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

Child Catcher: There are children here somewhere. I can smell them.

See more...

Mistakes

Right when the doors open, you can see the pulley that's pulling the far door open. See more...

Trivia

Julie Andrews was the actress chosen to play the part of Truly Scrumptious. However, Ms. Andrews had grown tired of being typecasted in playing the same type roles, ie, Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. She turned down the part. 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

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) - 23 corrections

starring Dick Van Dyke (add more)

Genres: Family, Comedy, Musical, Fantasy

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 Grandpa returns from "India," he tells a story about how he shot an elephant in his pajamas, then mutters "You've heard it before." Clearly this is a joke he's told the family several times already. In fact, it's a paraphrase of a very famous Groucho Marx line from the Marx Brothers' movie "Animal Crackers." However, "Animal Crackers" wasn't released until 1931, nearly two decades after the story takes place, so there's no way Grandpa could possibly have known that joke. [He's a senile old man. It's not likely a joke he tells, but rather a story he's told them numerous times. Either way, this is a fictional world; if, in that world, that man is meant to have used that joke twenty years before it was popularized in the real world, then that's not a mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
In most of the scenes where we see Chitty flying, she has only one propeller - in the rear. However, as Potts and his family are about to leave Vulgaria, Potts says "Stand back from the propellers!" as the wings deploy, and we can see two large propellers at the wingtips that were not there in the earlier scenes. [The wing propellers are concealed in compartments that run along the edge of the wings. When they take off at the end you can see the tops of the wing propellers as they unfold upwards from the compartments.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
After Truly meets Jeremy and Jemima's father for the first time, she calls him "Mr. Potts", but Jeremy and Jemima never told her their last name. [Lots of off-camera time between encountering the kids at the pond and driving them back to the house; she could have asked them their full names during the trip. Considering the time period that would have made sense - she would have wanted to be prepared for a formal introduction.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
When Mr. Potts and the children go for a ride for their first picnic outing after Chitty has been created, they are singing and driving through the streets of a village. Just when they sing "...the envy of all we survey", Mr. Potts raises his arm in the air, then turns forward with a seriously startled look and immediately reaches for the brake, then the scene cuts to them driving through the large open field. [The 'startled look' is because there is a narrow bridge in front of the car, and they nearly hit the side. The scene then cuts because it is unnecessary to see every moment on film.]
Edit
The name of the book and the film come from the time when it was written-British soldiers in France were given permission to go and see the Parisian prostitutes by means of a piece of paper or a "chitty" from their superiors- i.e. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. [Unless I see a credible source for this, I'm inclined to dismiss this one as an urban legend. For one thing, a title relating to events from the time the movie was WRITTEN would make little sense for a story set in a completely different time period (post-WWII vs. circa 1910). A Google and Wikipedia search provided nothing to support this allegation.]
Edit
One of the scenes we can see Chitty's tires. They are made by "Goodyear". Since this movie takes place in the early 1900's, it is very unlikely that a tire company founded in Akron, Ohio, United States in 1898 with only 13 workers would have manufactured and shipped their tires overseas within the company's first 10 years. [Goodyear had over 300 employees, 28 in sales in 1905. First plant in a foreign company (Canada) in 1910. Was the world's largest tire company, with sales offices and factories in many countries by 1915. Previous to that, they were the world's largest supplier of carriage tires, along with sales of bicycle and aircraft tires by 1905. A little later than 10 years after opening, in 1916, Goodyear was the world's largest tire manufacturer. All of which is to say it is entirely possible that Goodyear shipped their tires overseas in the first 10 years.]
Edit Time
In the scene where they are in the boat and they are going through the cave into the castle if you look closely while they are going in you will see in one shot some guy with a hat in the background (Note: only his head is visible) [I watched this scene 4-5 times and saw no such man. Even if there was a man with a hat, he is not necessarily part of the crew. There are a few other people throughout the scene that are wearing hats and they are part of the movie.]
Edit
