15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Kubrick’s “The Shining”
By: Felipe M. Guerra
Tags: Movies, Cinema, Film, Horror, Pop Culture

The 1921 photo is real

The last image of “The Shining” shows Jack Torrance being literally swallowed by the hotel, and appearing in one of the old photos that adorn the walls of the building — that of a ball held in 1921. Kubrick simply asked the art department to insert Jack Nicholson’s head into an existing old picture. After years of mystery, it was finally discovered that the actual photograph used was taken during a 1923 ball. The blog Quasi-Interesting Paraphernalia Inc. published, years ago, the page of a 1985 book called “The Complete Airbrush and Photo-Retouching Manual”, by Peter Owen and John Sutcliffe. This particular page explains how Jack Nicholson’s head was airbrushed onto the body of another man and shows a detail of the original photo (above). Some fans of “The Shining” even claim that the position of Nicholson’s arms (or, in this case, the arms of the original mysterious man photographed in 1923) resembles Baphomet, although the position of the fingers is relatively different.

This Polaroid shows the shooting of the hospital epilogue that was cut and destroyed

The mystery of the deleted ending

Originally, “The Shining” had a different final scene that was even shown at the film’s US premiere and got cut by Kubrick shortly thereafter. Between the take of Jack’s frozen corpse and the revelation that he is in the old photograph on the walls of the hotel, there was a scene showing Wendy and Danny recovering from the shock in a hospital and being visited by Ullman, the manager of the Overlook. The idea was to show that mother and son were safe after the horrors they experienced. For some reason, Kubrick decided to cut this scene right after the premiere, sending a battalion of assistants to theaters in Los Angeles and New York City to not only cut the negatives of all copies but also destroy the removed pieces (although it is rumored that one surviving copy may exist). The cut was made so late that the final credits keep the names of Burnell Tucker and Robin Pappas, who appeared in the vanished hospital epilogue as a policeman and a nurse. Recently, the fansite The Overlook Hotel posted photographs of the original script that reveal the dialogues in this lost scene. There was even a final title saying: “The Overlook Hotel would survive this tragedy, as it had so many others. It is still open each year from May 20th to September 20th. It is closed for the winter”, confirming that the evil in that place is still alive and kicking. But why Kubrick has put so much effort into removing the scene so late is something that remains unexplained.

Is the hotel alive?

Much has been written about the “impossible architecture” of the Overlook Hotel, with doors and windows where there should be walls, and corridors that lead nowhere (this video makes a detailed analysis of how the whole scenario is spatially impossible). In addition, there is an absurd amount of continuity errors that do not seem to fit the work of a perfectionist like Stanley Kubrick. Especially elements of the set that disappear from one take to another. Okay, more or less bitten sandwiches, and cigarettes with more or fewer ashes, are the collateral effect of a director who films too many takes of the same scene. But in the case of disappearing furniture and props, it’s possible that it was a conscious choice by the filmmaker to demonstrate that the hotel is alive and in constant transformation, which also explains its impossible geography. A lot of these possibly purposeful continuity errors happen in the room where Jack stays most of the time, which perhaps justifies the fact that he goes crazy so quickly. As you can see below, the chair and table behind Jack Nicholson vanish from take to take, the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace disappears and reappears when Wendy enters/leaves the hall, and a huge wooden sculpture simply disappears from the center table. There is also a smaller wooden sculpture in the corridor that leads to the Gold Room when Jack passes by, and which disappears when Wendy passes through the same corridor. And the nameplate on the desk of the Overlook manager appears and disappears, without explanation, when Jack or Wendy uses the radio in his room. It may sound like a bullshit theory to cover up a lot of continuity errors, but try to notice these changes at the hotel the next time you watch “The Shining”!