All Offtopic Forums - Movie Screw-Ups

from scarface
Boom mic visible: Shadow on the wall on the right as Montana is getting shouted at in his mother's kitchen.

Continuity: The stuntman playing Hector falling through the window has a watch on his left hand. When the "real" Hector gets off the ground, his watch is back on the right hand.

Revealing mistakes: Extras during the riot stop "rioting" before they are off screen.

Continuity: The position of the binoculars when Montana chats with Sosa in Bolivia.

Crew or equipment visible: Director Brian De Palma is visible in the mirror in the last close-up of Tony in the Babylon Club before the shootout begins.

Continuity: When Tony shoots Hector on the street, the arrangement of the background extras changes, most noticeably an old man standing on the steps.

Continuity: As Tony is watching the Goodyear blimp go by, the reflection on the window shows him with a cigarette already in his mouth. The very next shot shows him placing the cigarette in his mouth.

Continuity: When Tony and Angel go up to Hector's apartment to make an attempted purchase of drugs, the sun is shining from the west side of the north-south street (an afternoon shot). In the next scene when a girl standing in the street is flirting with Manny in his get-away convertible, the sun is shining from the east (a morning shot). In the next scene when Tony chases Hector down to the street to finish Hector off, the sun is again on the west side of the street (a late afternoon shot).

Continuity: When Tony, Manny and Elvira are in the restaurant, Elvira changes position between shots. In one shot she's holding a cigarette in her left hand with her arm above the table. In the next shot her left arm is down and her right is above the table, holding her glass.

Continuity: When Tony and Gina hug after their first meeting, the positions of their arms change between shots.

Anachronisms: USA Today boxes visible in background of scenes on Miami Beach early in the film, just after Tony leaves the government camp. USA Today did not begin service in Florida until the fall of 1982, while the scene takes place shortly after the April 1980 Mariel Harbor boat lift.

Revealing mistakes: When Hector jumps out of the hotel and onto the landing, a bit of the ground moves, revealing it to be a crash mat.

Continuity: When Tony's bodyguards are trying to convince him to run, Sosa's agents can be seen in the cameras running onto the grounds. A few minutes later the guards are getting killed by the agents and the same footage is playing on Tony's cameras.

Continuity: When Tony is fighting Sosa's Army in the end, he is shot and falls backwards. His weapon's grenade launcher piece breaks off but is back on while Tony reloads.

Continuity: In the restaurant, glasses are knocked over and their contents spilled. In one subsequent shot they are shown upright and full again.

Audio/visual unsynchronized: A bullet squib on one of Hector's goons' chest goes off, without a sound effect, just before a cut to Chi Chi, who shoots him.

Continuity: Octavio's hat falls off when he first gets shot by the two nightclub hit men. A couple of seconds later, after several cuts, he's shot again, and his hat is not only back on his head but this time it doesn't come off.

Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the final scene, after Tony gets shot and loses his gun, and he starts yelling, the enemy shooter in the top left-hand corner is still shooting (you can see the shells flying out), but there is no flash or sound.

Crew or equipment visible: In the original version, in the scene were the "police" were about to arrest Tony, they are helping him count the money (for the second time). The cameraman's thumb can be seen briefly.

Continuity: In the Hector scene, after Manny is shot by the goon with the revolver, the goon picks up dead Marta's machine gun. The next shot is an over-head view showing the goon still holding the revolver and the machine gun is on the bed.

Crew or equipment visible: When Tony goes to see Elvira to talk about having kids, when he sits down on the chair you can see the reflections of stage lights in his sun glasses.

Continuity: In the Babylon club when the champagne is poured Tony puts a cigar in his mouth and raises the glass, but in the next shot the cigar has disappeared.

Continuity: When Tony gives Gina the present in his mother's house, Gina has very long, manicured nails. In a close-up, Gina touches the locket, revealing trimmed fingernails (clearly someone else's).

