'The Shining' trivia and fun facts
Changes in the script
Stanley Kubrick's eccentricities are known to all, so Jack Nicholson stopped trying to learn the script from start to finish. Only what was to be filmed the next day was studied.
Using the atrezzo
In a moment of the movie we can see clearly a painting of a naked woman. This one is the same that appears in 'A Clockwork Orange', at the bar in the beginning of the film.
A past opportunity
Both Stanley Kubrick and Jack Nicholson were offered to participate in 'The Exorcist'. Both refused it, but finally made a horror film together with 'The Shining'.
Dubbing actors
Stanley Kubrick also made casting decisions for dubbing actors in other countries. In Spain actors Joaquín Hinojosa and Verónica Forqué did the voices of Jack and Wendy Torrence. Both actors had little experience in dubbing. In Spain, this dubbing is consider one of the worst dubbing ever made, due to that casting choice.
"Scene" post-credits of the 80's
When the film credits end, you can hear the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel clapping and muttering to each other.
Repeat and repeat... Useful?
The scene in which Jack and his wife climb the stairs while she threatens him with a bat was repeated 60 times... And finally the one that was chosen for the assembly was the first one.
The script that might have been
Firstly, the film's script was going to be written by Stephen King himself but, after chatting with some people about Kubrick, he decided to pass him the token.
The end that it wasn't
Stanley Kubrick wasn't to film a final where everybody died. Stephen King didn't let him do it.
The most repeated scene
As for the famous scene of "Here's Jack", Stanley Kubrick had it repeated 157 times, being one of the most repeated scenes in the history of cinema.
Smart guy
As Kubrick was famous for repeating many times the scenes, Jack Nicholson changed his mind about doing himself the scene where he fell down the stairs and it was made by a stunt.
Strong Jack
For the scene in which Jack breaks down the bathroom door, the props department built a door that could be easily broken. However, Jack Nicholson had worked as a volunteer fire marshal and tore it apart far too easily. The props department were then forced to build a stronger door.
Mistreat the actress
Shelley Duvall had to be hospitalized in a psychiatric center after a nervous breakdown suffered at the end of filming, after tensions and nervousness accumulated during the months that lasted. On leaving, she said that the director mistreated her psychologically every day.
Kubrick delaying everyone
According to Variety magazine, the film took almost 200 days to shoot. However, according to assistant editor Gordon Stainforth, it took much more, nearly a year. The film was originally supposed to take 17 weeks, but it ultimately took 51. Because the film ran so long, Warren Beatty's 'Reds' (1981) and Steven Spielberg's 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981) were both delayed as they were both waiting to shoot in Elstree Studios.
Stephen King didn't want Jack Nicholson
Stephen King tried to convince the producer and the director to change the actor. He said that he did not seem to be going crazy, since from the beginning he has to look like it.
The movie did not like his real author
'The Shining' was eventually re-made as a 1997 miniseries that followed Stephen King's book more closely, because of his dissatisfaction with Stanley Kubrick's adaptation. However, Kubrick owned the rights to the 1980 adaptation, so in order for King to get the right to re-adapt his own book into the miniseries, Kubrick required that he sign a legally-binding contract that forced King to no longer be able to bring up frequent public criticism of Kubrick's film, save for the sole commentary that he was disappointed with Jack Nicholson's portrayal of Jack Torrance as though he had been insane before his arrival at the Overlook Hotel.