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"Shining" question that's been bugging me for years..... (1 Viewer)

Stephen Brooks

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I have a question that's been bugging me for a long time now about Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining". When I first saw the film, on A&E about 10 or so years ago, I could swear it contained the following line (or something similar to it) right after Wendy found Jack's "play" he'd been working on:

JACK: Do you like it? I was having trouble thinking of a title. I was thinking "All Work and No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy....."

I loved Jack's delivery of that particular line and it stuck in my head. There's even a Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episode that references it:

HOMER: I was thinking....."All Work and No Play make Homer something somthing"......

MARGE: Go crazy?

HOMER: Don't mind if I do!!!

However, when I rented the original DVD way back when, it did not contain the line in question. I purchased the "digitally restored and remastered" version a couple years ago, and it also omits that line. The version they show on TV nowdays, which presumably now uses a newer master, also no longer has that line. In fact, I think the only time I've EVER heard it was on that very first TV viewing.

So......is my mind just playing tricks on me? Is that Simpsons episode screwing with my head, or was that line ever actually in the movie?? If so, I hope it is restored for the new Special Edition that's supposed to be coming out.
 

J-EL

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I've seen the film many many times on VHS, TV, and on DVD and I've never heard that line in the film during any of those viewings on the different formats.
 

Dave Mack

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False memory I think. Because of "The Shinning" (Simpsons)...
I had the very first VHS ever released, never heard the line...
"How do you like it...?"
SCREAM...
Next line I think is
"What are you DOING down here...?"

i think
 

JeffMc

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That line was definitely not in the original theatrical release (I worked at the cinema when it first opened and stood in the back a million times) and I've never heard it on any of the tv-viewings, VHS or DVD prints.
 

JeffMc

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Unfortunately no. I grew up in New Orleans and the film opened there after its limited 'uncut' release in other major cities. So the ending was already cut out by the time it went wide. I have a friend now who did see the original ending - he lived in San Diego at the time. He was also lucky to see that infamous uncut sneak preview of "Logan's Run" before they chopped it down to a PG. Me, not so lucky on either count. :frowning:

PS: At the time of its original release, most audiences leaving "THE SHINING" seemed to hate it, calling it boring, slow, not scary, and just plain awful. I liked it from the first viewing, and I'm sure there were others out there who did as well, but you wouldn't believe the number of negative grumblings I heard after every screening on that initial release. Really not well received at all. It wasn't until cable screenings and video that the cult fanbase and the film's popularity started to grow and take off.
 

Sean A

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I saw "The Shining" on opening day in New York at the Sutton theater , so I am among the (relatively) few who saw that original ending
 

Mark Hawley

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Actually how it goes in "The Shinning" is Marge walks into the room to look at what he's been writing, feeling it will be a "window into his madness" and all he has written on the typewriter is "feelin' fine".

She's intially relieved until lightning strikes illuminating the whole room, revealing that Homer has scrawled "No beer and No TV Make Homer Go Crazy" all over the walls. Then he walks in and asks about the title, something along the lines of "No beer and no TV make Homer something something".
 

JeffMc

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Damn lucky! I would have been there, too, if I had lived in a bigger city at the time as I was enthusiastically awaiting the release of this film. But that legendary original ending didn't last long on its limited release. Good or not, it is now one of cinema's "holy grails". Maybe some projectionist back then cut it off the print and kept it and it will surface sometime in the future (along with a print of "London after Midnight", of course!) :)

Sean:

What did you think of that original ending, from what you can recall? Do you think the film plays better with or without it?
 

Steve_Pannell

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I think when Wendy looked at what Jack had been typing all he had typed was "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" over and over.

But I don't remember hearing that line spoken anytime.
 

BarryR

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I saw the cut ending also, set in a hospital, and what little I recall was dialogue between the hotel manager and the survivors--I guess it ultimately seemed superflous; good thing I saw it within its first two days of release though!
 

Greg_R

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I was about to post that. Yes, it was never in the dialog of the movie but it was typed repetitively on the typewriter. That's probably why it stuck in your mind...
 

Sean A

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I may be in a minority, but I think it played better with the original (penultimate) scene in the hospital. Now, when I watch the film, the ending always seems too abrupt for me
 

Jack Johnson

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Imagine how a lot of use felt when a statistically significant number of people were taken aback to find the version of "Hannibal" that made it to dvd wasn't the same cut we'd seen in theaters.

Not to re-hash the debate, but to offer an account of it:

Many of us saw--and saw multiple times in theaters--a shot of Lecter actually cutting into Paul Krendler's brain in the gruesome finale of of the film, only to find that that shot had been omitted on the dvd. Discovering the deletion and doing a little research on the web, I learned via thedigitalbits.com of outcry from the Region Four dvd buying public--which had been issued the dvd prior to Region One--upon discovering this curious absence as well.

