Saturday the 14th of January 2012
With practically no budget, Kubrick had to rely on guerrilla filmmaking techniques, such as using pickup trucks for dollies and shooting without permits, but the result is a visually arresting film that does a fantastic job capturing the atmosphere of 1950’s New York. Technical problems forced Kubrick to record all the dialog and sound effects in post-production, yet the sound editing is superb during the fight scenes, which have a surprisingly genuine ferocity to them. Unfortunately, Kubrick’s technical achievements are undone by a flimsy story (Smith, a boxer falls for Kane, his neighbor, after she's attacked by her boss, Silvera, a gangster who soon has it in for Smith) and a weak cast. Not a total loss, but a better cast and proper dialog recording would have gone a long way.
seen via Netflix Streaming