs rock-throwers making fun of it to keep it honest. Thoughts? Comments?