Good story, Not enough for a whole film

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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.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.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.

With regard to some of the criticisms offered in IMDb comments, Stanley was 23 years old when he made this 8:09 minute long newsreel segment in 1951. One might also keep in mind that the newsreel companies of the day, such as Henry Luce's 'March of Time', determined and controlled both the content and form of what they produced and distributed.According to "Kubrick" by Michel Ciment: When March of Time went into liquidation, RKO bought the "Day of the Fight" (which Kubrick and Alex Singer shot in 1950) for a hundred dollars more than its production cost, but sweetened the deal by offering Kubrick an advance of $1,500 dollars for a second documentary, "The Flying Padre". (http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/milestones.html) "Day of the Fight" had it's world premiere as a short subject (it was part of an RKO series entitled "This Is America") on April 26 1951, which is generally regarded as the date of Kubrick's official entry into the film industry - despite any earlier theatrical circulation of "The Flying Padre"."The Flying Padre' is now available on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqTlxRYt7B0)

Its 8 minutes long and is about the flying priest who helps wherever he is needed, he just jumps into his plane and flies there. The main focus is about the kind and understanding padre that teaches the kids to not bully each other and a episode with a mother having a sick child on a ranch many miles away from a hospital. Padre is to the rescue.This is only for curiosity value, being made by Kubrick it has none of his mark on it. Its just for getting a foot in the industry I guess, or money. Situations are clearly staged and not so very well done, the voice-over is one sided and the shooting is diverse, but serves no special purpose. Kubrick the perfectionist turned up later I guess.

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!)