Typically referred to as one of the greatest horror movies ever made, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining was released on June 13, 1980. While the movie has stood the test of time, it would have never happened if it weren’t for Stephen King.
The book, which was released on January 28, 1977, may be quite different than the film, but the movie could have been even more different if King wouldn’t have written the book in the first place.
Prior to The Shining, Kubrick had already made a name for himself as a director for his movies like Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Jack Nicholson had also become a famous actor prior to 1980, so combining the two men with an incredible story by Stephen King seemed like a dynamite idea.
The Shining book is respected in its own right, but Stanley Kubrick, the cast, and crew made The Shining movie something unique that is different from other horror movies.'
The film may not have been nominated for any Oscars, but movie historians consider it to be a truly timeless terror. The finished product may be incredibly rewarding to watch, but the behind-the-scenes footage and stories are almost as interesting as the film itself.
With Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining, slated for a 2020 release date, there is still plenty of time to become an expert on the fictional events that took place at the Overlook Hotel almost 40 years ago.
Here are the 25 Crazy Facts Behind The Making Of The Shining.
There Was Originally A Different Ending
The last scene of The Shining is puzzling to many viewers, as we see Jack in a photograph from an Overlook Ball from 1921.
While an alternate ending still ends with this image, there was another scene that took place in between Jack frozen in the snow and this dolly shot.
The scene depicts Mr. Ullman visiting Wendy and Danny in a hospital and asking them if they'd like to go stay with him.
The scene ends with a title card explaining what happened to the Overlook Hotel before it cuts to the dolly shot.
Kubrick pulled the scene from prints shortly after the movie was released and nobody has seen the scene since.
Stephen King Hates The Movie
While this may not be a secret within the horror community, some may not know that Stephen King actually hated Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
King has been very vocal over the years about his dissatisfaction with the movie version of his book.
King mainly disliked the story arc for Jack and Wendy Torrance, even calling Shelley Duvall’s portrayal of Wendy “one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film.”
He has also had harsh words for movie adaptations in general stating, “I see them as a lesser medium than fiction, than literature, and a more ephemeral medium.”
Danny Lloyd Didn’t Know He Was Acting For A Horror Movie
Most of the time, actors know what movies they are signing up for, but occasionally actors will be surprised when the film turns out to be something unexpected.
This is what happened to Danny Lloyd with The Shining.
Being less than ten years old at the time that The Shining was filmed, Lloyd didn’t know much about filmmaking. Kubrick told Lloyd that he was acting in a drama rather than a horror flick.
While many were intimidated by Kubrick, Lloyd just remembers him as “a big guy with a beard.”
In an interview, Lloyd even said that Kubrick would play ball with him and he was never really scared of him.
Kubrick Intentionally Bullied Shelley Duvall
It is quite known today that Shelley Duvall was emotionally damaged because of her role in The Shining, especially after Dr. Phil exploited her mental illness on TV.
While the finished product seemed very authentic, Shelley Duvall was often mistreated on the set.
Kubrick was extremely critical of her acting.
You can even see a glimpse of this in Vivian Kubrick’s documentary of the movie when Kubrick told Duvall’s co-workers to not sympathize with her.
It certainly made Wendy Torrance seem like an insecure woman who was fearful of her husband, but it was at the cost of Duvall’s mental health.
Kubrick Refused To Read Stephen King’s Screenplay
Even though The Shining was based on Stephen King’s novel, a screenplay still had to be written in order to make a movie.
Diane Johnson, who was known for books such as Fair Game in 1965 and The Shadow Knows in 1974, was hired to co-write the screenplay with Stanley Kubrick.
While this was her only screenwriting credit, the end result turned out great.
While Johnson and Kubrick collaborated on the screenplay, Stephen King himself offered a screenplay to Kubrick. However, his screenplay was rejected and Kubrick refused to even read it.
David Hughes, the writer of The Complete Kubrick, revealed that Kubrick didn’t like King’s writing style and instead went with Diane Johnson because he was a fan of The Shadow Knows.
Danny Lloyd Thought He Was Only Going To Be Paid $2 A Day
Danny Lloyd may not have had a very eventful acting career after The Shining, but he will forever be known as Danny Torrance.
