Works Show Promise of the Young Kubrick : MGM/UA release of two early black-and-white Stanley Kubrick films gives a clear indication that here was a director to be reckoned with.

Watch the work of a young, quirky creative, sure-handed director starting out and you should be able to glean the promise of exciting filmic surprises to come. Two recent laser releases of films made nearly four decades apart offer those hints in works that bear striking resemblances to each other.

MGM/UA Home Video’s double feature of two early black-and-white Stanley Kubrick films noir give a clear indication that here was a director to be reckoned with as “A Clockwork Orange” (1971, available on Warner at $30 in pan-and-scan and $40 letterboxed) and “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968, available on MGM/UA, widescreen, $40, and in a superior Criterion CAV edition with supplemental material at $125) amply demonstrated.

The digital video transfer of the 1955 “Killer’s Kiss,” Kubrick’s second film, and the 1956 “The Killing” ($40) offers the seamy world of cheap hoods in which both are set in the stark, shadowy black and whites that do justice to Kubrick’s artsy camera angles and rich, atmospheric shots.

The pairings work nicely, though it’s unfortunate that MGM/UA, which takes great care with its transfers and liner notes, decided to save money by not putting each film on a separate disc on this two-disc CLV set. Thus, the relatively short “Killer’s Kiss” (1 hour, 4 minutes) goes from side one with 11 chapter stops to side two with seven more. “The Killing” starts in the middle of the second side, and abruptly continues on side three. Side four is blank. The skimpy supplemental material is the original trailer to “The Killing.” Stills from both films are in the interior jacket.

“Killer’s Kiss” focuses on a young boxer who ends up trying to protect his neighbor, a dance-hall hostess, from her gangster boss with disastrous results. It features Frank Silvera, in one of his most riveting performances, Jamie Smith and Irene Kane.

“The Killing,” with a first-rate cast including Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Elisha Cook and Marie Windsor, tells in overlapping, and sometimes redundant flashbacks the story of what looks like the perfect crime, a $2-million racetrack heist. Kubrick tells the story effectively and when things get ugly and violent, the black-and-white images mute the shock.

Not so with Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 “Reservoir Dogs,” the Live Home Video ($35) release of the Miramax film, in letterbox and Dolby surround sound. It brings to the small screen all the violence and brutality that turned off many viewers and turned on some critics when it was originally released. The color transfer picks up all the blood and gore, and no four-letter word is left unsaid over and over.

There are many similarities to “The Killing” in the unfolding of a perfect crime gone awry with all the slaughter and recrimination that follows. Writer-director Tarantino’s stark and uncompromising film brought him the kind of notoriety Kubrick got nearly 40 years ago. For those wanting to see what the fuss was all about, there is still the fast-forward button to slice through all that gore brought to you in realistic living color, mostly red.

Other recent laser releases offer intense gore at a fast clip, with much less of the style and pizazz found in “Dogs” and “Killing.” Among them is “Dr. Giggles,” released by Universal/MCA in both letterbox and pan-and-scan versions ($35). Larry Drake, fresh from his “L.A. Law” Emmy-winning performance as a mentally retarded man, is Dr. Giggles (“The Doctor Is Out . . . of His Mind”) in one of those typical revenge-gore movies that has more gags than most of them, but just as much grotesque violence. If you liked the Freddy and “Halloween” massacres, this one is for you.

An even more sadistic film with greater pretensions is “Ricochet” (HBO Video, $35), wasting two fine actors, Denzel Washington and John Lithgow, in a vicious festival of bloodshed in which Lithgow’s revenge is as savage as anything seen on the screen. It makes older film bloodbaths, such as the blood-splattered 1983 version of “Scarface” with Al Pacino (MCA Universal, $40, in both pan-and-scan and letterbox versions), look tame by comparison.