Day of the Fight
6.6 /10 1 Votes
Director Stanley Kubrick Budget 3,900 USD Duration Language English | 6.4/10 IMDb 6/10 Letterboxd Genre Documentary, Short, Sport Country United States | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cast Vincent Cartier (Himself, Walter's twin brother and manager), Walter Cartier (Himself), Nat Fleischer (Himself, boxing historian), Bobby James (Himself, Walter's opponent), Judy Singer (Herself, female fan in crowd (uncredited)), Stanley Kubrick (Himself (man at ringside with camera) (uncredited))Release date April 26, 1951 (1951-04-26) Writer Robert Rein (narration script) Sequel Flying Padre: An RKO-Pathe Screenliner Similar movies Rocky , Pulp Fiction , Rocky II , Million Dollar Baby , Rocky IV , Rocky V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Day of the fight 1951
Day of the Fight is a 1951 American short subject documentary film directed by Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick financed the film himself.
Contents
- Day of the fight 1951
- Day of the fight stanley kubrick usa 1951
- Story
- Cast
- Cast notes
- Production
- References
Shot in black-and-white, the film is based on an earlier photo feature he had done as a photographer for Look magazine in 1949.
Day of the fight stanley kubrick usa 1951
Story
Day of the Fight shows Irish-American middleweight boxer Walter Cartier during the height of his career, on the day of a fight with middleweight Bobby James, which took place on April 17, 1950.
The film opens with a short section on boxing's history, and then follows Cartier through his day, as he prepares for the 10 P.M. bout that night. He eats breakfast in his West 12th Street apartment in Greenwich Village, then goes to early mass and eats lunch at his favorite restaurant. At 4 P.M., he starts preparations for the fight. By 8 P.M., he is waiting in his dressing room at Laurel Gardens in Newark, New Jersey for the fight to begin.
We then see the fight itself, where he comes out victorious in a short match.
Cast
Cast notes
Production
Kubrick and Alexander Singer used daylight-loading Eyemo cameras that take 100-foot spools of 35mm black-and-white film to shoot the fight, with Kubrick shooting hand-held (often from below) and Singer's camera on a tripod. The 100-foot reels required constant reloading, and Kubrick did not catch the knock-out punch which ended the bout because he was reloading. Singer did, however.
Day of the Fight is the first credit on composer Gerald Fried's resume. Fried, a childhood friend of Kubrick, went on to score or conduct (or both) over 100 films. In 1977, he shared an Emmy Award with Quincy Jones for the music for the TV mini-series Roots, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1976 for Birds Do It, Bees Do It.
Although the original planned buyer of the picture went out of business, Kubrick was able to sell Day of the Fight to RKO Pictures for $4,000, making a small benefit of $100 above the $3,900 cost of making the film.
According to Jeremy Bernstein, the film lost $100, as documented in a November 1965 interview with Kubrick.
Day of the Fight was released as part of RKO-Pathé's "This Is America" series and premiered on 26 April 1951 at New York's Paramount Theater, on the same program as the film My Forbidden Past. Frank Sinatra headlined the live stage show that day.
References
Day of the Fight WikipediaDay of the Fight LetterboxdDay of the Fight IMDb Day of the Fight themoviedb.org