The Making Of 'The Shining' Was A Bigger Nightmare Than The Film's Story
Vote up the most intriguing stories from the making of Stanley Kubrick's horror classic.
- Photo: Warner Bros.152 VOTES
Stanley Kubrick Drove Scatman Crothers To Tears
Scatman Crothers has a small but pivotal role in The Shining; he plays Dick Hallorann, the Overlook Hotel's psychic cook. Although the actor has since praised Stanley Kubrick for his directorial skills, the two had at least one tense moment while on-set. For the scene in which Hallorann shows Danny and Wendy around the hotel kitchen, Kubrick demanded an endless string of takes. Around take 85, a frustrated and exhausted Crothers broke down in tears. He reportedly pleaded, "What do you want, Mr. Kubrick? What do you want?"
- Photo: Warner Bros.247 VOTES
Kubrick Required A Ludicrous Number Of Takes
Stanley Kubrick knew what he wanted, and he didn't stop until he got it. Doing multiple takes of scenes is common on movie sets, but Kubrick took things to a whole new level. The shot of Shelley Duvall waving a baseball bat in front of Jack Nicholson required 127 tries for the director to feel satisfied. Another shot, in which Scatman Crothers explains his character's ability to "shine" to child actor Danny Lloyd, was done 148 times.
- Photo: Warner Bros.343 VOTES
A Secretary Had To Type One Phrase Onto Hundreds Of Pieces Of Paper
The clue that proves Jack Torrance has gone mad is revealed when his wife Wendy peeks at the book he has allegedly been working on. Instead of finding a manuscript, she sees hundreds and hundreds of pieces of paper bearing the same sentence: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Stanley Kubrick wanted the scene to be visually unsettling, which meant that the audience had to see writing on a large number of pages. His personal secretary, Margaret Warrington, was instructed to type that phrase onto 500 of pieces of paper. (And then she had to do it again in four different languages to account for foreign releases of the film!) The task was undoubtedly grueling, and it took months to accomplish, yet it adds immeasurably to the impact of the scene.
- Photo: Warner Bros.438 VOTES
There Was Only One Chance To Do The Twins' Death Scene
Lisa and Louise Burns play the Grady daughters, those creepy twin girls who are spotted looming mysteriously around the Overlook. They also appear in one of the film's most gruesome scenes, as they're shown after having been murdered with an ax. It's a vital scene, and Stanley Kubrick had exactly one chance to get right.
In 2015, the now-grown sisters told The Daily Mail that the shot of them lying in a pool of blood was one of the last to be filmed. There was only one set of the signature blue dresses they wear, and drenching them in fake blood was sure to ruin them.
The director had to plan the scene very carefully, as there was no room for a retake. Working against his usual multi-take instincts, Kubrick did indeed get the shot he wanted, and produced one of the picture's most memorable moments.
- Photo: Warner Bros.535 VOTES
Jack Nicholson Wrote One Scene Based On His Own Personal Pain
The screenplay for The Shining is credited to Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson, based on Stephen King's novel. However, one scene was written by the movie's star, Jack Nicholson, and he went to a dark place to find the words.
In 1986, the actor told the New York Times that he penned the scene where Jack Torrance chews out his wife after she interrupts his writing, using his own real-life pain as inspiration. While writing a different movie, Nicholson's then-wife distracted him, and he behaved like a "maniac" in response. After relaying that to Kubrick, the director wanted to include something similar in the film. Nicholson volunteered to write it up, since he'd already lived it.
- Photo: Warner Bros.635 VOTES
Jack Nicholson Slept On The Floor In Between Scenes
Pretending to slowly descend into lunacy can be tiring, and Jack Nicholson expended a lot of energy conveying his character's unraveling. In 2015, Louise Burns, who plays one of the Grady daughters, told The Independent that Nicholson was so exhausted, he would fall asleep on the floor in between scenes. According to Burns:
They were extremely long days and I think Stanley would have had Jack work until the matchsticks fell out of his eyes, so he needed to nap between scenes.
- Photo: Warner Bros.729 VOTES
A Fire Destroyed Much Of The Set
The Shining was filmed at Elstree Studios in London, and the massive scale of The Overlook — the story's fictional hotel — necessitated a large number of sets. Late in the production, a huge fire broke out at Elstree, destroying two sound stages in full. One of those sound stages housed sections of the faux Overlook, and the blaze caused filming to be halted until the sets could be rebuilt.
In 2014, Stanley Kubrick's widow told BBC that the director was actually grateful for the forced break, as it gave him a chance to take a breather during the intense production.
- Photo: Warner Bros.842 VOTES
The Real Hotel Wouldn't Let Kubrick Use Room 217
The exterior of the fictional Overlook Hotel is actually the Timberline Lodge, located in Mount Hood, OR. It was chosen for its snowy location and suitably atmospheric look.
