Screwball Speakeasy Club celebrates DR. STRANGELOVE’s 60th Anniversary, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the iconic masterpiece of subversive Cold War satire. A stunning indictment of the military-industrial complex, Stanley Kubrick’s fierce dark comedy about nuclear war remains an act of provocation that touches upon the absurdity of truth.
Our atmospheric speakeasy will be converted into a mid-century-modern cocktail lounge for this special screening. Spaces are limited. Tickets are $15. Popcorn, Themed Libations inspired by the film, and entry into a Raffle are Included. *This event will be in our community space; please use the side entrance. Doors open at 8 p.m., and the Film Begins at 8:15 p.m.
After Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer’s critical and commercial success, we are inspired to revisit the subversive satirical masterpiece released in 1964. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, utilizes sharp wit and dark humor to explore the dangers of unchecked authority. Stanley Kubrick originally intended for the film to be a serious dramatic adaptation of Peter George’s novel Red Alert, a chilling thriller about a paranoid American general initiating a nuclear bombing mission over the USSR. But he saw the absurdity behind the retaliatory strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and decided to film it as a comedy instead. Ending with footage of actual bomb tests (including the Trinity test), Kubrick’s painfully ironic take on Cold War anxiety is one of the fiercest satires of human folly ever to come out of Hollywood. 60 years after being released, the film remains embedded within public consciousness as a metaphor for the deadly consequences of science — and government — gone awry. In an acting tour de force, the matchless shape-shifter Peter Sellers plays three wildly different roles: Royal Air Force Captain Lionel Mandrake, timidly trying to stop a nuclear attack on the USSR ordered by a psychotic general (Sterling Hayden); the ineffectual and perpetually dumbfounded U.S. President Merkin Muffley, who must deliver the terrible news to the Soviet premier; and the demented Dr Strangelove, a mad scientist with an autonomous Nazi-saluting arm and perverse ideas about the post-apocalyptic world.
“Kubrick had this to say about finding humor in the terrifying concept of nuclear annihilation: “My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the early weeks of working on the screenplay. I found that in trying to put meat on the bones and to imagine the scenes fully, one had to keep leaving out of it things which were either absurd or paradoxical, in order to keep it from being funny; and these things seemed to be close to the heart of the scenes in question”. Kubrick quickly switched gears and gave up on making an intense drama, instead choosing to make a dark comedy and when Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was released, it was celebrated by critics and became a huge commercial hit at the box office, and decades later the film is still regarded as one of the greatest comedies of all time.” – A Taste of Cinema
‘Dr. Strangelove’ Is Basically a Documentary” –WIRED
Read this piece by The Federation Of American Scientists for more details about the true events referenced in the film.
As Stanley Kubrick’s satirical masterpiece Dr Strangelove turns 60, an ongoing mystery endures: who was the real-life inspiration for his demonic central character? Enjoy these BBC and The Guardian articles exploring the topic.
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