48 Fun Facts About Stanley Kubrick

In which New York borough did the Kubrick family live when Stanley was born in 1928?

The Bronx. Kubrick was a poor student at Taft High School there, happier in the school camera club and at the cinema, and his grades left him with no real chance of a college place.

Which song does the computer HAL sing as it is shut down in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

'Daisy Bell'. Arthur C. Clarke had heard an IBM computer at Bell Labs sing it, the first song a computer ever sang, and gave the same tune to the dying HAL.

For which magazine did Kubrick work as a staff photographer from 1946?

Look. While still at high school Kubrick sold it a picture of a news vendor slumped among the headlines of Roosevelt's death, and the magazine took him on at 17.

How did the young Kubrick supplement his income in Washington Square Park?

Playing chess for quarters. His father had taught him the game at 12; Kubrick said it gave him patience and discipline, and chessboards went on to appear in several of his films.

What was Kubrick's first feature film, a war allegory he later tried to disown?

Fear and Desire. To make fog on a tiny budget Kubrick used a crop sprayer, and the insecticide still inside it nearly choked his cast and crew; most of the money had come from his uncle.

Which producer formed a production company with Kubrick in 1955 and made The Killing and Lolita with him?

James B. Harris. The partnership ended amicably as Dr. Strangelove took shape: Harris is said to have wanted a straight thriller, and he soon began directing films of his own.

Kubrick's 1956 crime film The Killing follows a gang robbing what kind of venue?

A racetrack. Kubrick told the heist out of order, through flashbacks, and Quentin Tarantino later called Reservoir Dogs his own take on that kind of heist film.

How did Kubrick stage the deaths of hundreds of extras in the Paths of Glory battle scene?

By assigned zones. Kubrick split no-man's-land into sections rigged with explosive charges and told each extra which one to die in, with cameras lined up to cover every section.

Which star hired Kubrick for Spartacus after firing director Anthony Mann?

Kirk Douglas, who was also the film's producer. Kubrick clashed with him over a script he had no power to change, and Spartacus remained the only film on which he lacked full artistic control.

Which Marlon Brando western did Kubrick spend months developing before leaving the project?

One-Eyed Jacks. After the two fell out Brando directed it himself, the only film he ever directed; an early draft of the script had come from a then-unknown Sam Peckinpah.

Dr. Strangelove began as a straight adaptation of which Cold War thriller novel?

Red Alert, a deadly serious thriller by Peter George. When the rival novel Fail-Safe appeared with a near-identical plot, George and Kubrick sued for copyright infringement and settled out of court.

Which actor plays three roles in Dr. Strangelove?

Peter Sellers plays an RAF officer, the US president and Dr. Strangelove himself. He was due to play the bomber pilot too, until a sprained ankle kept him out of the cramped cockpit set.

Which satirist did Kubrick bring in shortly before filming to sharpen Dr. Strangelove's black comedy?

Terry Southern, author of the comic novel The Magic Christian, which one of Kubrick's actors had handed him. Southern's late rewrite earned a screen credit placed above the original novelist's.

Which Arthur C. Clarke short story was the starting point for 2001: A Space Odyssey?

The Sentinel, about an alien beacon found on the Moon. Clarke later bristled at the link, saying the story bore about as much relation to the film as an acorn to a full-grown oak.

Kubrick's only personal Oscar was for which category?

Best Visual Effects, for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick was nominated many times as director, writer and producer, starting with Dr. Strangelove, and never won in any of those categories.

Which critic dismissed 2001: A Space Odyssey as 'the biggest amateur movie of them all'?

Pauline Kael. Critics split sharply over the film, but it became a box-office hit and a fixture on lists of the greatest films; Steven Spielberg called it the 'big bang' of his generation.

What is the invented teenage slang spoken by Alex and his gang in A Clockwork Orange called?

Nadsat, a slang built largely on Russian words. Kubrick set the novel aside when he was first given it, by some accounts because its language seemed too hard to follow, and took it up again in 1969.

Why did Kubrick personally withdraw A Clockwork Orange from UK release?

He received death threats after copycat crimes were blamed on the film, and protesters gathered outside his home. At his request it stayed out of British cinemas until 2000, after his death.

The ultra-fast lenses that let Kubrick shoot Barry Lyndon by candlelight had been made for which organisation?

NASA, for its Apollo programme. Kubrick bought some of the handful Zeiss ever made and had a camera rebuilt to take them, so that whole scenes could be lit by nothing but candles.

Fear of which group made Kubrick pull out of Ireland while filming Barry Lyndon?

The IRA. A phone call claimed he was on its hit list and gave him 24 hours to leave Ireland; he was gone within 12, and filming resumed in England.

Barry Lyndon is based on an 1844 novel by which Victorian author?

William Thackeray, better known for Vanity Fair. Kubrick turned to the book after his Napoleon epic lost its backing, and poured the period research he had done for that film into this one.

Which newly invented camera rig let Kubrick's camera glide through the hotel corridors of The Shining?

The Steadicam. Its inventor, Garrett Brown, operated it himself, and Kubrick's demand for shots from just above the floor led to a new low-slung mode for the rig.

Days after The Shining opened, Kubrick ordered which scene removed from the film?

The hospital epilogue, in which the hotel manager visits Wendy and Danny after their escape. Kubrick judged it unnecessary once he had watched audiences react to the climax.

Years before The Shining, Kubrick was among the directors considered for which horror classic?

The Exorcist. The job went to William Friedkin, and Kubrick, who had long talked of making the world's scariest film, waited until 1980 to release a horror picture of his own.

Which cast member's road accident delayed Full Metal Jacket for months?

