James Stewart Hated Filming This Hitchcock Classic
James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock made four films together, and on paper, it looks like a dream collaboration: one of Hollywood's most precise directors, paired with the perfect everyman leading man.
But behind the scenes? At least once, Stewart absolutely loathed the experience.
In 1948, Stewart's career was floundering. Postwar audiences weren't lining up for the aw-shucks charm anymore, and he was looking for a way back in. Enter Hitchcock, who offered him the lead in Rope, a chilly, theatrical thriller about two elitist murderers throwing a dinner party with the corpse still in the room. Stewart's character, a former professor, slowly pieces things together over the course of one long evening.
The role was already a stretch for Stewart—he didn't like playing a man who might've inspired a murder—but that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was the camera.
Rope was Hitchcock's experiment. He wanted the movie to look like one long continuous take, a gimmick made complicated by the technical limits of the time. The result: ten-minute takes, endless choreography, constant resets, and long, grueling rehearsals that had little to do with acting and everything to do with getting out of the camera's way.
According to Stewart, it was a nightmare:
"I couldn't sleep at nights after a day's shooting on Rope. Just to do a ten-minute take is hard enough because there are always noises that ruin the sound."
Even a misplaced prop or a squeaky wall panel could ruin everything. The camera would cut, everyone would reset, and they'd try again. Stewart, already unhappy with the script, nearly walked away.
"I'd never found making a film so difficult," he told biographer Michael Munn.
And the cherry on top? Rope wasn't a hit. The film earned $2 million at the box office, barely recouping its budget, and wasn't well received at the time.
Years later, when Hitchcock approached Stewart to star in Rear Window, Stewart wanted no part of it—especially after hearing it would all be shot on one giant set. He assumed he was in for another Rope-style ordeal. That is, until he found out Grace Kelly was already cast and that Hitchcock had done all the technical prep before the actors came in.
Only then did Stewart agree to sign on.