killer's kiss (1955)

aka Kiss Me, Kill Me.
"It's a mistake to confuse pity with love."
Boxer Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith) intervenes when he sees Gloria Price (Irene Kane) being beaten by her lover Vincent Raphello (Frank Silvera). This brings the two together, much to Raphello's displeasure. So much so, that Raphello tries to kill Davey, but gets the wrong guy. So changing tactics, he then kidnaps Gloria. Can Davey save her?
Kubrick, still finding his feet as a director, gives us a film noir, which looks good, but never engages you with the characters.

day of the fight (1951)

"Before a fight there's always that last look in the mirror. Time to wonder what it will reflect tomorrow."
Documentary that follows middleweight boxer Walter Cartier, on the day of his bout with middleweight Bobby James.
Based on Kubrick's 'prizefighter' pictorial for Look Magazine, this has the look of a photographer's eye.

the flying padre (1951)

"There's no brass band here, no cheering crowds, no newspaper men clamoring for a headline - just an ambulance driver, an anxious mother, a sick baby and their priest."
Documentary charting two days in the life of a New Mexican parish priest. Nothing interesting here, apart from it being an early insight into the work of Stanley Kubrick, who would go onto bigger and better things.

a clockwork orange (1971)

"Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well."
Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is a juvenile delinquent in the near future, and we follow his thugish life as he rapes and pillages his way through his teens. Until he's caught and imprisoned, betrayed by his gang, who are fed up with his attitude to them. Whilst in prison he volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy programme which makes him detest violence, but back on the streets he finds he has no way to defend himself as his past comes back to haunt him, and he becomes a political pawn.
A classic book, made into a classic film, which has the distinct style of the 70's all over it. This is study on the problem of violence in society, the political reaction to it, and their attempt to solve it. Not a film that is easy to like, it can be cold, analytical, and disturbing, but rewards persistence in the viewer.

killing, the (1956)

"You like money. You've got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart."
Ex-convict Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) has spent five years planning his next job, and now he's out he's intent on enacting it. A scheme to steal $2,000,000 from a racetrack. Planned meticulously, the only flaw is human greed, a gang member's cheating wife, and her ruthless boyfriend. From the start of the seventh race the plan starts to go awry...
We follow the scheming and the job from all angles, seeing the problems as they arise and the ignorance of the protagonists to these developments. A great noir, well acted and directed, by a soon to be star director.