Fear and Desire

Writer/director Stanley Kubrick disowned the film, allegedly comparing it to a child's drawing on a fridge, and while it would be a crime if the first movie from the man who went on to direct 2001 and The Shining was lost forever, you can understand Kubrick’s feelings once you’ve sat through it yourself. Shot in black and white, with a running time of just 60 minutes, the film tells the story of a band of soldiers who crash land behind enemy lines and must make their way across miles of dangerous landscape to get back to their side. There’s a minimal amount of action in the movie; most of it shows the soldiers standing around spouting Kubrick’s painfully static dialog to each other. There’s an encounter with a sexy peasant girl (Virginia Leith) and a run in with some cliché Nazis. Some of the movie is interesting to see, but only because you know who shot it. If you didn’t, chances are you wouldn’t look for the man who did when you finished watching.