Stewart appeared in four new film releases in 1948. "Call Northside 777" was a critically acclaimed film noir, while the musical comedy "On Our Merry Way", in which Stewart and Henry Fonda played jazz musicians in an ensemble cast, was a critical and commercial failure. The comedy "You Gotta Stay Happy", which paired Stewart with Joan Fontaine, was the most successful of his post-war films up to that point. "Rope", in which Stewart played the idolized teacher of two young men who commit murder to show their supposed superiority, began his collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock. Shot in long "real-time" takes, Stewart felt pressure to be flawless in his performance; the added stress led to him sleeping very little and drinking more heavily. "Rope" received mixed reviews, and Andrew Sarris and Scott Eyman have later called him miscast in the role of a Nietzsche-loving philosophy professor. The film's screenwriter Arthur Laurents also stated that "the casting of was absolutely destructive. He's not sexual as an actor."