During the Chitty/Baron Ship scene, the smoke coming from the Baron's smokestacks changes directions a lot: from port side, to the rear, to not blowing at all (just accumulating around the boat), to port side, to no smoke whatsoever, to starboard, to port side, to starboard, to port side, to practically no smoke again, to out the rear, and changes again a few more times. [Nothing unusual about that if the wind is slight or variable.]
Edit Time
When everyone is at the beach for the first time with Chitty, during the scene where Potts is describing what has happened (how they are now completely cut-off [by water]) you can see that the car is on dry land and there isn't any water except far in the distance. The very next instant (during Potts' sentence) the tide somehow completely surrounds the car. [Previously submitted and corrected.]
Edit Corrected by Ioreth Time
In the scene where Potts and the children are driving off for a picnic in the refurbished Chitty, Grandpa says that he is off to Alaska and heads toward his hut in a fur coat. As the car drives away, however, Grandpa is nowhere to be seen. [He has probably gone to Alaska (into the outside toilet).]
Edit Time
During the old bamboo dance scene Dick Van Dyke deliberately avoids the most energetic dance routine by walking off during the musical bridge. He was 44 years old at the time. [According to the notes with the DVD, the dance sequence took 4 days to film. There was therefore plenty of time for Dick van Dyke to rest between takes. In addition, during a featurette with Dick Van Dyke on the special edition DVD he says he was not a dancer and never trained as a dancer so all the dance sequences were difficult for him to make look good. Because of the intricacies in that scene perhaps it was decided best to let the pros handle it instead of making production even longer with continuous takes to get it right.]
Edit
Just before Dick Van Dyke says, "The tide has been coming in, now we're completely cut off" visible behind him is the beach, and the car is nowhere near the water. [He is telling his children a story. Nothing in it bears any resemblance to the real world.]
Edit
When Mr. Potts carries Truly from her car in the pond, the end of the ribbons on the back of her dress gets soaked in mud but when you see her again at the beach, there is no sign of the dirt. [This beach scene takes place days, possibly a week, after the pond incident, as they go to the factory, many nights pass and he goes to the carnival before the beach. There is plenty of time for her to clean her dress.]
Edit
The back rest on Caractacus's rockets is a sawed-off baby seat. [How this qualifies as a mistake, even a deliberate one, is beyond me. The fact that the imaginative Caractacus Potts can re-use something like a baby's seat is rather inventive, and what a coincidence - he's an inventor.]
Edit Corrected by lmao
At the end of the Toot Sweet number when the dogs are rushing into the factory, there is a shot of the dogs running down the stairs and then the scene is cut to a shot of the entire factory to show dogs running along the catwalk. In the upper right corner of this shot a dog can be seen falling from the catwalk and immediately 2 of the factory workers turn and rush to check on the animal. [This is not a mistake. Maybe it wasn't planned in the script, but within the film itself why shouldn't the workers show concern if an animal gets hurt?]
Edit
Because the film stars a car, it was necessary to make several (in this case six) cars that all took turns. However, obviously no-one had thought to keep the number plates the same, so the car's licence number is sometimes GEN 10, sometimes GEM 10, sometimes GEN 11 and sometimes GEM 11. [I've watched several times, and can't see any evidence of this. Also, the number was designed to read as close to "Genie" as possible. It is an unlikely error.]
Edit
While singing Me Ol' Bamboo Mr Potts' hat is put on backwards by one of the other dancers, in the next shot it has been turned round the right way. [Mr Potts puts his own hat on backwards after his "ladies use a parasol" line. He then passes it along the line during the next part of the song. The dancer two men down gets the hat. It IS the right way round in the next shot, though.]
Edit
During the "I Have You Two" number, you can see that the eggs in Potts' machine are brown eggs. But when Grandpa gets a single uncooked egg, it is a white egg. [There are various colors of eggs on the wheel. The first shot is shows only part of the eggs, however the second and third shot shows more.]
Edit
The film is set in pre-WW1 England (assumed from the fact that the opening credits show Grand Prix races from 1907, 1908 and 1909 and the generally late Edwardian style of the costumes). When Grandpa Potts is taken to Vulgaria and shown into the castle, he stops on the top of the steps to make a speech and starts "On behalf of Her Majesty the Queen......" It should be "On behalf of His Majesty the King", i.e. George V (reigned 1910 to 1936). [Grandpa Potts is a slightly potty ex-soldier who thinks that he is still serving under Queen Victoria in the Raj. This is a perfectly natural mistake for HIM to make, but that doesn't mean it's a mistake in the film.]
Edit
In the scene when Truley Scrumptious is walking on the beach with the children, one shot she has shoes on & in the very next shot, she is barefoot. [In the scene where Truley is walking with the children, she has her shoes on the entire time until she kicks them off when the children chase her.]
Edit

1 2 • Next page • Show all