Comedy doesn’t come much darker than this. Once dubbed the documentary version of Dr. Strangelove, The Atomic Café is a brilliant collection of bizarre film clips from the Cold War era.

While the film has just been rereleased on DVD, sadly, there aren’t many extras. Still, the film is well worth seeing again. There are the infamous clips of the government’s Duck and Cover campaign (in which children were advised to cover their heads under their desks in the event of a nuclear attack) and the obligatory appearance by Ronald Reagan (who appears in a propaganda film).

Cineaste magazine once rightly raised some concerns about how this film would be read by contemporary audiences. People will watch the film, the argument went, and feel that people just didn’t know as much as we know now back in those days. The article went on to convincingly argue that in fact, most of these absurd clips were considered ridiculous at the time they originally aired anyway. While laughable, the antics of the propagandists have hardly become that way with age—they always were considered silly by anyone with a half a brain. The film, then, could leave viewers today with an easy sense of superiority over their predecessors.

Still, despite this valid point, Atomic Café is well worth the rental. It’s an odd look into some of the strangest propaganda ever created. :
—Matthew Hays