Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

darrenyaates This is an early short film made by the legendary Stanley Kubrick and you can already see the talent here. Its entire duration is devoted to a boxer as he prepares for the big day- his boxing match. Featuring some camera angles and techniques that became a staple in his later films Day of the fight should be a great film for students to watch as they understand one of the greatest filmmakers of the 21st century try his hands at a movie camera at the very beginning of a glorious career.

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.

Geofbob Unlike the earlier Day of the Fight in which one can see inklings of Stanley Kubrick's later achievements, this film is a minor piece of hackwork with little to be said in its favour. Indeed, the most telling feature is that Kubrick, who would later be known as an obsessive perfectionist, here displays indifference. Almost all documentaries are set up to some extent, but here it would have been clear to the slowest of the audience that the episode of the padre flying a mother and sick baby to a hospital was acted out specially for the film. The clumsiness is compounded by the narration, which goes out its way to inform us that the episode was spontaneous and shot as it happened. With a little more inventiveness, Kubrick could have made the sequence at least partially convincing. (This assumes that Kubrick was responsible for the commentary; perhaps he wasn't, and this was an early lesson for him on what producers can do if you don't insist on full control!)

clconway Viewers should be warned this is a newsreel-style documentary, not a fiction film -- it certainly doesn't stand comparison to Kubrick's mature work. There is no sync sound, only narration (in a booming newsreel voice) and post-looped sound effects. Fans of Kubrick will see some hints of his style in the cinematography -- a shot of Cartier riding in his convertible comes to mind -- but not much else. The narration gets overheated at times (it often pauses to reflect on "the waiting, the terrible waiting") and the "story" doesn't amount to much (it is a "day in the life" piece). The print I saw lacked the "first part" mentioned by the other reviewer, the part about the fans and the fight industry; it was only about ten minutes and follow Cartier from the time he wakes up and goes to church to after the fight. The fight footage will remind you of contemporary HBO coverage, since it was shot live from the floor of the arena, and Kubrick doesn't juice it up with any whipping, cracking, crunching or grunting sound effects. Overall, I thought this was an interesting picture, but I wouldn't urge anyone to go out of his way to see it, unless you are a Kubrick completist.