I like movie errors so long as they don't disrupt the film. There is some god-awful Uwe Boll film where the hero shoots the villain with a laser which misses and the villain has to pretend to die. Think about that for a second, they ANIMATED a laser beam going in the wrong direction! And this man wonders why he's a laughing stock to video game fans.

Now some jarring errors that DIDN'T destroy the point of the movies;

SAVING MR. BANKS (2013)

This is supposed to be the story of how Walt Disney got a working script for "Mary Poppins" with P.L. Travers throwing up road blocks because she didn't like the direction he was going in.

The biggest error in this film was the whole plot point. Travers shows up at the Disney studos with the -unsigned- permission still in hand. In fact, Disney had the proper permission, but it had a clause that Travers had to approve of the script. But I guess the idea that she could walk out and deny them permission (which happens in the film) was stronger storytelling.

Another small error is the conversation between Disney and Travers. The conversation DID happen, but Walt Disney didn't fly to England to have it. After Travers walks out, he spends quite a long time with her on the phone trying (and finally succeeding) in getting her to let them film the final script.

A couple of errors that were minor but fun to catch;

When P.L. Travers arrives in Hollywood, there are three people holding up signs for people they're supposed to be meeting. Each sign has the logo of the studio on it. All of them were the modern design of the logos, not the 1960's designs they should have been.

When she gets to her hotel room, the entire room has been decorated in Disney plush animals. A prominent Winnie The Pooh can be seen. This film takes place in 1961, the first "Pooh" short; "Winnie The Pooh and the Honey Tree" wasn't released until 1968. Even if they had the film on the storyboards at the time, there wouldn't have been merchandising available!

Another point, as much as they try to cover it, you can see when Travers is shown Disneyland by Walt Disney himself, they are in the modern updated version of Fantasyland and not the way the park would have looked in 1961. (They did try to get that right though, it's possible it would have been IMPOSSIBLE to shoot that sequence without SOME slipups.)

One thing they DID get right which surprised me because they did it and didn't explain why is Walt is asked for an autograph at least once and possibly more times and each time he hands out a pre-signed card. As a matter of fact, the famous "Walt Disney" signature that we all recognize was created by the artists and Walt's own handwritting looked nothing like that. (Legend is, he tried to get the artists to teach him how to draw the signature, but I don't know how successful he was.)

An odd thing in the film is that Walt at one point is talking to one of the Sherman brothers and has a speech about actually understanding Travers protective feelings toward her character. He then tells a story about some big shot banker who tried to come in and tries to take The Mouse from him. The odd thing is that they didn't refer to Walt's FIRST big creation, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who actually DID get taken away from him by the studio (Universal I think) that his studio was working for. This led him not only to create Mickey, but to develop his own distribution company to protect his interests.


So, any films out there that have errors that you've noticed? Not story breaking errors, but odd things you spotted.

Cameraman in the mirror- A Christmas Carol starring Alistair Sim.

Ed,

I think you would find those kind of errors in most films about real people or events.

I've watched Shane many many times and have noticed a few flaws. One happens with the big gunfight at the end
where you see Jack Palance's character twice moves a coffee pot on a table out of the way.

Another involves two of the characters looking in the wrong camera direction at a rider approaching.

John Ford's My Darling Clementine has many historical errors.
One is showing Doc Holiday dying at the OK Corral shootout, which he didn't.
There was also no "Old Man Clanton" at the shootout.

Ghost busters: Dan Ackroyd and Ernie Hudson jump into the car to hurry to the scene of the Ghostly outbreak near the end. Hudson is driving which is fine as he was hired by the ghost busters to be a "driver." When they pull up in the next scene, Ackroyd is driving the car. This did not ruin the movie. Obviously they pulled over and felt the need to switch drivers on the way. "Oh you're going to slow, here let me drive!" or some such, but it did kind of stick out.

Well there are just millions of them but what amazes me is the people who nail them little things and I guess it is some sort of strange hobby.

Continuity errors and bloopers aren't the same thing at all as historical inaccuracies. The latter are often intentional.

Wasn't Cheyenne Autumn the famous western in which a jet aircraft can be seen flying over?

Characters also charge through untouched sand in that movie. Untouched, aside from the tire tracks clearly visible in it.

Wasn't there a famous scene in the film Cleopatra (with Taylor & Burton) where a janitor wearing a shirt and pants can be seen leaning on his broom amidst thousands of Egyptian costumed extras?

Oh yeah, I know that. I just find them fascinating.

Harlan Ellison, otoh, has said that he can't watch "Lethal Weapon" because he knows the spot where the bus hits the bad guys truck and he knows the spot where Mel Gibson cuts off the bad guy in his stolen car and there is no way Gibson could reach that spot on foot (and barefoot after being tortured all night) against a guy in a car.

One you wouldn't know unless you knew New York City is in "The Rose." Bette Midler and her chauffer/boyfriend run up to the recording studio and you see a neon sculpture in the lobby of the building. After the sequence, Bette leaves the building by a back entrance and is on some sleazy side street. I know the building with the neon sculpturn is on Lexington Avenue and the sleazy side street is in the 40's near 7th Avenue. Not too many buildings are that wide. But, unlike Harlan, I'm not going to say; "I can't watch this film because that building can't possibly be on both of those avenues!"

I'm not aware that they ever said Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Hudson's character) was hired to be a "driver." Since they show him how to work the "ghost trap," I doubt they expected him to do nothing but drive.

I know that in the scene in the Wizard of Oz, where the trees are throwing their apples, that a stage hand can be seen coming out from behind of one the trees.

Is it Rio Bravo or Rio Grange where you can see a UFO go out of control and crash ?

Or's still annoying when it's so blatant.

No doubt they are still annoying- especially when the real history is well documented.

It's funny what we'll tolerate. We don't object to Spartacus speaking English, or wearing clothing that couldn't possibly have been manufactured in his day. Heck we don't even mind if he has modern conceptions of freedom that couldn't possibly have been part of the historical Spartacus's mental frameworks. Spartacus's crucifixion is an invention as well. But hey, it's good cinema; we can overlook these things.

But the visible crew, that's unforgivable!

In the movie Tombstone, when Fred White is "accidentally" shot by Curly Bill, you can see the wire running along the ground and up his pant leg to create the smoke effect.

It was Rio Grande. Google is my friend.

"Goldfinger," it's clear the only people on the plane in the end are James Bond, Goldfinger and Pussy Galore flying, but when Goldfinger first comes out of the front of the plane, there's clearly someone behind him.

I agree with Bob Cassidy, there is quite a difference between historical inaccuracies for the sake of good storytelling, and "bloopers". I used to teach video editing, and I catch a lot of continuity errors (drinking glasses move around on a table, hand/arm positioning from shot to shot, etc.) I don't intentionally look for them but sometimes they jump out. Most are not worth mentioning here, but I find them interesting nonetheless.

I've never assumed the characters were speaking English. I just assumed they were speaking whatever language they're supposed to speak and it's being translated for us. (The scene in "Red October" where Sean Connery is speaking Russian and the camera pulls to a close up of his mouth and suddenly he's speaking English is probably the strongest example.)

Not being a historian, I wouldn't know if the clothing couldn't be manufactured in the time period.

As far as social leanings, Gene Roddberry once said that no matter what time period the heros are in, the audience is expecting [contemporary] man. I put contemporary in brackets because he actually said "1966 man" writing the memo in 1966.

So those things are signs that the film makers are taking cultural shortcuts to make the story more palatable to contemporary audiences.

But a stage hand in the wrong place is a sign that they failed in their self-imposed duty of creating a believable background for the story to play out on.