The Shining (1980 Stanley Kubrick)

I find it impossible now not to watch this and find it deeply amusing - it's the combination  of the music and the very deadpan style (of screenplay and acting and editing). And talking of that music - that's why it's so different to any other horror film, the existing and quite mad / peculiar scores from Bartok, Penderecki, Ligeti et al.

It reminded me of the first time I saw it (I think the cinema at Cemetery Junction), where some silly woman kept screaming all the way though it. But I was disappointed then - and still am - that the nice Scatman Crothers character comes all the way from Florida to help them, and is promptly despatched with an axe.

Barry Nelson is the hotel manager (the interview scene is really strange in that there's one cutaway to the other guy there but otherwise you wouldn't know he was there) and Joe Turkel the barman and Philip Stone the waiter.

You feel for Nicholson and Duvall, who both said it was the hardest film they'd ever worked on. 'Shelley seems much more tolerant of the ordeal [filming in 'rain' for Time Bandits] than any actress has a right to be. but, as she says in the car on the way home, it's better than having to cry every day for seven months with Kubrick! Nicholson had to take a six-month break after the movie was finished to get himself straight again.' Michael Palin 'Halfway to Hollywood' (2009).

Elstree Studios, Borehamwood

Production design: Roy Walker. Art direction: Les Tomkins

Joe Turkel

The somehow haunting outro music is Al Bowlly 'Midnight, the Stars and You'.

Yes, there is something distinctive about the lenses being used - primarily 18mm - which Shelley Duvall said made her and Jack look distorted - 'It's great for shooting furniture!'

P.S. July 2022. Amused on death of Jean-Louis Trintignant to learn that Kubrick had talked him out of retirement to voice the Jack Nicholson part for French audiences. His "Here's Johnny!" - "Coucou, cheri!" - is as famous in France as the original version is to us.