Dick Van Dork

What the Op says. What's the record for most takes of a signle scene in a movie?

Dr Mabuse

Probably Kubrick set it on one of his films.

JumpCutz

Yeah Kubrick and perhaps Fincher would be candidates.

Groucho

Almost certainly set by Charlie Chaplin.

islandclaws

Didn't Shelley Duvall have to do something like 98 takes of one scene in "The Shining"?

Ash Ketchum

William Wyler (THE LETTER, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, ROMAN HOLIDAY, THE BIG COUNTRY, BEN-HUR) was known for multiple, multiple, multiple takes. I don't recall what his highest number was. Every actor who appeared when Wyler got his AFI Lifetime Achievement Award sometime in the mid-70s (after Ford, Cagney and Welles got theirs) mentioned this, including Eddie Albert (ROMAN HOLIDAY). Years earlier, actor Charles Bickford was so incensed with Wyler's insecurity that he refused to call him by name in his memoir and instead referred to Wyler as "the Golem."

Burnt Thru

Jackie Chan isn't it?

Yavin

In the docs on The Social Network DVD/Blu, they mention that Fincher shot 99 takes of the opening scene.

The Antipodean

I remember the anecdote about Marilyn Monroe needing 50+ takes of one single line in 'Some Like It Hot,' not the record maybe but still amusing.

From IMDB:
Another scene required Monroe to rummage through some drawers and say "Where's the bourbon?" After 40 takes of her saying "Where's the whiskey?", 'Where's the bottle?", or "Where's the bonbon?", Wilder pasted the correct line in one of the drawers. After Monroe became confused about which drawer contained the line, Wilder had it pasted in every drawer. Fifty-nine takes were required for this scene and when she finally does say it, she has her back to the camera, leading some to wonder if Wilder finally gave up and had it dubbed.

FuQ

Jackie Chan holds the Guinness World Record for "Most Stunts By A Living Actor", which emphasizes "no insurance company will underwrite Chan's productions, in which he performs all his own stunts".[52] In addition, he holds an unrecognized record for the most number of takes for a single shot in a film, having shot over 2900 retakes for a complex scene involving a Jianzi game in Dragon Lord.[

Rypro 525

per imdb in regards to the shining

There is a great deal of confusion regarding this film and the number of retakes of certain scenes. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the scene where Wendy is backing up the stairs swinging the baseball bat was shot 127 times, which is a record for the most takes of a single scene. However, both Steadicam operator Garrett Brown and assistant editor Gordon Stainforth say this is inaccurate - the scene was shot about 35-45 times. Brown does say however that the scene where Hallorann explains to Danny what shining is was shot 148 times, which is a world record.

Damfino

The winner has to be Chaplin or possibly Kubrick.

Chaplin used to write scenes as he filmed them, retaking them until they were perfect. His retakes may have numbered in the hundreds. I don't have the supporting evidence handy (see the Unknown Chaplin documentary for the proof), but "City Lights" had a scene where Chaplin was stuck on one scene for months.

Kubrick was an obsessive compulsive perfectionist, but I doubt that he ever did more retakes than Chaplin.

Trout

Nope, it's Jackie Chan.

Grubert

In City Lights, for the scene where the Tramp and the girl meet, Chaplin did over 300 takes.

james2025a

I do seem to recall either reading this in one of the Kubrick books i have or seeing it on one of the Kubrick documentaries. I think this holds the record. Its funny on the Life In Pictures documentary where Sydney Pollack is saying how his first shot went great and no problems and then two weeks later he is still shooting the same scene. I love how Kubricks answer to him when he started getting a bit pissed off with the multiple takes was "Sydney, you do want to get it right don't you?"

Grubert

Kubrick's obsession with multiple takes really started when he had a monitor in front of him.

Marisa Berenson said that on Barry Lyndon they didn't have to do dozens of takes; when they had to it was mainly because of technical reasons (camera movements / smoke / etc.) but not because of the acting.

But hey, now Fincher does a hundred takes and nobody says he's crazy or anything.

Groucho

I'll probably get ravaged for this, but he probably could have just thrown the first take in there and it would have been just as "good".

Ash Ketchum

Jackie Chan did not do all his own stunts. Even in his earlier starring movies, e.g. SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW, YOUNG MASTER, et al, I'm not sure he did all his own stunts. That's a myth, perpetuated by...Jackie Chan!

Mr. Cinema

My first guess would have been Fincher. I thought Mark Ruffalo mentioned in an interview complaining about all the numerous takes in "Zodiac".

godzilla rules

Of course Chan doesn't do ALL of the stunts, but he does hold the record for the doing the MOST.

Dick Van Dork

Yeah, on the making of/commentary track, they mention that Kubrick had Scatman crying because they did so many takes and Kubrick refused/couldn't articulate to Scatman exactly what he wanted Scatman to do.

Ash Ketchum

I find even that hard to believe. I'm sure there are old western stuntmen who did way more "gags" than Jackie, going back to Yakima Canutt and John Wayne's double, Chuck Roberson or the Republic Pictures stuntmen like Dale Van Sickel and Tom Steele who did stunts in every serial chapter and hundreds of B-westerns for nearly 20 years, and then later moved to TV.

The Cow

The label is "most by a living actor". Maybe they don't consider the stuntmen as 'actors'.

Mabuse

Yeah, those guys are stuntmen standing in for actors, Jackie Chan is an actor who does his own stunts (or a stuntman who does his own acting).

Drexl

He goes into it a little bit here. Robert Duvall is really not a fan of multiple takes, as you can see.



There might be some more in the full hour of that discussion, which is also on YouTube.