Singin' in the Rain (1952) - 20 mistakes

Visible crew/equipment: During the premiere of The Royal Rascal's when the bad guy goes over the edge of the banister, you can see a crewman's hands catching his legs.

Continuity: When Gene Kelly and Donald O'Conner stop for car trouble, a trolley goes by. After Gene gets bombarded by fans and runs away, he runs after another trolley going by and jumps on. The same people are in the trolley each time.

Continuity: When Don jumps into Kathy's car, in the long shot, as he lands her hand is on her hat. Cut to the close up, and both her hands are on the wheel.

Continuity: As the girls are dancing at the after movie party, during one spot the streamers being thrown get tangled around their legs. Then in the next shot it's cleared itself up.

Continuity: During "Make 'em Laugh" Donald gets flipped off the board, and sings on the ground. There is a man sweeping next to him. You see the broom coming in and out of frame near his feet. When the shot goes long, the sweeper is behind Donald, and no one is next to him.

Continuity: During "Make 'em Laugh" the green couch moves to the right from the time he dances with the mummy to the end of the number.

Continuity: During "Make 'em Laugh" Donald is hopping on one foot and falls down. The couch is behind him and he falls at an angle. The camera changes, and he's suddenly perpendicular to the couch instead of at an angle.

Continuity: During "Make 'em Laugh" Donald is dancing on the green couch with the 'dummy'. When he spins around and jumps on the back of the couch, his hat changes from down low over his brow to higher on his forehead between long and close shots.

Continuity: After Kathy and Don find each other again, and he's trying to tell her how he feels for her, they are walking outside on a sunny day. He opens a door to go into a set, but when the camera angle changes, it appears as though they are walking from a dimly lit hallway.

Continuity: When the diction coach working with Gene Kelly is saying "sniffed his snifter" he has his hand in the air, and in the quick cut, it's suddenly on the book he's holding.

Continuity: When Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor are with the diction coach, Donald O'Connor is making faces behind the coach's left shoulder when he gets caught. In the very next scene, he is caught again with the very same look on his face.

Audio problem: When they are filming the "Duelling Cavalier" with sound for the first time, when the operator says that "She's gotta talk into the mike. I can't pick it up." his lips aren't moving at all.

Continuity: When Don Lockwood is telling R.F. about the Broadway scene, when he says "It's called Broadway Melody," he has his hands right in front of him and he's looking at R.F. In the next shot he's looking down at his hands and then turns to R.F. again and puts his hands up in front of him.

Continuity: When Gene Kelly does his classic Singin' in the Rain dance scene, it's only raining in the front half of the shot. In long shots, you can see that the back part of the scene is enjoying clear weather. And, as he goes left, the rain slants right and vice versa.

Other: In Gene Kelly's 'Singing in the Rain' sequence, the taps he makes do not match up with the actual movements of his feet - they are much more complicated than the steps he makes. Since one can't tap dance in wet loafers, Kelly had to do the dance in the studio, and the taps were added into the picture. He apparently got a little overzealous.

Audio problem: When Donald O'Connor walks onto the keys of his piano at the beginning of his Make 'Em Laugh Sequence, the sound that we hear is a chord, but in reality we would hear a much more dissonant combination of notes, because several notes adjacent to each other would be played at the same time.

Revealing: At the first premiere (at Grauman's Chinese Theatre), look closely at the audience. Because at the end of the movie, and several months later at the premiere of The Dancing Caviler, it is the same audience! (Same clothes and even the same seats!)

Continuity: After singing "Good Morning" Don, Debbie and Cosmo are sitting on the couch laughing. Debbie leans her head on Cosmo's shoulder, then we cut to a closer shot and she's suddenly holding her head straight up.

Continuity: There are two continuity mistakes when Don Lockwood makes his escape from his fans, and jumps onto the passing trolley. He climbs to the trolley roof and walks along the roof to the back of the trolley, when he jumps off to land in Kathy's car. However, in the next shot he's jumped off the front of the trolley, not the back. Also, in the distant shot, Kathy jumps as he lands in her car, but when the shot changes to a close-up, she's calm and then jumps a second later.

Audio problem: When Gene Kelly starts to walk away from Debbie Reynold's car and his coat rips, he becomes stuck for a moment about halfway through so the movement is rip - pause - rip. On the soundtrack, however, we hear one continuous ripping sound.