"Shining's Iconic Final Shot Photo Found After 45 Years"

Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film adaptation of "The Shining" is renowned for its haunting final scene, featuring a photograph from the Overlook Hotel's 1921 Fourth of July ball, prominently showcasing Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) amidst a crowd from an era before his birth. This iconic image was created by superimposing Nicholson onto a real historical photograph, which had remained elusive until recently. After 45 years since the movie's release, the original 1921 photograph has finally been discovered.

Alasdair Spark, a retired academic from the University of Winchester, shared insights into the discovery process on Getty's Instagram. He revealed that the photograph was identified as one of three taken by the Topical Press Agency at a St. Valentine's Day Ball on February 14, 1921, at the Empress Rooms in the Royal Palace Hotel, Kensington. The post included a new scan from the original glass-plate negative and supporting handwritten documents.

Spark, along with New York Times staffer Arick Toller and dedicated Redditors, embarked on an extensive search to locate the image. Initially, they encountered numerous dead ends, with cross-references to Santos Casani, the man originally in the photograph, failing to match. The search seemed futile until Spark learned from on-set photographer Murray Close that the image was sourced from the BBC Hulton Library. Knowing that Hulton had acquired Topical Press in 1958 and that Getty later took over in 1991, Spark searched through Getty's vast collection and found that the image was licensed to Hawk Films, Kubrick's production company, on October 10, 1978, for use in "The Shining."

Spark concluded that the photograph dated back to 1921, as Kubrick had claimed, not 1923 as previously suggested by Joan Smith. The image depicted a group of ordinary Londoners at a social event, debunking theories about celebrity appearances or sinister figures being composited into the photo. The only alteration was the addition of Jack Nicholson.

This discovery is a thrilling revelation for fans of "The Shining." Stephen King's novel, published in 1977, has been adapted into two notable versions: Kubrick's iconic film and Mick Garris' 1997 miniseries, which stayed true to the book.