Waste of time

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

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.

"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.

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.

It's true, I would not know anything about this short RKO-type documentary if not for the fact that it was the first time that iconoclast Stanley Kubrick picked up a camera with rolling film stock to be screened in theaters. But as a student filmmaker myself, I find it of the utmost fascination - even when it is in a jittery, ragged print like the one I obtained on video - to see the early, primitive works of famous directors (Last Year in Vietnam by Stone, My Best Friend's Birthday by Tarantino, and Les Mistons by Truffaut are others) and the foundations of style. Day of the Fight, to be sure, is not something of incredible note, and it would not be until the Killing that Kubrick would create a great film. Yet through this film, I was constantly aware- and pleased- by how this very typical kind of story was executed.In a way, it's almost of more worth to watch this film with the sound off; the narration, while good at getting to know the very basics of this boxer that's being profiled, it's also a distraction and not very revelatory. As just a succession of images, however, it works a lot more. It's the kind of short documentary that is 70% real, and 30% staged, with Kubrick following the boxer and his brother on the streets of New York, leading up to the fight that will bring him recognition. When looking at how Kubrick uses the camera, it seems fairly simple and, for those looking for all of the Kubrick trademarks, disappointing. But in just looking at how he uses the camera, how he gets his subjects in frame, and the importance of composition and the subtleties of lighting, it's really quite good. And the fight sequence, filmed by Kubrick and a friend, has some cut-away shots that almost ring of the future of Scorsese's Raging Bull (though, of course, still primitive).Is it more of a curiosity, a film for Kubrick die-hard completists looking to have all 16 of his works, docs and features, in their collection? Sure, but it is also one of the better short doc's he made in his formative years, taking a subject he was already interested in (he was a photographer for Look magazine with this boxer under profile) and going a step further. As his sort of film school, this is in terms of the image even more fascinating than the lackluster 'doodle on the fridge' film Fear and Desire.