"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." These are perhaps the most famous (or should that be infamous?) typed words to appear on a cinema screen, capturing the increasingly twisted mindset of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining. The Shining needs little introduction to anyone with even a passing interest in movies - a classic horror movie with an unforgettable performance from Jack Nicholson, its tale of a supernatural hotel and a writer's descent into insanity has left a timeless imprint on popular culture, not least in the thousands of The Shining posters featuring Jack Torrance leering through a hole in a door wielding an axe. Behind the story of the overlook hotel, however, is another interesting tale revealing something of the ill temperament some writers are renowned for. Having considerably changed the story from the novel, Kubrick raised the heckles of the author. Indeed, even last year King couldn't conceal his ongoing contempt for the film, describing Kubrick as "a very compulsive man" and saying, Shelley Duvall as Wendy is really one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film. She's basically just there to scream and be stupid. And that's not the woman I wrote about. Others have argued that Kubrick's real talent was taking his source material and understanding exactly how to adapt it to the screen, which, considering Stephen King's one venture into movie making, Maximum Overdrive, isn't something the author appears to grasp.
