Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of The Shining is renowned for its haunting final shot: a chilling photograph from the Overlook Hotel’s 1921 Fourth of July ball, prominently featuring Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson), despite the fact that he was not yet born. The image used in the film was a real photograph altered to include Nicholson, but the original had long been lost to obscurity—until now. Excitingly, the original 1921 Fourth of July ball photograph has been rediscovered, a staggering 45 years after the film's release.
Alasdair Spark, a retired academic from the University of Winchester, shared the journey of uncovering the image on Getty's Instagram. He explained, "Following the earlier identification by facial recognition software of the unknown man in the photograph at the end of The Shining as Santos Casani, a London ballroom dancer, I can reveal that the photo 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, the Royal Palace Hotel, Kensington." Alongside his post, Spark included a new scan from the image’s original glass-plate negative, as well as other handwritten documents corroborating the photo.
Spark, along with New York Times staffer Arick Toller and numerous dedicated Redditors, embarked on a challenging quest to locate the image. He recounted, "It was starting to seem impossible; every cross-reference to Casani failed to match. Other likely places that were suggested didn’t match. There were some places we could not find images for, and we started to fear that meant the photo might be lost to history, and never be found."
The historian also shared that on-set photographer Murray Close, who captured the image of Nicholson that was superimposed over Casani for the film, had informed him that the original picture was sourced from the BBC Hulton Library. Knowing that Hulton acquired Topical Press in 1958 and that Getty later took over in 1991, Spark was inspired to sift through the agency’s vast collection of images. 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 concluded, "Joan Smith had said the photo dated from 1923. Stanley Kubrick had said 1921 and he was correct. The photo doesn’t show any of the celebrities I had speculated on — the Trix Sisters for instance — nor the bankers, financiers or presidents others like Rob Ager have imagined there. No devil worshippers either. Nobody was composited into it except Jack Nicholson. It shows a group of ordinary London people on a Monday evening. 'All the best people,' as the manager of the Overlook Hotel said."This discovery is sure to delight fans of The Shining. Stephen King's novel, released in 1977, has been adapted into two notable versions: Kubrick’s iconic film and the book-accurate 1997 miniseries directed by horror maestro Mick Garris.
