1.5 out of 5

If only Stanley Kubrick knew how, decades later, his acolytes would give credence to his debut feature, when he thought the negative itself should be burned. “Fear and Desire” is a trade photographer’s exercise in the world of narrative film, and of not much value otherwise, were it not for the retrospective knowledge of what its creator would go on to do (and to a different degree its cast, including “Harry & Tonto” director Paul Mazursky in a key role).

Fear and Desire has come back to consciousness with the discovery of the Venice Film Festival cut, longer by a mythical 10 minutes.

OOO! I’d be lying if I said those 10 minutes didn’t make me more interested to see the film than I was initially. Kubrick (particularly “A Clockwork Orange”) was my childhood gateway to “cinema”, but I’d never seen Fear and Desire before. As a result, I watched what I got, which is the widely-available 60-minute version.