Then came the official denials, of course--the last thing a studio wants is to tell consumers they didn't get what they paid for--and the majority of people who saw what they claimed to see allowed themselves to be talked out of their experience. Allowing for the way memory can work, the power and suggestion and all that, all I can say is had I not seen Hannibal so many times in theaters and discussed the particular shot in question with friends (with another theatrical screening to follow), maybe I'd have been talked out of it too.

Of course, had I not had these experiences, I'd be scoffing at accounts like mine.

For the record, the oft cited "evidence" this shot never existed is no evidence at all: Footage of in-theater, initial audience reaction to Hannibal is said to show the shot lacking...but the camera actually pans away from the screen at the moment in question. And you know how it goes; could've been a different print too.



So, sometimes we're crazy, sometimes we're not. As for your recollection of The Shining, though, you're crazy! Just kidding. All I can say is I don't remember hearing that line.



--Jack
 

Carlos_E

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For those that saw the movie during its original theatrical release in 1980, did the movie have black bars on the right and left side to project on the rectangular screen. I have the digitally remastered DVD. The aspect ratio is around 1:33 full screen. I have read that this is the original aspect ratio that Stanley Kubrick shot the movie in.

If that is the case, when the film is projected on a rectangular movie screen, then there would be black bars on the left and right correct?

Several years ago, I saw a rerelease of Gone with the Wind at the movie theater. The original aspect ratio of this movie is around 1:33. THe movie screen had black bars on the left and the right.

Thanks guys.

Carlos
 

ChristopherDAC

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No, it was projected 1.85 widescreen (1.66 in Europe and Japan), but shot "open-matte protected", that is, Academy Ratio, without masking off the top and bottom in the camera, so that it could be shown on television without pan-and-scan. For some reason of their own, people have taken this as a license to think that Kubrick "meant" for it to be seen in 4×3 ratio.
 

Nathan V

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Please noooooo, for the sake of the children!!! Not another Kubrick OAR thread! I swear, the movies themselves are more interesting!

I too remember the Hannibal shot, and I saw the film twice...I liked the gothic aesthetic Ridley brought to the material. I can believe that it wasn't there, though, as the scene is so lurid in content viewers are likely to believe they saw anything.

Does anyone remember the falling bird in Signs? I SWEAR that was in the theatrical prints. I adamantly refuse ot believe that was never there.

Regards,
Nathan
 

Harpozep

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Ok, I was at the premier of the Shining in a suburb of Boston and the shot the original poster speaks of was/is as others pointed out, just done with Shelly Duval finding the pages with the "....dull boy" quotes on it.

At first I did not remember the original ending, but after reading this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/alternateversions
It all came back! Since it was taken off so quickly, all my subsequent viewings have erased the ending from my memory. Weird, Huh? I read about it and it all came back.

Here is the excerpt if anyone else is having a hazy time with this:

"Director Stanley Kubrick edited the ending on the third day after release, removing about 10 minutes at the end: starting after the closeup of 'frozen Jack in daylight' it goes to a pullback shot with part of a state troopers car and the legs of troopers walking around in the foreground with jack in the background, then cuts to the hotel manager (Barry Nelson) Stuart Ullman walking down a hospital hallway to the nurse's station to inquire about Danny and Wendy, he's told they're both doing well and proceeds to Wendy's (Shelley Duvall) room, where after some gentle conversation he tells Wendy that searchers have been unable to locate any evidence of the apparitions she saw. Then it cuts to the camera silently roaming the halls of the Overlook hotel for about a minute until it comes up to the wall with the photographs, where it [back to the ending as it is now known] finally closes in on the photo of Jack in the 1921 pic."

Ok, Now the one that got away in my head :laugh: :
Total Recall, I swear the theatrical cut had a decently shot topless scene of Sharon Stone after or before a sex scene with Arnie.

This list of alternative versions of Total Recall does not mention the shot I'm thinking of:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100802/alternateversions

I'll admit to not viewing this film in several years, so I'm just wondering if this scene exists on home video in any fashion? I remember looking through VHS and LD some years back and being perplexed by its absence.

A nude Sharon Stone seems very vivid in my mind after all these years!:laugh:
Could it have been my imagination?:eek: :frowning: If so, I kind of like going there!:laugh: :laugh:
 

Vincent-P

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My best friend and I saw the Barry Levinson film "Bandits" on opening night in College Station, TX. When the DVD came out, he bought it & we watched it & we were very confused because we thought that Cate Blanchett was pregnant at the end of the film, but she wasn't on the DVD. Then we saw the alternate ending on the DVD where she was pregnant. We swear that that is the ending we saw in the theater.
 

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