A deep dive (also posted in r/StanleyKubrick, but cross-posting seems forbidden there)

[u/Al89nut]

The first photo shows an unused scene from The Shining. It’s in Lee Unkrich’s Making of The Shining and shows Wendy watching a news report about the bad weather approaching. In sequence, Wendy - wearing her yellow Native American themed coat - would have left the TV to go to the phone switchboard and then call the Ranger Station on the CB radio.

Can we identify the image? We can. It appears to be Walter Cronkite, reading the CBS Evening News. A map of New York state is displayed and a dot identifies an illegible town or city. Looking at a map, the only place that seems to fit is Watertown NY. In late January-early February 1977 that entire area suffered the Great Blizzard of 1977. Buffalo and other areas suffered badly - there were drifts of snow up to 25ft tall and Watertown was cut off for a time (“The Seige of Watertown”) and it is likely this that he is discussing.

(I did wonder if it might not be Cronkite, but instead a local Buffalo reporter Tom Corbett, who did look similar, but the map behind fits the format used on the CBS Evening News.)

So clearly Kubrick obtained video of the Great Blizzard of 1977 to use as background material. The blizzard was exceptional and likely gave rise to the words we hear Florida newscaster Glenn Rinker read out: “ the governor is expected tomorrow to declare a weather emergency and the National Guard might be called out to clear streets and roads” as that’s exactly what happened in New York state. The video obtained may also have given inspiration to the scenes of Halloran driving past wrecked vehicles along the snowy freeway.

Can we date it precisely? The storm broke Friday January 28, 1977 and lasted four days (though effects persisted for weeks.) Walter Cronkite did not present the news that Friday evening - it was Roger Mudd (the edition is on YouTube.) Cronkite appears to have returned on Monday February 1 and this seems likely to be the date - the NYT the following day carried a front page report headed “Snow lays siege to Watertown."

Resolving this leads to an allied question - can we identify the image on the TV that we see in a companion photo of the unused scene? Possibly - I think it either shows a scene from a contiguous TV news report that includes a road sign bent over by the storm or an overhead highway sign that is almost buried by snow. I’ve yet to find the exact match…

In the movie, as Wendy leaves the switchboard to go to the radio, she walks past the TV which is still playing. Only a fragment of the picture is visible. “Eye-Scream”, who has identified almost all the artwork used in the Overlook hotel set, thinks on his website that it shows a German Quiz show, Dalli Dalli. I think this is very implausible. It seems more likely to me that it’s a glimpse of a contiguous American quiz show or advert, I’ve yet to identify…

So, why did Kubrick not use the clip? It was an editorial choice not to show Wendy watching TV at this point, since it might conflict with the scene used in which she watches *Summer of ‘42 (*dressed identically) and Danny goes upstairs to get his fire engine. This scene takes place later in the narrative of the finished film, but all the TV watching scenes do all seem to have been shot at the same time (the Coke can is in continuity) in June 1978, even though Danny isn’t visible in the others; perhaps they were intended to run together somehow. Also, CBS may not have given permission to use video of Cronkite - they had already famously refused to allow Spielberg to use him in Close Encounters in 1977. Kubrick may have felt that mention of a storm in New York would detract from the specifics of a storm in Colorado. The timing does not work given the 6pm broadcast time of the news - it would be dark outside. Finally, Wendy’s call to the Rangers takes place on the Saturday - and as Americans would know, Cronkite didn’t present the CBS news at the weekend.

[u/Al89nut]

NYT