X

Great sites

Anything Hollywood

Atomic Popcorn

Banned in Hollywood

Bits & Pieces

Blockbuster Buzz

Book mistakes

CanMag

The Daily Column

Daily Stab

Defamer

Double Viking

EHOWA

The Evil Beet

Film Drunk

Filmofilia

Filmspotting

Foundry Music

Game mistakes

Geek Tyrant

Gone Hollywood

Hollyscoop

Hollywood Outbreak

I Am Bored

I Love Bacon

Joblo movie news

Movie Banter

Movie Buzz

Movie spoilers

Movie timeline

Other crap

Screenjunkies

Sky movie reviews

Something Really Funny

Tengossip

Trailer Addict

Unreality Magazine

Virtually Existing

Quotes

Henry Gondorff: Pleased to meet you, kid. You're a real horse's ass.

See more...

Mistakes

When Hooker is taking Lonnegan to meet his Western Union tipster, he gives Lonnegan's driver an address. When the car pulls up to the destination, the number on the building is different. See more...

Trivia

Doyle Lonnegan's limp was a result of Robert Shaw injuring his ankle. Rather than working around it, Shaw incorporated the limp into his performance. See more...

Mistake pictures

Movie Mistakes blog

Popular blog posts:

Top 15 biggest Harry Potter film mistakes

The biggest mistakes in the Harry Potter movies

15 biggest mistakes in Titanic

The 20 biggest Friends mistake pictures

10 Twilight mistakes in pictures

The Sting (1973) - 8 corrections

Directed by George Roy Hill, starring Charles Durning, Dana Elcar, Paul Newman, Robert Earl Jones, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw (add more)

Genres: Comedy, Crime

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
Trivia
Quotes
Corrections
Submit
When Lonergan first walks into "The Operation", listen carefully to the tannoy - one of the horses running is called "Steve McQueen". [The horse is not "Steve McQueen" it is "Speed Queen".]
Edit
A vital plot line, obviously, is that Doyle wants to kill the con men who fleeced his runner of the numbers money. He has Luther killed and turns his best men (and women) onto Johnny Hooker, almost killing him, too. What about the third conman, Kid Erie? He is an essential part of the con, as much a part of it as Luther and Hooker. He comes and goes as he pleases. Doyle doesn't have anyone looking for him; he doesn't even mention him in conversation, and in fact consistently refers to two - not three - con men. He makes it clear that he would have to kill his best friend if he even found out about the con, yet he lets one of the central participants go Scott free. It doesn't make any sense at all. [Kid Erie does the fake assault and runs off before Doyle's man gets conned. Doyle's man got a really good look at Hooker and Luther and could identify them; he couldn't identify Kid Erie.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
When Lonnegan brings the briefcase full of money to the cage for his big bet, all of the 100s in the case are new federal reserve notes not the type of the 1920s. [Those notes were first made in 1928 and the movie takes place in 1936 therefore they are correct for the period.]
Edit
In the final scene, Kid Twist arrives at the betting parlor, whispering to Lonnegan, "Sorry, I couldn't wait." This furthers the plot as Twist can then inform Lonnegan that the wrong horse is going to win. But it would also blow the entire con because Lonnegan would expect Twist to have been downtown at his Western Union office just four minutes earlier when they talked on the phone. [They never say how far the Western Union office is from the betting parlor; it could have been within a few blocks.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
When Hooker first meets Gondorff he says "he didn't tell me you were a screw-up." However, when he says 'screw-up' you can't distinctly see his lips form the letter F, meaning that he actually said another, ruder world that was covered up later. [This was not on the DVD version, presumably only the censored TV version.]
Edit Corrected by tw_stuart
Just before the sting goes down, the assassin and the bodyguard are shown preparing their weapons. Both place largish suppressers (aka "silencers") on their guns. Both of them are using revolvers. Except for a few, rare models built specifically for the purpose, revolvers can't be effectively suppressed. There is a gap between the cylinder and the barrel that allows some of the expanding gasses and accompanying noise to escape before they can be affected by a suppresser on the end of the barrel. This is one of the most common firearms related mistakes in older and period films. [The key word is "effectively", from the submitters description it appears that the silencers offer some noise reduction which is presumably enough for their needs.]
Edit Corrected by tw_stuart
In the scene where Doyle Lonnegan is set up to be too late to make his first bet, J.J. Singleton, who is calling the race over the loudspeaker, announces the eventual winner's odds at 3-1. After the race, Singleton says the horse paid $6 to win. A horse at 3-1 odds pays $8 to win. [In fact he says the horse paid $6.00 FOR the win, not TO win and that is perfectly accurate. Haven't you ever played the ponies? A 3 to 1 winner pays $6.00 for the win on a $2.00 bet and you get your $2.00 back, so in all it pays $8.00. The race caller was right on the money.]
Edit
The technique used by the 'hit-woman' (Saleno?) is so suspect as to be unbelievable. Remembering that her name is spoken in hushed tones by other hit-men and her professionalism is commented on by the minder employed by Henry Gondorff, one is expecting a first class hit.  Instead she simply waits to be chatted up by Robert Redford   -  not a dead cert by any means, given her plain looks and job as a waitress. When she is disturbed in her plan by another of Lonegan's goons, she follows him into an alleyway and kills him. Firstly, can she be so good at her job that Lonegan does not mind her killing his employees? Secondly, she could quite easily have been seen following him into the alleyway.  However she eventually manages to sleep with Redford, pack and leave without getting the urge to shoot him because, as the minder says: "She was a professional. Anyone could have seen you go into her room". Given her less cautious disposal of the other goon and the fact that she had removed all trace of herself from the room by morning you would have thought she could just have shot him on the way out and legged it. Finally she approaches him in an alleyway behind the building to complete the hit. What is she doing there? Redford might have left by the front door three hours later. What if other people had been using the alleyway? Would she have had to embrace him and go off and sleep with him again, or shoot him along with anyone else who was around? [First, it's apparent Lonnegan doesn't mind Selino knocking off one of his other hitman. In one of the scenes in his Chicago office, he's talking with his clerk about Riley and Cole getting "bounced off a job." When the clerk tells him that one of the duo - I forget which - has stuck behind to try to finish the job, Lonnegan tells him "he's breaking the rules and Selino won't like it," expressing his apathy towards the hitman. Secondly, when Hooker goes into Selino's room, the landlady across the hall opens her door and sees Hooker. That is why Selino doesn't kill him then. When she kills Riley or Cole (whichever), it was in an alley at 2 or 3 in the morning. May be a stretch, but there's less of a chance someone else is going to be around. I think she knew what she was doing.]
Edit