The Shining

This is one of my all-time favorite horror movies. I tried reading the book recently. It didn't hold my attention for long.

Summary
-Jack Torrance is a former prep school teacher and now writer. He's offered a chance to become caretaker at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. He packs up his family and heads there, unaware that his son Danny has special mental powers, referred to as a "shining", which he tries to use to inform everyone outside of the events occurring at the hotel, which has a long, violent, sordid past.

 



Cast
-Jack Nicholson: Jack Torrance
-Shelley Duvall: Wendy Torrance
-Danny Lloyd: Danny Torrance
-Scatman Crothers: Dick Halloran
-Barry Nelson: Stuart Ullman
-Philip Stone: Delbert Grady
-Joe Turkel: Lloyd
-Anne Jackson: Doctor
-Tony Burton: Durkin
-Lia Beldam: Young woman in bath
-Billie Gibson: Old woman in bath

Did You Know
-Jack Nicholson hates cheese sandwiches. To get his mood to the right level of agitation, he was fed only cheese sandwiches for two weeks
-During the scene where Jack Nicholson is breaking the door to the bathroom down with the axe, the props department built a door that could be broken easily. What they didn't know, however, was that in his younger years, Jack had worked as a volunteer fire marshal and he destroyed it too easily, forcing the props department to build a stronger door

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Shelly Duvall suffered from physical illness and hair loss, resulting from nervous exhaustion from filming

-It took approximately one year to get the shot of the blood pouring out of the elevator into the lobby just right

-The interior scenes that were supposed to be of the Overlook Hotel were actually filmed in England at Elstree Studios. The intense heat from the lighting used to imitate snowy weather outside made it very hot inside and actually managed to set the lounge on fire.

-Stephen King was disappointed with the final film. He described the movie as being a fancy car without an engine

-Scatman Crothers got the role of Dick Halloran after Jack Nicholson suggested him. Crothers had a hard time on set because of Stanley Kubrick's annoying habit of take-after-take. When Crothers starred in Bronco Billy in 1980, he was told the director was Clint Eastwood, who was known to be easy on actors and actresses and generally go with one take. Crothers broke down in tears of joy and gratitude from not having to do take after take

-During the scene where Jack snaps at Wendy, Jack was a writer at one time who would often get into arguments with his girlfriend. He drew on these memories and used those to make the scenes more realistic.
-The "Heeeeere's Johnny!" line that Jack uses when breaking down the bathroom door was improvised.
-This was the first of Stephen King's novels to be banned from school libraries because of the concept of wicked parents
-Since there was no air conditioning on set, the temperature would soar. Actors, actresses and crew would strip off heavy clothing as soon as a scene was done
-In almost every scene of the movie, the color red is present, either very subtly or very overtly
-To create various parts of the hotel, director Stanley Kubrick and production designer Roy Walker set out to imitate parts of real hotels. The all red and white men's bathroom was modeled on a men's room at the Biltmore Hotel in Arizona, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The Colorado Lounge was modeled after the lounge in the Ahwanee Hotel in Yosemite Valley.
-When the head cook Dick Halloran is approaching the Overlook, that is real snow outside. That scene was filmed in real snow as he approached the Timberline Hotel in Oregon, where some of the exterior shots were filmed

-When Jack is telling Lloyd the bartender about finding his son Danny messing around with his papers, this mirrors a real life event with Stephen King. He was busy with some notes on a story he was writing and his son played around with his papers. He felt like killing him

-Because Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall both speak with thick Texas and New Jersey accents, Kubrick wanted the actor playing Danny to have an accent somewhere in between, such as Midwest. He settled on Danny Lloyd from Illinois
-When Jack is waiting in the lobby to meet Stuart Ullman, director of the Overlook Hotel, the magazine he tosses on to the chair is the January 1978 issue of Playgirl. For those who might be unfamiliar with this, Playboy shows nude women or women in various stages of undress. Playgirl caters to women in that it shows nude men or men in various stages of undress.

-During the scene with the party in the Gold Room, Kubrick told the extras to mouth their words

-Characters with mental powers seems to be a running theme with Stephen King. Characters with mental powers can be found in the stories Doctor Sleep (a sort of sequel to The Shining with Danny Torrance as an adult), Carrie, Firestarter.
-The film was released on Scatman Crothers' seventieth birthday
-In the novel, Jack Torrance worked at a Vermont prep school, but was fired for hitting a student who was slashing his car tires
-Real-life media and Denver media was used in the movie. When he was driving to Sidewinder in the snowstorm, Halloran was listening to the radio. It was Denver's KHOW, which was Top 40 pop music at the time. The two DJs he was listening to were Hal Moore and Charley Martin, both of whom are morning drive-time DJs. At the Overlook Hotel, Denver's Channel 9 was on the televisions. On-air newscasters Bertha Lynn and Bill Custer taped a segment to be used on the TVs. When he was in Miami and watching the weather forecasts, Glenn Rinker, a highly known Florida news anchor at the time, was predicting weather.
-In the novel, snow began to bury the Overlook Hotel
-In the novel, Dick Halloran was only sixty while actor Scatman Crothers, who played him in the movie, was seventy

-When Jack and his family are driving to the hotel, a reference to the Donner Party is made. The Donner Pass in Northern California on Interstate 80 is named for this. The Donner Party was a group of settlers trying to go cross country. They were stuck in a snowstorm and in order to survive, they resorted to cannibalism

-In the novel, Jack was supposed to handle all duties-grounds keeping, housekeeping and more. He handles re-shingling the roof, grounds keeping, general maintenance, etc.

-At the end of the film, the 1921 photo was a real life photo with Jack Nicholson's head airbrushed on to the body of another man

-Stephen King wrote the book inside the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. He and his family stayed in the room Danny is told not to go into

-In the novel, The Overlook Hotel explodes because of the boiler that Jack neglected to dump. Jack is found frozen to death in the hedge maze