A lost Stanley Kubrick screenplay has been discovered after 60 years

"Elements of this film, although it didn't get made, have fed into his other films"

A new screenplay by directorial legend Stanley Kubrick has been discovered 60 years after it was first written.

Entitled Burning Secret, the piece of writing was uncovered by Bangor University professor Nathan Abrams while he researched a book about the director’s last project, Eyes Wide Shut.

It’s suggested that the screenplay was initially ditched for being too controversial for its time.

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Kubrick went on to make critically-acclaimed films including 2001: A Space OdysseyFull Metal JacketA Clockwerk Orange and The Shining.

Burning Secret was an adaptation of a 1913 novella by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, written by Kubrick in 1956 with novelist Calder Willingham. It tells the story of an insurance salesman befriending a 10-year-old boy in order to seduce the child’s mother.

Abrams told the BBC: “I would argue that what we can see draws a direct link between this film, between Lolita, Barry Lyndon, The Shining and culminating in Eyes Wide Shut. Elements of this film, although it didn’t get made, have fed into his other films. We can trace his thought over 40 years.”

He says was shown a copy of the screenplay by the son of a Kubrick collaborator who wishes to remain anonymous.

“It seemingly checks out,” he said. “It’s most likely that said collaborator was going to work on the film had it been green-lit.

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“What nobody knew was whether they had actually written a script and finished it – and now we know the answer to that question and we have a complete screenplay,” he continued.

“Making a new discovery is difficult in this area, even though his archive in London has opened-up – a lot of it is re-interpretational, discovering a document here or there.”

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