Day of the Fight
'Day of the Fight' shows Irish-American middleweight boxer Walter Cartier during the height of his career, on the day of a fight with black middleweight Bobby James, which took place on April 17, 1950.
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- Cast:
- Stanley Kubrick , Douglas Edwards
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Reviews
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Good concept, poorly executed.
good back-story, and good acting
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Had Stanley Kubrick never gone on to become a famous director, three of his early films would never have been packaged together for sale on a DVD. That's because these films are cheap shorts made by an eager and unknown director--hardly works of art. They show none of the director's expert touches--they are just standard short films you might have seen in the early 1950s.Of the three films in this package, the only one really worth seeing for most people is DAY OF THE FIGHT. While it's not a great film (made with a cheap hand-held camera) and seems rather "square", it does remind you of his first feature, KILLER'S KISS and it surely provided an excellent training ground for his craft. In other words, if Kubrick hadn't done a "throwaway" film like DAY OF THE FIGHT, he wouldn't have been able to make such a great low-budget film like KILLER'S KISS.Overall, a film most could skip but perhaps worth seeing for fans of this director or students who are in film school.
It's always interesting to go back to the beginning of a director's career, in this case Stanley Kubrick's, and take a look at his earlier work. Day of the Fight just happens to be the first film by now legendary director Kubrick who is widely regarded as one of the best contemporary directors ever. This film is around about 15-20 minutes long and revolves around the build up to a boxing match the study of the build up will revolve around.Interestingly enough and perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that it was inspired by a photograph Kubrick himself took for a 1949 edition of a magazine. This could be seen as an early example of suspense, with constant reference to the boxing match and its importance made through narrator Douglas Edwards, a good casting for the serious and deep voice the film required. As a short, it works and the suspense and build up maintains some sort of interest as the montage plays out. Kubrick includes all sorts of shots and angles creating the nice range for the eye, my favourite being the low angle on the statue of Mary in the church about half way through.But the focus could well be the fight itself. There is some good camera work to be had out of the actual match and a low angle between a boxer's legs would later be used by Kubrick in Killer's Kiss, another early Kubrick film. I actually would have liked the boxing match's result to have been the other way around as I feel it would've added a new dimension to the short, a sort of anti-climatic spin that might've worked well. But that said, it's worth seeing if for the match itself and the chance to see where it all started off for the great man.
The Day of the Fight is rarely seen, but essential viewing for anybody who takes cinema, or Kubrick, seriously. It encompasses one day in the life of a boxer in New York City in 1951, and is beautifully filmed (Kubrick at the camera) and structured, with the audience knowing throughout that the day will end in a fight, so there is built-in tension about that upcoming bout, and who will win. The voice-over is tightly written by Kubrick, and his writing is only one of many suggestions of the scope of the filmmaker's gifts. Two examples: A scene where the fighter is at home playing with his dog while the voice-over talks about the brutality the man employs in the ring-- terrific contrast in moods. And the audio is perfect: the only time Kubrick films with sound is when the boxer enters the ring-- then you hear crowd sounds, announcers, everything. Until then, it's a documentary with voice-over. It really is a minor work of an important genius.
The first short film by Kubrick, it follows a boxer through the day-long wait for an evening fight.I watched this out of interest as I watch the majority of Kubrick's films. However this is the only appeal that I can see for watching this.The short follows the boxer through his routines on the day, the heavy narration talks us through the whole thing. In theory the short is meant to give us an insight in the boxer's thoughts and feelings however it really only shows us what he eats and who he talks to.This is interesting if you are a Kubrick completist but other than that it is of limited appeal.