Flying Padre

Flying Padre (1951) — watch online on iFILM — is a nine-minute documentary short directed by a twenty-two-year-old Stanley Kubrick. It follows Father Fred Stadtmueller, a Catholic priest whose parish covers four thousand square miles of New Mexico desert, mountains, and scattered settlements — far too vast to serve by road. He navigates it in a Piper J-3 Cub he calls the Spirit of St. Joseph. Over two days, Kubrick's camera tracks him through a funeral sermon, a dispute between children, and an emergency airlift of a sick boy to the nearest hospital. The film is a curiosity for anyone tracing Kubrick's early work: the framing is already deliberate, the rhythm unhurried. Stream Flying Padre (1951) online on iFILM.