Iconic Final Shot of The Shining Found After 45 Years

Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film adaptation of "The Shining" is renowned for its haunting conclusion, featuring a photograph from the Overlook Hotel’s 1921 Fourth of July ball with Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) prominently displayed, despite him not being born at the time. This image, where Nicholson was digitally inserted into a real historical photograph, had long been a subject of intrigue and mystery. Now, after 45 years since the movie's release, the original 1921 photograph has been discovered.

Alasdair Spark, a retired academic from the University of Winchester, shared the journey of uncovering this image on Getty's Instagram. He revealed that the photograph was 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 accompanying handwritten documents.

Spark, along with New York Times staffer Arick Toller and dedicated Redditors, embarked on a challenging quest to find the image. Initially, the search seemed futile as cross-references to Santos Casani, the man identified in the original photo via facial recognition software, did not match. They feared the photo might be lost forever.

[ttpp]The historian noted that Murray Close, the on-set photographer who captured the image of Nicholson used in the film, had mentioned that the original 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 decided to search through Getty's vast archive. Their efforts paid off when they found that the image was licensed to Hawk Films, Kubrick's production company, on October 10, 1978, for use in "The Shining."

Spark clarified that the photograph, contrary to previous speculations, did not feature any celebrities, bankers, financiers, presidents, or devil worshippers. It simply depicted a group of ordinary Londoners enjoying a Monday evening, as the Overlook Hotel manager in the film described, "All the best people."

This discovery is sure to delight fans of "The Shining." Stephen King's novel, published in 1977, has been adapted twice: once by Kubrick in 1980 and again in a 1997 miniseries directed by Mick Garris, which stayed closer to the book's narrative.