Continuity mistake: Melanie walks out from behind the desk and goes into the hallway to get the nightgown to show Annie. No one ever flicked a light switch, but the hallway is now very well lit up. (00:46:40)
Revealing mistake: The birds that attack the schoolchildren have no shadows. (01:13:40)
Other mistake: When Mitch is in the car, after listening to the radio he switches it off and the subtitles read 'Clicks of radio', yet it should be 'Clicks off radio.' (01:49:50)
Continuity mistake: Early in the movie Melanie makes a right turn as she goes up to Annie's house and we see a white post on the school side of the street and a stop sign on the opposite side. Now as she drives up to the school to check on Cathy we see the exact same spot and there's no stop sign. (01:08:10)
Continuity mistake: All through the party scene, the balloons change position, and balloons disappear and appear too. (00:49:45 - 00:51:10)
Continuity mistake: As the birds fly out of the fireplace, the pillows that Lydia was sitting on have been fluffed up between shots. (00:55:15)
Visible crew/equipment: In a scene where Melanie, Mitch and Cathy are walking to the building on the hill along side Melanie's car, you can see the camera move in the reflection on the side of the car. (01:29:50)
Continuity mistake: When Melanie gets up and looks at the birds massed on the monkey bars the area behind her is a tree and a field. This background changes entirely when she and Mitch walk up to find Annie's body and there is what looks like a junk yard with a valley behind it. (01:11:20 - 01:30:00)
Continuity mistake: As Melanie opens the door to the bedroom there is no light except her flashlight but you can see two distinct reflections in the door knob, one of the flashlight and one of the studio light behind her. (01:47:15)
Continuity mistake: As they all run into the house to get away from the birds the redheaded boy in the grey-blue suit disappears. He runs across the lawn at the same time as Annie and the two little girls with her and should arrive at exactly the same time but we never see him again. Mitch even looks around in his direction to see if there are any children still outside before he enters the house. The boy just disappears from this scene and is not in the last shot of everyone inside the house either. (00:53:00)
Continuity mistake: As Mitch walks up to the garage door all the birds on the ground that are near him run away and there's nothing to his right except a garbage pail. Then just before he walks through the door two birds appear pecking at his feet. (01:53:00)
Continuity mistake: As the school children are running down the hill a white fence appears between shots in the background on the right of the screen. (01:13:40)
Continuity mistake: The blonde girl in the red with the red bows in her hair has a crow on her head that suddenly jumps to her right shoulder between shots. (01:13:45)
Visible crew/equipment: In the close-up of the orange car there's a perfect shot of the cameraman in the bumper as the gas hits the tire. (01:25:10)
Continuity mistake: As Melanie is inside of the phone booth a man with birds attacking him runs up to her and there is a clear shot of the road extending past the restaurant. When this spot is seen earlier as Mitch and Melanie walk into the restaurant it's entirely different with a bunch of telephone poles on the left. (01:27:25)
Continuity mistake: When we saw the phone booth earlier in the movie it was sitting on rock now as Melanie runs inside it for protection from the bird attack it's sitting on asphalt. (01:26:15)
Continuity mistake: In the shot of the party looking down from the top of the hill the barbecue is sitting behind and to the middle of two lounge chairs. In the next shot the barbecue is to the left of the two lounge chairs. At the end of the scene it's moved back. (00:51:35)
Continuity mistake: After Melanie hangs up the phone she sits and ponders whether to go to Cathy's party, on the desk to the left of the phone is the cigarette lighter that Annie left there before after she lit her cigarette. Next to it is a pack of cigarettes that she didn't leave there before. If you look closely earlier as she takes the cigarette out of the pack in the left pocket of her nightgown the lighter is in her right hand, the cigarette in her left and the pack stays in her pocket. (00:46:35)
Continuity mistake: As they all prepare to leave the house part of Melanie's bloody dress sticks right up towards her chin, but when Mitch and Lydia swing her around towards the car it's not sticking up anymore. (01:56:10)
Continuity mistake: When going along the water in her hired boat, Melanie passes a pole bobbing about in the water. In the next wide shot the pole has vanished. (00:19:50)
Answer: The movie takes place in the 1960s, so presumably gas pumps worked a bit differently back then. This is also a small town and probably the gas station had not modernized. There may not have been automatic shut-offs, or if there was, it was faulty.
raywest ★
The automatic shut off is in the handle of the hose. When a person grips the handle they have to lift a levered switch to allow gas flow; the lever is spring loaded so that if it is released the gas will stop flowing. I have looked at older antique gas pumps and they are all the same; even the visible glass gravity flow ones. If that hose was dropped the the gas should have stopped flowing.
michael g