Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Acensbart
Excellent but underrated film
Pacionsbo
Absolutely Fantastic
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
This is one of the most renowned directors of the 20th century finding his style right in front of our eyes. In the early 1950s, Stanley Kubrick shot a handful short documentary films on topics with certain significance for American culture back then. Before moving on to priests and seafarers, he started with a 16-minute documentary on the unusual profession of prizefighters. This is the very first film by the mastermind.Now imagine, you wake up in the morning. And there's Stanley Kubrick in your bedroom pointing a camera at your dozy face. This is exactly what happened to professional prizefighter Walter Cartier (admittedly Kubrick was still a nobody at this point) who is accompanied the whole day of his fight. Kubrick delivers the pictures and renowned television journalist and Emmy Award nominee Douglas Edwards tells the story.I would say that this is only for you if you're really into boxing, especially the early years or a Kubrick completionist. While some parts are good, mostly the actual fight sequences towards the end or the introduction to the topic in the first 4 minutes, some scenes are quite the opposite, like the "last look in the mirror"-scene which could have been found at a MST3000-episode as well.
tieman64
"I saw Barry Lyndon at the Cinerama Dome on a screen so big I just went, 'Oh, my god!' " – Brian De Palma The early 50s. Stanley Kubrick quits his job at "Look" magazine and, intent on becoming a film director, directs "Day of the Fight", a short documentary for RKO Radio Pictures.The film, shot for almost four thousand dollars, all of which was gathered by Kubrick (borrowing from friends, relatives and his own funds), takes an innovative approach to the newsreel format, Kubrick functioning as director, producer, writer, sound-man and cinematographer.Because he had total control, "Day of the Fight" remains the best of Kubrick's early shorts. Whatever its flaws, it's a gritty, interesting little flick, demonstrating the kind of naturalism and humanity that many of his early "Look" photographs exhibited. Like many Kubrick films, "Day of the Fight" also has a methodical quality, Kubrick's camera lingering on the daily routines and pre-fight rituals of a young boxer. The film captures the claustrophobia of 1950s New York, the impersonality of urban life and the violence of the boxing ring. Some kinetic sequences recall Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss" and the hand-held boxing sequences in "Barry Lyndon", but the quieter moments impress as well, each one imbued with a kind of pre-fight anxiety, every shot oozing dread, anticipation and nervous energy.Unfortunately, RKO's "March of Time" newsreel went into liquidation and RKO was only able to buy "Day of the Fight" for a hundred dollars more than its production cost, though they liked the short enough to offer Kubrick fifteen hundred dollars to film a second documentary called "Flying Padre"."Flying Padre", Kubrick's follow up short for RKO, is thus purely a work for hire. You can sense that Kubrick had zero interest in this story, an insignificant little tale about a Catholic priest in New Mexico who uses a small plane to tend to his 400 square mile parish. Kubrick wrote the short's narration and has his small cast re-enact several moments from the priest's past (he takes a sick child to his mother, flies to an isolated ranch, gives staged sermons etc), but with the form and content of the short controlled by the newsreel companies of the day, there's little room for anything interesting other than a couple neat camera angles and some good cinematography.8/10 – "Day of the Fight" 5/10 – "Flying Padre" Of interest to Kubrick completists only.
Michael_Elliott
Day of the Fight (1951) *** (out of 4) Kubrick's second short shows us a day in the life of a middle-weight boxer as he prepares for a fight. Even with the boring narration, this film here moves a lot better and the fight scene is rather interesting because it's shown complete as it happened. You can spot Kubrick in a few scenes with his camera.Flying Padre (1951) ** (out of 4) Stanley Kubrick's first film is a documentary about a priest in New Mexico who needs a plane to keep up with all his people. This is a really boring and flat film even with its 9 minute running time. The priest really isn't that interesting and the narration is flat and stiff. God knows better things were to follow from Kubrick.Seafarers, The (1953) ** (out of 4) Overly long and dreadfully boring promotional film for the Seafarers Union, which basically tries to teach people why they should join. This is historically interesting only because it's Stanely Kubrick's first film in color. The rest is pure boredom and it's no wonder Kubrick doesn't want this film seeing the light of day.
harrsh85
i had this movie for many months in my pc, i am die hard fan of stanley kubrick and i am always fascinated by him but something really not interested me to watch this movie mainly because of the bad print i had, recently my pc got overloaded with lot of storage so i was going through files so that i can delete and maintain freespace so in that kind of situation i saw this movie, i was amazed by the way it was made by that time; that too with that kind of budget, since i want to delete i watched it again, now i am in dilemma whether to keep it or delete it because i feel multiple viewings will help me a great deal in my profession bec i too come from same profession, i think you understand how good it is.we can clearly understand that the filmmaker wanted to explore the details about boxing for which he cleverly used point of view method bec only the persons involved immersely in something will know the pros and cons of that thing so it is a clever move to go that way.this is a docu drama but at the same time the central character is the real person as depicted. the detailing and the way they shot was mindblowing but it will be exciting only when you see from that point of time where film-making is a difficult task.the style of this film is very similar to stanley kubrick's another film called the killing which released after this movie like in the voice of the commentator, lighting, camera angles, music, etc.., this is not a positive movie about boxing and at the same time it is not negative too, this is a truthful movie about boxing and boxers.there are chances that this movie can be a great influence with martin scorsese for his film raging bull, even though that is a true story as this is too, film-making might have influenced from this movie but if that is true you must understand what a great thing it is to get influenced for 70's movie from 50's movie; that is stanley kubrick.
