Cold War film presentation Thursday at museum

MOSES LAKE — A classic film about the Atomic Age – and its worst-case scenario – will be presented at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Moses Lake Civic Center Auditorium. “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” is the finale of the current exhibit at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center.

Admission is free. The exhibit “Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow,” a look at the American reaction to the Atomic Age and what The Bomb would mean, closes Nov. 10.

The film will be introduced by Theresa Barlen of the Ellensburg Film Festival. Barlen said she’s a longtime fan of the movie’s director, Stanley Kubrick.

“In 1970 I drove from Cle Elum to Seattle to see ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’” she wrote. “I was only a kid and didn’t know who Stanley Kubrick was, but it would be just the beginning of my fascination with all things Kubrick.”

Kubrick was an American-born film director who lived the last 40 years of his life, and made all of his films in that 40 years, in Great Britain. That includes “Dr. Strangelove,” which is the tale of what happens when a U.S. Air Force general loses his mind and orders a nuclear strike on the then-Soviet Union.

The film was released in January 1964, a little over a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and during the 13 days of the crisis, nukes and nuclear exchanges were real possibilities. In interviews Kubrick said he found the whole idea of nukes and nuclear war to be absurd, and adapted a novel into the black comedy.

“I was stunned and excited by the film, That film was seared into my brain forever,” Barlen said. One of the supporting roles was played by Slim Pickens, who worked in rodeos for a couple of decades before starting a film and TV career. “The fact that Slim Pickens, a local hero on the rodeo circuit, was in the film only made it that much better.”

Barlen is a board member for the Ellensburg Film Festival, and helps select the movies shown.

“Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow” details the ways the U.S. government and regular American citizens coped with the Atomic Age and the possibility of a nuclear exchange. The traveling exhibit is supplemented with Grant County-focused materials from the museum’s collection.

People who want more information can contact the museum, 509-764-3830.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.