Before the hotel's owner agreed to let Stanley Kubrick feature his establishment, he made one specific request. The script called for some scary things to take place in Room 217, and they asked Kubrick not to use that number, as they were worried that guests would be too scared to stay in the room if they'd seen the movie. The director agreed, using "Room 237" instead, since that room number didn't really exist at the Timberline Lodge.
- Photo: Warner Bros.941 VOTES
Danny Lloyd Didn't Know He Was Making A Horror Movie
The Shining is an intense movie, with its elevator full of blood, creepy twin girls, and madman lead character. Clearly, the content might prove troublesome for children, which perhaps explains why Danny Lloyd — who plays little Danny Torrance — wasn't aware that he was making a horror movie.
As an adult, Lloyd told The Guardian that Stanley Kubrick never explained the film's plot to him. The child actor believed he was simply making a movie about a family living in a big hotel. Lloyd was also kept out of scenes that could have potentially traumatized him. For the scene in which Wendy carries Danny as they run terrified through the hotel, he says his co-star Shelley Duvall held a life-size doll in his place. As one can imagine, Lloyd was pretty surprised when he finally saw the film at a more mature age.
- Photo: Warner Bros.1037 VOTES
Kubrick's Fear Of Flying Prevented Him From Shooting Certain Scenes
Stanley Kubrick was notoriously afraid of flying, so he filmed his movies in London, where he also lived. That made it a little difficult for him to direct shots that couldn't be replicated in his hometown.
Exteriors for The Shining were photographed in Oregon and Montana, where Kubrick refused to go because it necessitated flight. A separate crew had to shoot all the outdoor imagery for him, and he was not physically there to supervise any of it.
Considering how in-control Kubrick liked to be, it's somewhat surprising to learn that he allowed others to take charge of shots that are pivotal for setting the movie's eerie tone.
- Photo: Warner Bros.1142 VOTES
Shelley Duvall Said Working With Kubrick Was Unbearable
Stanley Kubrick was notoriously hard on his actors. Some tolerated his obsessive quest for perfection, but others crumbled under the weight of his expectations. Unfortunately, Shelley Duvall fell into the latter category.
Roughly six months after the film was released in 1980, Duvall told film critic Roger Ebert that working with Kubrick was "almost unbearable," due to the excessive number of takes he required for even the most simple of shots. She added, "I had to cry 12 hours a day, all day long, the last nine months straight, five or six days a week. I was there a year and a month."
Additionally, Duvall felt that once the film was released, all the attention was focused on the director and her co-star, Jack Nicholson, and that her work was largely overlooked.
- Photo: Warner Bros.1235 VOTES
Kubrick Changed The Ending After The Film Was Already In Theaters
The Shining ends with Wendy and Danny escaping, leaving Jack behind, frozen in the snow. Back inside the Overlook Hotel, the camera slowly zooms in on a framed photograph that shows Jack at the New Year's Eve Ball in 1921. However, at one point, a slightly different ending was in the works.
Frequent Pixar director Lee Unkrich runs a fan site dedicated to The Shining, and posted some cut pages of script that detail an alternate ending. In this extra scene, Wendy wakes up in a hospital, and is told by Jack's boss, Stuart Ullman, that no evidence of the creepy things she reported was found at the Overlook. Stuart then gives Danny a ball similar to the one Jack plays with earlier in the movie.
One week after The Shining opened in theaters, Stanley Kubrick had a change of heart about the two-minute coda. He ordered the scene to be cut from all prints in release and destroyed, so that it could never be reinstated.
- Photo: Warner Bros.1334 VOTES
900 Tons Of Salt Were Used To Simulate Snow
The Overlook Hotel is a huge place with a massive hedge maze outside. The climactic scene finds Jack Torrance chasing his son Danny through the maze, which is covered in snow. In real life, the snow was fake, and was made out of formaldehyde and roughly 900 tons of salt. In some spots, the salt was 30 centimeters deep. Trucking all that salt in was a major chore, as was trying to maneuver actors and cameras through it.
- Photo: Warner Bros.1429 VOTES
Jack Nicholson Almost Axed Someone For Real
When people think of The Shining, the image of Jack Nicholson wielding an ax for the pivotal "Here's Johnny" scene probably comes to mind. In the scene, Nicholson's character is out for blood, but his final assault almost became horrifically real. While preparing to film the sequence, the actor got a little carried away.
First, he began jumping around, so that he could get his inner craziness flowing. Then, he picked up the ax, and started furiously swinging it around, nearly whacking a crew member in the process. The poor worker had to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit. Luckily, no one was hurt, and Nicholson's performance clearly benefited from his total commitment to the role.
