Dad Strangelove: A Film About Terry Southern

“The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock—shock is a worn-out word—but astonish. Where you find smugness, you find something worth blasting—and I want to blast it. The world has no grounds whatever for complacency.” – Terry Southern

DAD STRANGELOVE is a roller-coaster journey through the life and times of Terry Southern, a prescient satirist and reluctant ‘60s icon who challenged society’s mores with his novels (Candy, The Magic Christian, Blue Movie), and transformed such films as Dr. Strangelove and Easy Rider with his provocative, often hilarious imprint. With unique access to his father’s literary archives, award-winning writer and filmmaker Nile Southern interweaves home movies, archival footage, filmed conversations, and a trove of historic and previously unseen photographs to bring insight and poignancy to the man Gore Vidal once called “the most profoundly witty writer of his generation.” As a link between the Beats and the Beatles, ‘Quality Lit’ and Hollywood, Terry Southern emerges as a writer with a Zelig-like presence at the center of his raucous times. Through his work, Terry Southern forewarned about the dangers of greed, censorship and a militaristic society, making the completion of this documentary more timely than ever.