While The Shining was being filmed, Stanley Kubrick’s daughter Vivian created a documentary about the behind-the-scenes of the movie.
In one interview within the documentary, Danny Lloyd joked with an interviewer about the amount of money he made for appearing in the movie.
Being a young lad, Lloyd didn’t even know that he was going to be earning money and said he thought he was only going to be making around $2 a day.
Lloyd probably didn’t even know what to do with the money he earned since it was no doubt more than $2 a day.
Jack Nicholson Marked His Lines The Same Way Boris Karloff Did
Marking lines in a script is not essential to an actor's ability to act well, but it can often make things a bit easier.
Marking lines can keep a script organized and help an actor quickly find his or her lines.
For Nicholson, he prefers simply drawing a short vertical line and then a long horizontal line by his character’s name.
In the behind-the-scenes documentary by Vivian Kubrick, Nicholson can be seen explaining that he learned the technique by watching the great Boris Karloff.
Ironically, Nicholson’s portrayal of Jack Torrance is just as horrifying as Karloff in Frankenstein and The Mummy.
Room 217 Was Changed To Room 237
In both the book and the movie, Danny has a horrific encounter with a corpse in one of the hotel rooms.
It may be a subtle difference, but fans of Stephen King’s book might notice that this room number was changed from 217 to 237 for the movie version of The Shining.
With the crew filming exterior shots at the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, many associate this lodge with the Overlook Hotel.
Fearing that guests would not want to stay in room 217 after seeing The Shining, hotel management asked if the movie could use the number 237 since that room number didn’t exist in the hotel.
Kubrick’s Daughter Worked On The Movie
Filmmaking can often be a family business, as we’ve seen with people like the Russo Brothers. Even though she had a smaller role for the movie, Kubrick’s daughter both worked on and appeared in the film.
Although she was uncredited, Vivian Kubrick worked on the movie in the art department.
At a young age, she also made a documentary short for BBC about the making of the film.
While she had two jobs behind-the-scenes, Vivian also appeared in the Ballroom scene as a guest who was smoking on the ballroom couch.
Stephen King Didn’t Like Jack Nicholson As Jack Torrance
One of Stephen King’s biggest complaints about Stanley Kubrick’s version of his book is the portrayal of Jack Torrance.
King complained that the movie's version of Torrance was all wrong because there was no character arc and he could tell that Torrance was “crazy as a s**t house rat” from the beginning.
While most people worship Nicholson as Jack Torrance, King was not a fan.
“Oh, I know this guy. I've seen him in five motorcycle movies, where Jack Nicholson played the same part,” King stated.
King also had harsh words for the way Kubrick wrote Shelley Duvall’s character Wendy, but King seems to have a special hatred towards Jack in the movie.
It Broke A World Record
Stanley Kubrick is known for being very meticulous about everything in his movies.
This can be incredibly frustrating for the crew since productions often take much longer than anticipated which just so happened with The Shining.
Many scenes in the movie were repeated over and over again until they were just right and to Kubrick’s satisfaction.
One of these scenes was the baseball bat confrontation scene. This scene broke the world record for most retakes of a scene coming in at 127 takes.
This leads many to believe that Duvall’s tears were authentic and she was in real distress while she delivered her lines.
It Received A Lot Of Mixed And Negative Reception
While most fans consider The Shining to be an incredible piece of cinema, many people thought the complete opposite when the movie was first released.
Many were on board with Stephen King and criticized both Shelley Duvall and Stanley Kubrick. Both of them were nominated for Razzie awards in the '80s and many critics ripped them apart.
One review from Variety mentioned, “The crazier Nicholson gets, the more idiotic he looks. Shelley Duvall transforms the warm sympathetic wife of the book into a simpering, semi-[explicit] hysteric.” Ouch.
Other reviews praised the effects, but criticized Kubrick obsession with newer film technology and said that The Shining was a step down from his previous movies.
Nicholson Improvised The Famous “Here’s Johnny!” Line
Possibly the most iconic scene of the entire movie is when a crazed Jack Torrance tears down the bathroom door towards the end of The Shining.
