Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Shining Exposed!

Spoiler alert!  I'm going to reveal the final shot of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980).  Avert your eyes, and click away now if you don't want to have the ending of this famous horror film completely ruined.

Consider yourself fairly warned.  Counting down to the big shocking reveal...

One,

Two,

Three...


Okay that wasn't a very big deal.  Most everyone has seen this.  At least I hope you've seen it - the movie is 32 years old for goodness sake.  Also much better versions of this photo suitable for desktop wallpaper can easily be found around the internets.

But what cannot be easily found is the original untouched 1923 photo.  You know, before Jack Nicholson's head was inserted over some unknown guy.  So here we go ladies and gentlemen, the man who's head was covered by Jack's head is at last finally reveled...



The above images are found on a page from The Complete Airbrush and Photo-Retouching Manual by Peter Owen & John Sutcliffe originally published in 1985.



It's interesting the movie The Shining is never credited for some reason on the above page from the book. 

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13 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 17, 2012 at 11:12 PM

    Nice find. Are there any photos in the book showing the right hand of the man whose face Jack Nicholson was pasted onto?

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 18, 2012 at 1:20 AM

    Indeed, great would, would love a high resolution copy of the entire original picture!

    ReplyDelete
  3. David W.October 18, 2012 at 3:52 PM

    Anonymous #1 - What you see is all there is.

    Anonymous #2 - There are high resolution copies of the Nicholson photo out there, but the original picture, I think this is it...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jeremy S.October 24, 2012 at 11:19 AM

    The whole film developing process and airbrushing is fascinating to me, as someone who uses Photoshop to do the same thing. One of the reasons why Ansel Adams is one of my all time favorite photographers is that he did his color-grading by using different developing techniques, re-developing prints and using different filters in front of the lens.

    ReplyDelete
  5. londonleeOctober 25, 2012 at 1:02 PM

    I was at art college in England in the pre-digital era and one day we had a class in photo retouching given by the very woman who did the photo for the movie (she told us during the class). Can't remember her name unfortunately.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousAugust 11, 2015 at 4:01 AM

    Was Stanley pointing out to us the simplicity of photographically portraying a man to be in a situation where he never was . . . like the man on the moon ?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Francesco BrigoAugust 28, 2017 at 11:07 AM

    Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining final shot shows a notorious photo with the protagonist Jack Torrance (interpreted by Jack Nicholson) smiling at a 1921 party at the Overlook Hotel.
    Only recently, it has been revealed that this photograph is an actual photo from 1920’s with Jack Torrance’s head airbrushed onto the body of another person (http://www.theoverlookhotel.com/page/20). Both the original and the retouched images have been published in a book published in 1985 and entitled “The Complete Airbrush and Photo-Retouching Manual”.
    In a recent article published in Neurological Sciences I have reported that the face of the man in the original photo shows features consistent with a diagnosis of a probable genetic disorder (an hereditary muscle disease known as Myotonic Dystrophy type 1) (available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10072-017-3096-1).
    I do not know whether Stanley Kubrick was aware of this when he chose to remove this man from the original photo. If so, “the anonymous guest with a probable genetic disease hidden below the photo with Jack Torrance’s head might have been chosen by Stanley Kubrick as a clue to the deep connection which links together the past and present inhabitants of the cursed hotel in almost a genetic way”.

    Francesco Brigo, MD
    University of Verona, Italy

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownMay 28, 2019 at 4:03 PM

    I have actually seen an article about the man whose facecwas airbrushed out of the photo. It had his name and pictures of him before the original was taken. I cannot find it anymore and am still trying to find it.

    ReplyDelete
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  11. UnknownOctober 22, 2021 at 12:48 AM

    I want to know more about the 1923 photo. Where did it come from? What grand ball was it & where was it located?
    Who were all those people

    ReplyDelete
  12. AlasdairAugust 1, 2024 at 7:10 AM

    The man was Santos Casani, a famous ballroom dancer and teacher in 1920s London.

    ReplyDelete