The Blues Brothers (1980) - 52 mistakes

Revealing: When Jake and Elwood are driving through the mall, they leave by driving through some store, if you watch as the people run to get out of the way, a black man with an apron on runs right into the camera.

Continuity: In the beginning of the movie, when Jake and Elwood jump the drawbridge they show a shot along the passenger side of the car as Elwood floors it to make the jump. Watch the rear tyre. The driver slams on the brakes as they approach the raised portion of the bridge.

Audio problem: In the scene at the Palace Hotel Ballroom, when the Blues Brothers are singing their 2nd tune (Sweet Home Chicago), you can hear both Jake and Elwood on the soundtrack but Elwood is dancing down the middle aisle without even a microphone in his hand and his mouth is not moving. There is also a shot during the same song where Jake's singing and pauses do not line up with what we see visually. When he sings "baby don'cha you want to go-oh - -" we see his mouth stop moving, then when he pauses, his mouth is still singing. As a matter of fact, the entire number has mistakes like this and mistakes of continuity.

Continuity: At the end of the church scene, James Brown is shown placing the microphone back on its stand. Then it cuts to a wide shot of James pacing the stage, mic in hand.

Continuity: The first bridge in the movie is rising very fast. When they drive on the bridge, it stands lower than before, and the jump they make, is over a small area, although you see later that the bridge is completely up.

Revealing: When Jake sees the light and shouts, "The band!", he flips through the church and back to Elwood. When he stops, he is almost as tall as Elwood. This is because the stunt double is not nearly as short as John Belushi.

Continuity: In the shopping mall car chase scene, the police cars that tips over has got siren lights at the top but when they tip over and slide along the floor and spin, on the inside view of the car, you can see the lights have been taken away for the car to slide better. On the outside view of the car sliding you can see the lights on the top of the car.

Visible crew/equipment: In the gospel church scene, where James Brown is whipping up the congregation, at one point, where the camera is pointing down the nave of the church from what would be the altar end, a technician can be seen scurrying, at the back of the church, from the left to the right aisle.

Revealing: When Jake, Elwood and the cops are buried in rubble from the hotel, you see one of the cops dragging himself out of the debris has two bricks sitting in the brim of his hat. That's either a very strong hat or very light bricks...

Continuity: In the deleted scene where Elwood goes into the manager's office to quit, right before he walks in the door he sets his briefcase down, it is slightly crooked and in the center of the floor. When he goes to leave it is sitting straight and further to the left.

Continuity: When we see the Nazi's falling in their car one shot shows the car from above falling into an area without any buildings around the docks. When the car lands however it is in a built-up area of the city. [Due to the lack of available special effects, the crew had to actually drop a car from a helicopter onto the area shown without any buildings because of safety issues. The landing of the car in the city area was edited into the scene, the rest of it was real.]

Continuity: In the mall chase scene, when the police car flips over, you can see the antenna break off the side of the car. When they cut back to the car again, you can see it break off once more. Then, when they show that the car has stopped spinning, the antenna is completely intact.

Continuity: At the end of the movie, just before crashing through the Daley Building, the driver's side rear window is rolled down, then it is up again just before (and as) the car falls apart.

Revealing: During the last chase scene, pursued by the Nazi's, the Bluesmobile stops short of running off of the bridge. You can see the steel guide rails behind the front wheels which will help the car get its front wheels back on the bridge when he slams it into reverse.

Continuity: In the beginning of the movie, when Jake and Elwood jump the drawbridge you see the gate arms are down. When the car lands on the other side the gates are up.

Visible crew/equipment: When they're driving on lower wacker drive in the end, you can see the shadow of the camera. The camera is on the hood of the car. It's visible in the scene where they almost hit a cyclist.

Continuity: When Elwood and Jake "See the Light" at the church, they begin dancing wildly at the far end of the aisle - yet in a static shot of the dancing later on, the Blues Brothers are seen standing still at the end of the church, just as they did before Jake saw the Light.

Continuity: When the Blues Brothers go to persuade Matt and "Blue" Lou to rejoin the band, and they have just ordered their signature meals from Aretha Franklin, she goes to Matt in the kitchen to moan. Matt is cooking two burgers of some kind, but in a shot of Aretha 30 seconds or so later (when Matt says not to talk that way around his old lady), the burgers have moved and multiplied.

Revealing: In the mall where the police car is spinning around on its roof (when the cop says, "They broke my watch"), you can see there's a separate circle of floor just larger than the car's roof, upon which it is rotating.

Continuity: When the three ladies of the Soul Food Chorus get up to sing "Think" with Aretha Frankin, their food is sitting on the counter; ten seconds later in a wide shot, it has gone. (This is undoubtedly so that "Blue" Lou can do his thing on the counter.) When the ladies sit down again and get a nasty look from Aretha after Matt and Lou have left, their food is back again.