Iconic 'The Shining' Final Shot Photo Found After 45 Years

Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film adaptation of "The Shining" boasts one of the most chilling final scenes in cinematic history: a haunting photograph from the Overlook Hotel's 1921 Fourth of July ball, prominently featuring Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), despite him not yet being born. This image, a real photo altered to include Nicholson, had faded into obscurity until now. Remarkably, the original 1921 Fourth of July ball photograph has been rediscovered 45 years after the film's release.

Alasdair Spark, a retired academic from the University of Winchester, shared insights on the process 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." The post also featured a new scan from the original glass-plate negative and additional handwritten documents corroborating the photo’s authenticity.

Spark, along with New York Times staffer Arick Toller and dedicated Redditors, embarked on a challenging quest to find the image. “It was starting to seem impossible, every cross-reference to Casani failed to match. Other likely places that were suggested didn’t match,” he noted on Getty. “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 further detailed that on-set photographer Murray Close, who captured the image of Nicholson superimposed over Casani, had informed him that the original photo came from the BBC Hulton Library. Knowing that Hulton acquired Topical Press in 1958 and that Getty later took over in 1991, Spark searched through Getty's extensive archives. This search revealed that the image was licensed to Hawk Films, Kubrick’s production company, on October 10, 1978, specifically for "The Shining." “Joan Smith had said the photo dated from 1923. Stanley Kubrick had said 1921 and he was correct,” Spark concluded. “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 captivate fans of the film. Stephen King’s novel "The Shining" was released in 1977 and has been adapted twice: Kubrick’s iconic film and the 1997 miniseries by horror maestro Mick Garris, which stayed true to the book.