Which Film Holds the Record For Most Takes of A Single Scene?

It always puzzled me how the Guinness record-holder of most takes for a single scene was attributed to Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” — more specifically with Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and the bat on the stairs.

A crew member submitted the numbers to Guinness, claiming the scene was shot 127 times. However, both Steadicam operator Garrett Brown and assistant editor Gordon Stainforth say this is inaccurate — the scene was shot about 35-45 times.

The reason for my puzzlement has to do with multiple accounts of Charlie Chaplin‘s “City Lights” being the actual record-holder. Chaplin shot the three-minute scene where The Tramp meets the flower girl a mind-boggling 342 times.

Regardless, filmmaker Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) has written a book about his obsession with Kubrick’s “The Shining.” In it, he sets the record straight and debunks the 148 take “shine” scene. He got his hands on all the production notes and he says that it’s written plain in white that Kubrick did less than half the amount of takes that Brown claimed:

It’s completely not true. It was reported by a crew member who wasn’t even on the set when it was shot. I think what happened is that some of the actors conflate rehearsals with takes because Kubrick would rehearse a lot. And it was really part of his writing process. He would continue to shape the dialogue through the rehearsing.

The shot that has the most takes in the entire film [66] that no one talks about is the big, long dolly shot that brought Jack and Wendy and the hotel manager into the Gold Ballroom at the beginning of the movie. I’ve been researching this movie so long that I’ve seen these incorrect or exaggerated stories appear, and then I’ve watched them become more and more exaggerated over the years. And a lot of times it’s harmless. Like Stanley Kubrick found out that Jack Nicholson didn’t like cheese sandwiches, and so he made him eat cheese sandwiches through the entire shoot to keep him in a bad mood. Ridiculous.

Another ‘Shining’ myth debunked.

From everything that I’ve read about Kubrick, his obsession with multiple takes only really started when he had a monitor in front of him, which was in “The Shining,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “Eyes Wide Shut.”

Since we’re on this topic, I’ve tried to assemble all the scenes that took an inordinate amount of takes to achieve, no surprise that the masters of obsessive perfection, Chaplin, Kubrick and Fincher, are on there. Here’s a sample of what I could find:

• Peter Parker Catching a Lunch Tray in “Spider-Man” had 156 takes.

• Tom Cruise Performed that HALO Jump in “Mission: Impossible - Fallout” 106 times.

• The opening scene of David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” with Rooney Mara and Jesse Eisenberg, was shot in 99 takes.

• Tom Cruise literally just walking through a door in Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” … 95 Times

• Charlie Chaplin eating that shoe in “The Gold Rush” was aced on the 65th try.

• Also, Billy Wilder drove Marilyn Monroe bonkers in “Some Like it Hot” by making her repeat “Where’s That Bourbon?” line 59 times.

William Wyler (“The Best Years of Our Lives” and “Ben-Hur”) was known for shooting a high number of multiple takes. I don't recall what his highest number was.

That’s the thing, there are probably so many more candidates out there, think of all the Finchers and Chaplins that aren’t here, but it’s impossible to know since not everyone notes down the amount of takes during a production, or not many really go on-record about it.

So, with that being said, Chaplin is the de facto champion here.