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• Early Kubrick

  • Bruce Reber
  • 12/15/11

  I missed seeing "Fear And Desire" when it aired 12/14/11. I read the synopsis and it looks very similar to "Path's Of Glory" (1957), director Stanley Kubrick's superb anti-war film, but with surreal overtones. I recognize three of the actors in FAD - Paul Mazursky, who played one of the juvenile delinquents in "Blackboard Jungle two years later and who also had a very successful directing career, i.e. "Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice" and "Harry and Tonto", Virginia Leith, who starred in "A Kiss Before Dying" and "The Brain That Wouldn't Die", and Frank Silvera, who appeared in "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre". I would very much like to see "Fear and Desire". Please schedule it again soon TCM.

• Deserves to be Seen.

  • James Shertzer
  • 12/13/11

  After you've seen this, you'll appreciate Kubrick's later films all the more. Yes, the story's pretentious and arty, like a misbegotten "Twilight Zone" episode. The film itself, well, I haven't any idea what it really looks like, as all copies I've seen so have been bootlegged so many times the contrast is completely shot. The film was made on shoestring - no, half a shoestring - budget, with basically amateur actors and Kubrick handling direction, lighting, photography and editing. Filmmakers who'd come after would have apprenticeships with Roger Corman and other, but this was Kubrick's self-made feature film education. "Killer's Kiss," his next film, would be a quantum leap forward in terms of storytelling, and within four years he'd put his classics "The Killing" and "Paths of Glory" on screen. Consider, too, this film was also an earlier effort by playwright Howard Sackler, who'd go on co-write Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss" and win a Pulitzer Prize for "The Great White Hope," and director Paul Mazursky, and you have admit it's an important film that deserves to be seen. It's the only Kubrick unavailable to film students, and along with the fascinating documentary "Stanley Kubrick's Boxes" deserves to be out of DVD.

• Mr. K wouldn't Like This

  • Richard
  • 11/2/11

  But, I'm happy to see it on the schedule. The copy I had must have been illegally gotten because it was over exposed and I understand the film was beautifully photographed. In later years Stanley said the only thing about the film he was proud of is that it was finished. He even tried to stop (by legal means) a showing of the film in 1995 in a tribute to him. His three short films made before Fear and Desire all bore the mark of good documentary film making (unlike what you might see today on Nat. Geo. or History Ch. which are usually overproduced). A dozen years after his death Stanley Kubrick still has a very loyal following. I would encourage anyone who liked even a single Stanley Kubrick movie to watch this airing. For one reason or another all Kubrick films are purest gold. Fear and Desire is no exception.

• why not?

  • Christian Leng
  • 9/11/06

  this is Stanley Kubricks first full length feature film. it must be available on dvd. in fact they all should be wherever dvds are sold.

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