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

Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film adaptation of "The Shining" is renowned for its chilling final scene, which features a haunting photograph from the Overlook Hotel's 1921 Fourth of July ball. The image, prominently displaying Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson), who hadn't been born at the time the photo was supposedly taken, has long fascinated viewers. The original photograph, which had faded into obscurity after its use in the film, has now been rediscovered 45 years later.

Alasdair Spark, a retired academic from the University of Winchester, shared the journey of locating this iconic 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, 14 February 1921, at the Empress Rooms, the Royal Palace Hotel, Kensington." Spark's post also featured a new scan from the original glass-plate negative, accompanied by other handwritten documents corroborating the photo's authenticity.

Spark, along with New York Times staffer Arick Toller and numerous dedicated Redditors, embarked on a challenging quest to find the image. He noted, "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 search was fueled by information from on-set photographer Murray Close, who had informed Spark that the original image was sourced from the BBC Hulton Library. Knowing that Hulton acquired Topical Press in 1958 and that Getty took over in 1991, Spark decided to delve into Getty's vast archive. Their efforts paid off when they found that the image had been licensed to Hawk Films, Stanley 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 thrill fans of the film. Stephen King's novel "The Shining" was published in 1977 and has been adapted into two notable works: Kubrick's iconic 1980 film and Mick Garris' faithful 1997 miniseries.