A mundane half-hour-shy 1953 industrial film, The Seafarers would be forgotten today were it not for its director: Stanley Kubrick, who shot this during the early phase of his filmmaking career. Never theatrically released, the short was designed to promote the Atlantic and Gulf Coast District of the Seafarers International Union (SIU), a labor organization representing workers in the maritime trade. Narrated by CBS newscaster Don Hollenbeck, the film promotes numerous aspects of the SIU's outreach, visiting the maritime equivalent of a job fair, stopping in at the SIU recreational center (complete with a well-stocked cafeteria and bar), and dropping into a conference session where union leadership is being elected. Some obviously staged sequences are designed to tug the heartstrings: a seafarer kisses his photogenic family goodbye before heading off to the ocean, while in another scene a union representative visits elderly SIU members at a convalescent home to share small talk and deliver their union pension payments. DVD extras include a conversation about Kubrick with filmmakers Roger Avary and Keith Gordon, as well as an interview with Kubrick's daughter Katharina. Kubrick completists and labor history collections will want to add, but this is an optional purchase elsewhere. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)
The Seafarers
(1953) 29 min. DVD: $19.99. Victory Multimedia (avail. from most distributors). Volume 24, Issue 3
The Seafarers
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