Killer’s Kiss: Where Stanley Kubrick’s Filmmaking Career Really Begins

The evolution of Stanley Kubrick’s early career looks something like this. A young Kubrick graduates from high school in 1945, and almost immediately starts working for LOOK Magazine as a photojournalist, where he masters his visual craft. (You can see a good sampling of his photographic work right here.) By the early 1950s, Kubrick has his sights set on motion pictures, and, after shooting a couple of short documentaries, he gets to work on feature films. His first production, Fear and Desire (1953), is something of a letdown. Though critics give it sound reviews, Kubrick is unhappy with the result, and he works hard to remove all existing copies from circulation. Even so, you can still find grainy copies online.

Fast forward two years, and Kubrick, now 26, borrows $40,000 from his uncle and shoots Killer’s Kiss, a movie that sits squarely in the film noir tradition. (Get more noir films here.) It’s short, running only 67 minutes. It passes the litmus test for Kubrick himself, officially launching his filmmaking career. And the mini noir is now available on Daily Motion. We also have Killer’s Kiss and Fear and Desire listed in our collection of Free Online Movies. Enjoy…