The Untouchables

Continuity mistake: When Eliot Ness is at Jim Malone's house for the first time, Malone's collar is opened, then buttoned, then open again.

Continuity mistake: When Ness is "escorting" Nitti off the roof of the courthouse, watch the proximity of the two to the rooftop door. When the camera cuts from the edge of the roof to Nitti and Ness and then back to the edge of the roof, you can see that they went from close to the rooftop door to really far away from it.

Continuity mistake: When the four untouchables charge, Agent Stone and Agent Wallace run to the bridge off their horses, whereby Agent Stone gets shot in the left arm. Later, back in the police HQ, his left arm shows nothing of a bullet passing through or bandage.

Continuity mistake: When Al Capone has sent hit men to murder Malone, he is shown going from one room to another, alternately, from outside and then from within his apartment. When the shots are taken from outside, the camera pulls up tight to the outside window. You can see the cameraman on the crane.

Continuity mistake: When Ness and Malone are shooting at a gangster car on the bridge coming towards them, they blow out the left headlight. The shot changes to them firing and back to the car. When it cuts to the car for the final time, they shoot the left headlight out again.

Continuity mistake: When Ness and Nitti are fighting on the roof of the courthouse notice the sky. It is clear, then cloudy, then overcast then clear, etc.

Continuity mistake: In the train station, where Ness is trying to catch the baby carriage, he shoots a gangster when the man makes a charge from behind the pillar. The bullet clearly hits the gangster's left arm (at least blood squirts from there), but when in close-up the gunshot wound is in his chest.

Continuity mistake: Ness has been leaning over Malone who was laying on the floor of his apartment shot up and bleeding profusely. Some blood shows up on Ness' overcoat but when they go to the train depot there is no sign of blood anywhere. Since there was no time to change where did the blood go?

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: He only really gets blood on the trench coat, which is easily changeable if Ness has another coat in the car.

jshy7979

Continuity mistake: After the death of Wallace, when the three remaining Untouchables are gathered, Stone says to Ness that he requests to stay (or something similar). Then he walks off several steps away from Ness and passes into the kitchen. The shot changes and suddenly he's only a step away from Ness.

Continuity mistake: During the shootout on the rooftop, there is a point when Ness is above Nitti who then starts shooting. He hits 2 glass bottles next to some sort of bucket. However, in the next shot of Ness this bucket has simply vanished.

David Mercier

Continuity mistake: When Ness pulls out the parasol (umbrella) and the reporter takes his picture, the parasol has the hay or packaging material from the box hanging on it. When the picture is shown in the paper the parasol is clean with nothing hanging from it.

wolfman

Continuity mistake: When Nitti approaches Malone's house he checks the address in his match-book, and there are no matches on the right side. In a later scene in the courtroom, Ness takes a book of matches from Nitti, opens it and sees the incriminating address. This time there are matches on the right.

Continuity mistake: Just after Ness sends his wife and daughter to a hidden place, he and Wallace are standing in the middle of the street, when a car approaches with Malone and Stone in it. They both get off the car and run to join Ness and Wallace, who are about five steps away. When the four agents go back to the car, they have to run about twenty steps, when they were supposed to be only five steps away from it.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where George and Wallace enter the elevator with Nitti, the elevator doors are facing the interior of the police station. There is no visible second set of doors on the back (exterior side) of the elevator, or a second set of buttons. Nitti turns and shoots George and Wallace, leaving their bodies slumped against the back (exterior side) of the elevator. By the time the elevator arrives at street level, it has done a 180 degree turn, with the doors then facing the exterior of the building, where Nitti can exit directly to the street. The doors are not just hidden when closed, because the bodies are then slumped against what would be the interior side of the elevator, and the only set of buttons is now on the exterior side.

Continuity mistake: When Ness is chasing Nitti across the roof (just after he has blown his hat off) there is a close-up shot of Nitti running towards the camera (the camera is moving backwards) and Ness can just be seen in the background running after him. He then climbs over a wall and runs down some steps. As he climbs over the wall the sun is shining on his back and when he is shown running down the steps on the other side of the wall the sun is now shining on the building from the opposite side. (01:38:00)

Continuity mistake: During the Canadian border scene, the distance between the trucks keeps increasing and decreasing dramatically between shots.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: The girl that takes the bomb briefcase walks out of the bar, and stands by the exit door, couple of meters next to the street. When the angle changes to a back shot, she appears several meters behind the door, inside the bar.

Sacha

The Untouchables mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the scene where Ness kills the Italian mobster in the lodge near the border, the moment he shoots him the wooden rail behind has two sticks underneath, half a second later, when the mobster is flying backwards dead, the sticks disappear, and a second afterwards, when he is laying dead, the rail's appearance has nothing to do with the previous two.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: The hand written note with the "I'm very proud of you" is different between the two times it's shown, even though it's meant to look like the same paper. The second time the "V" is capitalised, the writing is not slanted, and all the rectangular foldings from before have disappeared.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: During the meal, when Al Capone says he loves baseball, the man on the right holds a cigar with his hand. A shot later, from another angle, the cigar is on a plate and he is clapping.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Ness is "escorting" Nitti off the roof of the courthouse, watch the proximity of the two to the rooftop door. When the camera cuts from the edge of the roof to Nitti and Ness and then back to the edge of the roof, you can see that they went from close to the rooftop door to really far away from it.

More mistakes in The Untouchables

Jimmy Malone: He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!

More quotes from The Untouchables
More trivia for The Untouchables

Question: What is the name of the song that the clown is singing when Sean Connery has just been shot?

Answer: 'Vesti La Giubba', an aria from the opera 'I Pagliacci'.

jle

More questions & answers from The Untouchables

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.