Stanley Kubrick Script ‘Burning Secret’ Found 62 Years After Being Cancelled
It had long been rumored that Stanley Kubrick had a film script that never made it to production, but as time marched on, it became more and more of an urban legend among film aficionados than anything real. Now, the truth is known, and Kubrick did indeed have a lost script dating back to 1956 when he was under contract at MGM Studios. The name of that unmade film was Burning Secret, an adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s 1913 novella Burning Secret, co-written with Calder Willingham. Credit for the discovery goes to Bangor University film professor Nathan Abrams, a fan and leading authority on all things Kubrick.
According to Far Out Magazine, the script is around 100 pages long, has had numerous notations made on it, and is believed to be very close to completion. The script itself does bear the MGM Studios script department stamp. Abrams stated that “Kubrick aficionados know he wanted to do it, [but] no one ever thought it was completed. We now have a copy and this proves that he had done a full screenplay,” in his statements with Far Out Magazine. There have been plenty of questions, however, as to why the film never happened, and there are some fairly solid theories as to why.
One theory that has traction is that MGM canned the project when Kubrick breached his contract with them to make Paths of Glory. The Guardian also theorized that it was possible that MGM told the film’s producer, James B. Harris, that the film was not economically viable, or had no real potential as a film. Whether that may have been done to take revenge against Kubrick, or because at the time it was true, will likely never be known for sure. What is known is that MGM owned the script and buried it, preventing Kubrick from ever completing the project.
The second biggest possible reason as to why Burning Secrets may have been buried is the content of the film. The plot-line of the film centers around an adulterous relationship, but that relationship was to involve a child which at the time was too big of a risk for a studio, and for many executives at the time. Abrams has voiced some agreement for this line of thinking as well.
“The adultery storyline involving a child as a go-between might have been considered too risque. The child acts as an unwitting go-between for his mother and her would-be lover, making for a disturbing story with sexuality and child abuse churning beneath its surface.”
Abrams went on to further explain the script as being the inverse of Kubrick’s film Lolita, in which the main character marries the mother to get to the daughter. Even in 1962, Lolita was a project that barely made it to theaters. Though some hail it as a cinematic classic now, at the time of release it was not received well by many film-goers. In Burning Secrets, the main character befriends the son to get to the mother. Any way you slice it, with the Hollywood morality codes of the era, it was extremely risque.
While no one has stated interest in making the film, Steven Spielberg did re-work and release A.I. two years after Kubrick passed away, so if the owner of the script, the former son of one of Kubrick’s collaborators, was going to shop it around, the odds are someone would show interest.
