Kubrick's career odyssey

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If you were receptive to the idea that new blood might benefit the American movie industry about 50 years ago, it would have made sense to welcome the emergence of Stanley Kubrick from relative obscurity. With back-to-back features -- the crime melodrama "The Killing" in 1956 and the polemical World War I saga "Paths of Glory" a year later -- he demonstrated a flair for pictorially incisive and resourceful filmmaking that surpassed all other newcomers on the horizon.

The director's age, 27 when "The Killing" was in production, qualified him as one of the most precocious in the aftermath of Orson Welles, who was 25 while simultaneously directing and starring in "Citizen Kane" in 1940. Unlike this celebrated but also ill-omened example, Mr. Kubrick was not recruited after making an irresistible splash in other entertainment media. Nor had he spent a typical apprenticeship in the theater or movies or the still-budding television industry.

The Kubrick professional entree was still photography. He began working part time for Look magazine while still a Bronx high school student in World War II.He joined the publication full time after graduation. While on staff, he raised enough money to begin making live-action shorts intended for theatrical exhibition. His father was a successful doctor who evidently encouraged and helped subsidize these projects.

By the middle 1950s, Mr. Kubrick had contrived to start and finish a pair of short low-budget features, "Fear and Desire," a war allegory, and "Killer's Kiss," a crime yarn with a prizefight backdrop. Neither was a keeper, but both were picked up for distribution and demonstrated evidence of both talent and perseverance. Especially "Killer's Kiss," which required a lot of arduous post-synchronization to have a playable soundtrack.

The American Film Institute Silver Theatre is devoting several February dates to a Stanley Kubrick retrospective. The chronology jumps around a lot. This weekend it lands at the genuinely professional start, with "The Killing" and "Paths of Glory." This authentic juxtaposition allows nostalgic patrons to recall, and imaginative ones to simulate, the impression of a first acquaintance with a director destined to be distinctive, famous and problematical.

At the outset, he was also a very swift and proficient storyteller. Neither movie ran more than 90 minutes. Each seemed to get off the mark and set a very confident expository pace. Snags were in store, but the immediate sensation was exhilarating and promising.

"The Killing" rates five performances during the AFI series and "Paths of Glory" three. I think that ratio has the films' enduring appeal correctly gauged. In the late 1950s, it was probably easier to overrate "Paths of Glory" as the prestige item because it had a serious historical subject and transparent antiwar credentials.

Their verbal expression was often vociferous but somewhat weakened by the fact that war spectacle accounted for the most impressive pictorial set pieces. Mr. Kubrick (1928-99) seemed to anticipate later virtuoso strolls by Steadicam during a sustained tracking shot along a French army trench system, circa 1916.

Then, with his own zoom lens trained on commanding officer Kirk Douglas, he observed a thwarted advance across mangled terrain that proves a deathtrap for overmatched soldiers attacking a German strong point.

The director had left a clever set of calling cards behind the main title credits of "The Killing." A sequence of about seven shots, documentary footage from the Golden Gate Racetrack in the San Francisco Bay Area, escort us from barn to starting gate, accompanied by composer Gerald Fried's urgent drum and brass fanfares.