R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine drill instructor hired only as a technical adviser. He won the part of Sergeant Hartman with videotaped tirades at a group of extras, and went on to write much of his own dialogue.

What stood in for the ruined city of Hue in Full Metal Jacket?

A derelict gasworks in London's Docklands, at Beckton. Working from photographs of Hue, Kubrick had its buildings selectively demolished and then dressed the ruins with imported palm trees.

The title Full Metal Jacket refers to what piece of military hardware?

A type of bullet, its soft core cased in harder metal. Kubrick found the phrase in a gun catalogue and preferred it to the novel's title, The Short-Timers, which he feared would suggest part-time workers.

Eyes Wide Shut is based on which 1926 book?

Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler, known in English as Dream Story. Kubrick had wanted to film it for some thirty years, and when he finally did he moved the action from early-1900s Vienna to 1990s New York.

Eyes Wide Shut starred which then-married Hollywood couple?

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The shoot in England ran for 400 days, a record for a continuous film shoot, and Kubrick showed the couple his cut only days before he died.

Which short story did Kubrick spend years developing before Spielberg filmed it as A.I.?

Supertoys Last All Summer Long, by Brian Aldiss. Kubrick thought no child actor could play the robot boy and that computer effects were not yet good enough, so in 1995 he offered the film to Spielberg.

The cancelling of Kubrick's Napoleon epic is often blamed on the failure of which rival 1970 film?

Waterloo, a Soviet-backed epic that put thousands of soldiers on screen and lost money. Kubrick had planned battles on the same scale, with a whole national army as his extras.

Which semi-retired star did Kubrick want as Empress Josephine in his unmade Napoleon epic?

Audrey Hepburn, who did not take the part. For the emperor himself Kubrick lined up the British actor David Hemmings and, later, Jack Nicholson.

Which band approached Kubrick to direct them in a film of The Lord of the Rings?

The Beatles, whose film company planned a musical version with the band in the lead roles. Kubrick turned it down, and the project went no further.

The arrival of which 1993 film led Kubrick to abandon Aryan Papers, his planned Holocaust drama?

Schindler's List. Kubrick had a script, a cast and locations lined up for his version of Louis Begley's novel Wartime Lies, but dropped it; his wife said the subject had left him deeply depressed.

Which film introduced Kubrick to wife Christiane?

Paths of Glory. In its last scene she plays a German singer whose song quiets a tavern of jeering French soldiers; she and Kubrick married in 1958 and stayed together until his death.

Kubrick's second wife, Ruth Sobotka, dances in which of his films, a 1955 noir about a boxer?

Killer's Kiss. Sobotka, a New York City Ballet dancer, performs a long solo as the heroine's ballerina sister, and went on to design the sets for his next film before the marriage ended in 1957.

Which stately home in Hertfordshire became Kubrick's home and 'family factory' from 1978?

Childwickbury Manor, near St Albans. Kubrick turned its stables into production rooms so that he could research, cut and manage his films without leaving home, and he is buried in its grounds.

Full Metal Jacket's score is credited to 'Abigail Mead', a pseudonym for which member of Kubrick's family?

His daughter Vivian. At 17 she had filmed Making 'The Shining', a documentary shot on her father's set and shown on British television.

Which Full Metal Jacket co-writer called Kubrick 'a complete failure as a recluse'?

Michael Herr, the author of Dispatches. He wrote that Kubrick seldom left home yet was one of the most gregarious men he ever knew, with most of the sociability carried on by telephone.

The young Kubrick frequented the film screenings of which museum?

MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art. Kubrick never earned a college degree; he spent his evenings at its film retrospectives instead, and the work of Orson Welles and Sergei Eisenstein left a deep mark.

Which animated series spoofed The Shining as 'The Shinning' in a Halloween episode?

The Simpsons, in 1994's 'Treehouse of Horror V'. Cut off from television and beer at Mr. Burns's mountain lodge, Homer goes mad; the show has also sent up 2001 and A Clockwork Orange.

In 2018 a mountain on Charon, the largest moon of which body, was officially named after Kubrick?

Pluto. Charon's names are drawn from the literature and myth of exploration, so Kubrick Mons honours the director of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and another range there is named for his co-writer, Arthur C. Clarke.

Colour Me Kubrick (2005) starred John Malkovich as Alan Conway, a con artist who did what in the 1990s?

Assumed the director's identity. Conway was clean-shaven while Kubrick wore a full beard, but the director had been out of public view for so long that even a New York Times critic was taken in.

A 2002 French mockumentary by William Karel spoofed which conspiracy theory about Kubrick?

That Kubrick faked NASA's Apollo footage. Karel interviewed Kubrick's widow and brother-in-law on the pretence of making a straight documentary, then ran bloopers over the credits so that nobody could miss the joke.

Which Hollywood musical number does Alex perform during the break-in scene of A Clockwork Orange?

'Singin' in the Rain'. The song is not in the novel: Malcolm McDowell improvised it on set, and Kubrick went on to play Gene Kelly's recording over the end credits.

Whose gliding camerawork did Kubrick single out as an influence on his own visual style?

Max Ophuls, a refugee from Nazi Germany who made his last films in France. Kubrick praised his 'fluid camera techniques' and built the long tracking shots of his own films on them.

Which wartime song plays as Dr. Strangelove ends?

'We'll Meet Again', sung by Vera Lynn. Kubrick had planned to end on a custard-pie fight in the War Room, then cut it and let the cheerful ballad play over the end of the world.

Which composer's Thus Spoke Zarathustra supplies the famous opening fanfare of 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Richard Strauss. Kubrick had commissioned a full score from Alex North, then kept the classical recordings he had been using as a temporary track, and North's music was dropped.