His horrified wife is on the other side of the door holding a knife and screams every time the axe comes smashing into the door.
Once Jack has a decent amount of the door ripped down, he sticks his face through the hole and says, “Here’s Johnny!”
The line was pulled from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and was 100% improvised by Jack Nicholson.
Thankfully, Kubrick liked the line and it stuck in the final cut of the movie.
Slim Pickens Was Almost Dick Hallorann
Dick Hallorann was an important figure both in the book and the movie. Although the role went to Scatman Crothers, the role almost went to Slim Pickens.
Pickens lived an interesting life working as a rodeo clown and also getting a role in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Pickens was offered the role in The Shining but turned it down because of Kubrick’s directing style.
Hallorann was black in the novel so it could have been considered white-washing if the role was given to Pickens.
Regardless, it was for the best that Crothers was cast since he gave an incredible performance.
A Fire Burnt Down A Huge Portion Of The Set
Most movie productions have hiccups here and there whether it be an actor getting injured or equipment malfunctioning.
In the case of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, their hiccup was a huge fire.
Production had to be stopped after a fire broke out on their Elstree Studios set. This put a huge delay on production but also gave Kubrick time to rework and rewrite certain elements of the movie.
Ray Merrin, who was the sound editor for The Shining, said that all Kubrick was frantic about was saving the audio from the sound transfer bay.
It’s quite eerie that the Overlook burns down at the end of the book, and in real life the set actually did.
It Sparked Many Conspiracy Theories
The story that unfolds at the Overlook Hotel is spooky, but some people have looked past the surface of the movie.
The Shining is one film that has sparked multiple conspiracy theories.
One of the most popular conspiracy theories is that The Shining is secretly an apology from Kubrick for faking the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.
Evidence of this comes from Danny’s Apollo 11 sweater, Tang being in the pantry, and the creepy twins symbolizing the gemini space missions.
Other conspiracy theories involve CIA mind control, the Holocaust, and the treatment of Native Americans.
A movie titled Room 237 takes an in-depth look at all of these theories and more.
There Are Spacial Anomalies In The Overlook Hotel
The Overlook Hotel is a strange hotel indeed. Some of the eagle eye viewers noticed that there are spacial anomalies in the movie that don’t make any sense.
For example, Ullman’s office has a window, however, there are clearly hallways wrapping around his office making this impossible.
Room 237 also has a spacial anomaly since there is another hotel room to the left, yet Danny walks into the room and turns left to find a spacious living room and bathroom.
This means that room 237 would completely overlap the room next to it.
These may be considered continuity errors, but they were probably made on purpose to disorient the viewers.
Paramedics Thought Norman Gay’s Injuries Were Real
While the fire at Elstree Studios was surely an inconvenience on the production of the movie, there was no known casualties of the fire.
Paramedics were on sight during the fire and tried to take actor Norman Gay to the hospital because they thought his makeup was a real injury.
Ray Merrin, the sound editor, encountered Gay as he was trying to escape the paramedics and explained that the actor asked to stay in a room to hide from the paramedics.
Even though the makeup was fake, you can’t blame the paramedics for trying to do their job.
It Was Shot In Chronological Order
Stanley Kubrick was a director who had to have things go his way when he was in charge of a movie.
The end products usually turned out as masterpieces, but that didn’t make him any easier to work with.
The production for The Shining took longer than expected not only because Kubrick was a perfectionist, but because he also decided to film the movie in chronological order.
Not very many movies are filmed this way due to time constraints, but that was the way Kubrick wanted it.
To pull it off, Kubrick had to rent all of the soundstages at Elstree Studios, which would have costed even more money to acquire.
The Snow Was Made From Formaldehyde and Salt
One of the scariest parts of The Shining is that the characters are snowed in at the Overlook Hotel, which gives the viewers a sense of claustrophobia.
This plays an important part near the end of the movie when Jack is chasing Danny through the hedge maze in the snow.
While there are several ways to pull off the look of snow in Hollywood, the Shining team used formaldehyde based foam and salt.
It was obviously essential to use fake snow so that nobody became ill because of the temperatures and crew pulled it off in an effective way.