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Coming to DVD and Blu-ray for the first time in the UK on 28 January 2013, Stanley Kubrick's 1953 debut feature, Fear And Desire, is a gut-wrenching tale of survival, as four stranded soldiers attempt to escape from behind enemy lines during an unspecified conflict. Master of Cinema are givng the film a full work over, including a new restoration, and Kubrick's three short films, Day of the Fight, Flying Padre & The Seafarers. The release will also include an exclusive new video introduction from Kubrick scholar, critic and Cahiers du Cinéma American correspondent Bill Krohn, shot in Los Angeles in November 2012. MoC has also released a clip from the film to whet our appetites ahead of this release. From the press release:Independently financed with contributions from Stanley...

You will find little to no argument among cinephiles that Stanley Kubrick was one of the best filmmakers there ever was, but before he cemented his place in history with the dual mindfuck of 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, or even before he proved he could be bankable with the mountainously successful at the helm of Spartacus, he was a budding auteur, operating on a shoestring budget, scraping the barrel of funding from friends and relatives to shoot his very first full length feature, Fear and Desire, back in 1953.

His debut, an uncharacteristically bland exposé of war behind enemy lines with a mix of arty pretensions that were undercut by technical shortcomings and generally hammy performances, was by no means a masterpiece, but it did however give a preview of themes to come while highlighting Kubrick’s love of classic Soviet cinema and his ability to mimic their editing and natural lighting techniques.

The good news is that Kino has just released Stanley Kubrick’s rarely-screened feature-film debut Fear and Desire (1953) on DVD and Blu-ray, mastered from a 35mm print that was recently restored by the Library of Congress. The disc includes an equally rare short Kubrick made that same year called The Seafarers, a 28-minute color film commissioned by the International Seafarers Union. The bad news is that Fear and Desire isn’t a good movie; I might go so far as to call it amateurish. Any serious student of Kubrick’s work will still want to see it, but it no more anticipates Paths of Glory or Full Metal Jacket than a talented student’s home movies anticipate...

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Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 23, 2012

Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $34.95

Studio: Kino Lorber

A squad of soldiers unwinds behind enemy lines in Stanley Kubrick's 1953 Fear and Desire.

Virtually unseen since its theatrical premiere in 1953, Fear and Desire was the ambitious first feature film by legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange).

An existential war film often compared with the director’s Paths of Glory (1957) and Full Metal Jacket (1987), Fear and Desire follows a squad of soldiers who have crash-landed behind enemy lines and must work their way downriver to rejoin their unit. In the process, they encounter a peasant girl (Virginia Leith) and bind her to a tree, where she is tormented by a mentally unbalanced soldier (future director Paul Mazursky). Before making their escape, the soldiers determine the location of an enemy base and formulate a plot to assassinate its commanding officer.

The 60-minute-long film was produced, directed, photographed and...

Stanley Kubrick’s first feature film, 1953's "Fear and Desire", is more famous for its rarity than its actual content.

The military action/adventure follows a group of soldiers behind enemy lines who make their way down river to rejoin the unit. Kubrick, then 24, shot the film for just $50,000.

It has since earned a reputation as being a work Kubrick himself was not a fan of at all, and purportedly he tried to remove the film from circulation however he could. As a result for much of the past five decades the only way to see it has been through terrible quality home video bootlegs or the occasional theatrical screening.

Now, Kino Lorber have announced they're releasing a newly restored edition of the film from the Library Of Congress on DVD and Blu-ray on October 23rd. The company is also planning to release Kubrick's three early documentary short films - "Day of the Fight,...

Well, I watched a lot more this week as I had a couple of nights where I just decided I was going to push work aside for a second and watch a few films I wanted to watch rather than had to watch. Below is the result of that decision as I saw four films I had never seen before.

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) Upon hearing the news Christopher Nolan, Michael Bay and Alfonso Cuaron were on Warner's shortlist to direct a new Twilight Zone movie I decided to watch the original 1983 movie, which I rented from [amazon asin="B000SZS3VU" text="Amazon's Instant Video service"]. I think I may have seen a couple of episodes of the television show a long, long time ago, but this was the first time I can remember ever watching anything "Twilight Zone" related and I can't say I was blown away, though the fourth segment, Nightmare at 20,000 feet, is excellent. Correct me if I'm wrong,...

Thanks to Criterion, Stanley Kubrick's The Seafarers is now the only film from the iconic director not available on Blu-ray. Criterion recently brought Kubrick's Paths of Glory to beautiful high-definition and now the director's 1956 heist feature, The Killing, arrives with a special inclusion, the helmer's 1955 feature Killer's Kiss. Releasing The Killing is one thing and should be enough to get you to buy this title, but the fact it also includes Killer's Kiss pretty much means any Kubrick fan simply has to buy it. I'm sorry, but those are the rules.

The screenplay was co-written by Kubrick with dialogue by pulp novelist Jim Thompson (though Thompson would later claim he wrote most of the film, a spat that almost ended their relationship), The Killing is based on "Clean Break" by Lionel White. The story is told using a fractured narrative, following the planning of a racetrack robbery. Throughout the film's brisk,...