He-e-e-e-ere’s Burl! Ha ha, it’s me, back finally with
another review of a horror classic! I have a long history with the story of The Shining, since before the movie was
made even! My schoolteacher in some very early grade, perhaps four, perhaps
five, read the book to us in short installments over the year! I remember
really enjoying it, though I’m not sure about the rest of the class!
Famously, of course, Stephen King was mighty disappointed in
the movie, calling it “a big beautiful Cadillac of a movie with nothing under
the hood,” or words to that effect! I can understand his chagrin, to a degree
anyway, but I think he was too close to his own novel to be able to distinguish
the book from the movie as clearly as might be required to fully appreciate
Stanley Kubrick’s effort! Ha ha, I’ll bet he started to appreciate it a little
more after Firestarter and Children of the Corn and The Lawnmower Man came out, though!
But Kubrick, famous for movies like Killer’s Kiss and Full Metal Jacket, undeniably took some liberties with King’s novel! I can only
imagine how crushed the poor bearded author was when he saw Jack Torrance leap
out with that axe and nail poor Dick Hallorann right in the parka! Or when he
realized that the hotel’s frondescent threat would be a simple hedge maze and
not ambulatory topiary animals! Or when Jack Torrance, played by Jack
Nicholson, appeared well on his way to crazy right from day dot!
The maze, I think, was an improvement over the book, and the
living hedge creatures would likely have been too much for the trick effects
teams of the day, even the team Kubrick would have assembled! Ha ha, it was
certainly too much for the makers of the TV movie remake, and they even had CGI
capabilities! But I was very sad to see old Dick Hallorann buy the biscuit! I
wanted Kubrick to show them all relaxing at the pool in Florida at the very
end, just like in the book!
I’ve seen this picture a few times now, ha ha! What really
struck me this go round was how impressive the sets were! Boy oh boy, those
must have cost a pretty penny to make! I can’t blame Kubrick for wanting to
shoot fifty or sixty takes of each shot, although I have heard that he wore out
poor Scatman Crothers at one point, and that I can’t condone! He was getting on
in years at that point, but at least he hadn’t made that rat picture Deadly Eyes yet! That was still in his
future!
I’ll just say that I think this is a really fine adaptation
of a book I also like, and I for one am content to have two very different
takes on this story! The movie has great photography, a really brilliant use of
music, great performances all around, even from young Danny, and many creepy
scenes! Those two girls sure were eerie, ha ha! Come play with us, Danny! I
give The Shining three and a half
crash zooms into Redrum!
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