Continuity: During the ambush in the night club, the stage performer in the comic costume is shown being machine gunned twice.

Factual errors: When Tony shoots Alberto in the car, blood spatters on the window, indicating an exit wound, however the window does not shatter or break.

Continuity: During the chainsaw/double-cross scene in Hector's apartment Tony is shown chained to the shower rack about to be butchered. Manny bursts in with machine gun saving Tony but Tony is suddenly free and shooting back before Manny has the chance to free him.

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Tony goes to kill Frank, Frank says, "Look Tony, please don't kill me." The words don't match his mouth.

Continuity: When Tony is getting shot at after Octavio the clown goes down, people are seen running by, yet none of them are getting hit with bullets.

Continuity: When Manny shoots down the glass of the door in the chainsaw scene, you can clearly see there is no glass on the ground in close-ups.

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Marta switches positions on the bed when she gets shot. First she is lying dead on the bottom side of the bed, then she is on the top side.

Continuity: When Tony and Manny are at the beach, talking and having drinks, Tony has perspiration mostly under the right armpit. Several shots when talking to the girl reveal no perspiration under his armpit.

Continuity: After Tony shoots Manny, Gina's robe has a large blood spot on its right side. When they get Gina out of the car at Tony's place, the robe has no blood on it.

Crew or equipment visible: Reflections of the camera crew can be seen on Elvira's sunglasses as she and Tony are walking out of the car dealership.

Continuity: When the phone is ringing, it's 3:00 AM sharp. More than six minutes have past, but when the camera spotted on Ernie, we can see it's 3:03 AM.

Continuity: In the double cross scene when Hecter throws the chainsaw out the window we see blood all over it, but in the next shot when Hecter jumps out the window and lands on the floor with the chainsaw and when we see him on the floor injured the chainsaw is spotless and all the blood is gone.

Anachronisms: In the scene where Tony's tiger is first shown, there is a billboard in the background showing the "New Corvette" The first '84 vettes where not released until '83.

Revealing mistakes: During the shower/chainsaw scene, Tony fights with one of Hector's men, takes his pistol away, and shoots him. The pistol is supposed to be a semi-automatic 9mm Beretta 92, but when Tony fires a single shot, the hammer stays down, the slide never recoils, and no casing is ever ejected. The gun is clearly a single-shot prop gun.

Continuity: When tony is running out of the Babylon club having been shot there is a car next to his. When he drives off in the next shot it disappears.

Continuity: When Tony approaches Elvira at her pool, the sky is cloudy in the reflection on the window behind her, even though it's a clear day in rest of shots.

Miscellaneous: Immediately following shoot-out in nightclub, Tony and other customers run out, jump into cars from valet parking lot and drive off. An impossibility - valet parking keys are always kept in a coded cabinet system that requires patrons to identify themselves; keys are never left in cars.

Continuity: When Omar and Tony are talking in Bolivia, after Sosa has gone to talk on the phone, some servants bring Omar and Tony dishes. Tony removes the same lemon from the dish twice

Continuity: When Tony is leaving his mothers house, he has a long unsmoked cigar. But outside at the car when he gives Gina the money, the cigar is 2/3 smoked and lit.

Continuity: When Tony is shot at the end scene he falls forward into the pool - the railing is pushed outwards. But when the camera looks back up at Tony's killer, it's pointed inwards towards his office. When the killer walks down the stairs, its pointed outwards again.

Continuity: When Tony shoots Mel Bernstein, Tony is holding his gun on the table, aimed slightly upward. However, Mel's bullet wound is slightly below the table.

Continuity: When Mel is shot, after the camera cuts to Tony, Mel has blood in the palm of his hand. The next time we see Mel, he holds his hand up; his palm is clean, and there is blood on the fingertips.

Revealing mistakes: After Tony shoots Hector after the chainsaw shootout scene, we hear police sirens but they never become any louder, thus indicating it's just an added sound effect and that aren't any real police cars on the way.