5 More Insane Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Iconic Movies

Shelley Duvall shot the same scene 127 times — a Guinness World Record

For The Shining's baseball-bat scene, Stanley Kubrick had Shelley Duvall perform the same take 127 times — officially the most takes ever filmed for a single dialogue scene, according to Guinness World Records. The stress of the nine-month shoot was severe enough that clumps of Duvall's hair reportedly began falling out.

The original Tin Man was hospitalized by his own makeup

Buddy Ebsen was ten days into filming as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939) when the powdered aluminum in his makeup coated his lungs and triggered a near-fatal reaction, landing him in an oxygen tent. He never returned to the role — Jack Haley took over, and the makeup was reformulated into a safer paste.

Rocky was made for $1 million because Sylvester Stallone refused to sell the script without starring in it

Studios offered Stallone up to $360,000 for his Rocky script, on the condition an established star like Burt Reynolds or James Caan play the lead. Stallone — who reportedly had $106 in the bank at the time — refused every offer. United Artists relented but slashed the budget to $1 million. Rocky went on to gross over $200 million and win Best Picture.

Die Hard was filmed inside a real, half-finished skyscraper

Nakatomi Plaza is the real Fox Plaza tower in Century City, which was still under construction when Die Hard filmed there in 1988. Several floors were raw concrete and exposed rebar, and the loudest gunfight scenes had to be shot after 5 p.m., once the building's actual lawyers and executives had gone home for the day.

The chestburster scene in Alien caught its own cast off guard

The cast knew from the script that something would emerge from John Hurt's chest, but director Ridley Scott withheld exactly how much blood would be involved. Veronica Cartwright's shocked, blood-drenched reaction was genuine and unrehearsed — co-star Tom Skerritt later confirmed "what you saw on camera was the real response."