Flying Padre

A Story about a priest who flies with plane wherever he is needed could have been fresh and exciting in the fifties, but looking this today it certainly feels very dated and a bit clumsy, still interesting view in to the past nonetheless. The Reverend is portrayed as very sympathetic and kind man as he flies long distances for aid people and asks nothing for his help.

It's really hard to find any Kubrick's later trademarks here, in fact it's nearly impossible even recognize it's directed by him if you don't know it already nor catch his name in the opening credits. I really wouldn't recommend this except for its curiosity values.

This film was made by Stanley Kubrick when he was twenty-four years old. He accepted the job -- a nine-minute short feature about a New Mexico-based priest -- solely for money, as -- at the time -- he was a struggling up-and-comer who had yet to direct the classic "Paths of Glory" (1957) that would officially put him on the map as a big-time movie-maker.

However, everyone has to start somewhere, and some of his film-making techniques CAN be spotted here -- even this early. It's from 1951 but you can notice some irreverent techniques that wouldn't typically have been used around that time period -- and when the priest is in the church at the alter, check out the angle Kubrick takes to show the layout -- he stands back to the left of the priest in a really awkward position.

Is this worth watching? Only for Kubrick completists. As a short feature it's simply quite average, but it will surely grab the interest of any Kubrick Addicts out there who have a hunger for everything Stanley Kubrick.

The reason I wanted to see this short documentary was because it is directed by great artist Stanley Kubrick, director of masterpieces like 'Dr. Strangelove', '2001: A Space Odyssey' and 'A Clockwork Orange'. My reason should be anyone's reason, definitely no real other reason could be find by me.

We follow a flying padre doing stuff most fathers (the religious type) do. The only special thing here is the fact that this man travels by plane since the area he is connected to is pretty big. Not that special I guess. Even the technique and ways of telling a story Kubrick used in later and even earlier work is not there.

Told very straight forward, it is eight minutes from a master doing a not very masterful thing. Interesting in a way, worth watching since it only takes eight minutes of your time.

With regard to some of the criticisms offered in IMDb comments, Stanley was 23 years old when he made this 8:09 minute long newsreel segment in 1951. One might also keep in mind that the newsreel companies of the day, such as Henry Luce's 'March of Time', determined and controlled both the content and form of what they produced and distributed.

According to "Kubrick" by Michel Ciment: When March of Time went into liquidation, RKO bought the "Day of the Fight" (which Kubrick and Alex Singer shot in 1950) for a hundred dollars more than its production cost, but sweetened the deal by offering Kubrick an advance of $1,500 dollars for a second documentary, "The Flying Padre". (http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/milestones.html)

"Day of the Fight" had it's world premiere as a short subject (it was part of an RKO series entitled "This Is America") on April 26 1951, which is generally regarded as the date of Kubrick's official entry into the film industry - despite any earlier theatrical circulation of "The Flying Padre".

"The Flying Padre' is now available on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqTlxRYt7B0)

Unlike the earlier Day of the Fight in which one can see inklings of Stanley Kubrick's later achievements, this film is a minor piece of hackwork with little to be said in its favour. Indeed, the most telling feature is that Kubrick, who would later be known as an obsessive perfectionist, here displays indifference. Almost all documentaries are set up to some extent, but here it would have been clear to the slowest of the audience that the episode of the padre flying a mother and sick baby to a hospital was acted out specially for the film. The clumsiness is compounded by the narration, which goes out its way to inform us that the episode was spontaneous and shot as it happened. With a little more inventiveness, Kubrick could have made the sequence at least partially convincing. (This assumes that Kubrick was responsible for the commentary; perhaps he wasn't, and this was an early lesson for him on what producers can do if you don't insist on full control!)