Kelly's Heroes (1970) - 29 mistakes

Visible crew/equipment: Clint Eastwood drives his jeep up to Telly Savalas who asks where Eastwood has been. Shot changes to over Savalas' shoulder, and look at Eastwood. At the rear of the jeep, immediately behind Eastwood and in the middle of dozens of fatigue clad GIs, a crew member in a button-down striped shirt fiddles with something for a few seconds before glancing up at Savalas and then walking out of the frame.

Factual error: During the scene where Clint Eastwood is trying to convince Don Rickles to join in the heist, there is a box of Almond Joy candy bars behind Don's head. That kind of candy bar did not exist during that war. It was not invented until years later.

Continuity: After Oddball's tank gets across the river, the movie returns to the general's headquarters where Carroll O'Connor is yelling at his officers for not knowing anything about the battle. There is a soldier standing behind O'Connor with his hands on his hips and his shirt sleeves rolled up. The scene changes briefly to show the officers that O'Connor is yelling at before switching back to O'Connor. The soldier behind O'Connor still has his hands on his hips, but now his sleeves are rolled down.

Audio problem: During the discussion between Crapgame and Kelly in the supply depot, just after Crapgame realises that snatching the gold from behind enemy lines would be "the perfect crime", a jet airliner can be heard flying overhead.

Character mistake: In the scene where Crapgame is sitting in the back of the truck at the end, when the men are loading Kelly's squad's take after splitting with the Germans and Oddball, Crapgame asks Fisher to verify his calculations. There are 125 boxes of gold left valued at $8400 per box. Fisher says that they are worth $10 million 500 thousand, and each of the twelve men in the squad will get $875 thousand. The actual amount is $1 million 50 thousand, for a per man take of $87,500. $87,500 would be a fortune in 1945, but the scriptwriters got the total wrong.

Continuity: As the squad are taking a break on top of a hill, just before the fighter-bomber attacks them, Corporal Job is distributing ammo and Jonesey can be seen walking past in the background with four boxes of K-rations. A moment later, Crapgame and Jonesey are sitting together sharing the contents of the boxes. After Crapgame goes to the jeep for some water, the shot cuts to Kelly sitting by a tree. Jonesey walks up to Kelly with a message from Big Joe - carrying four unopened K-rations boxes.

Continuity: Near the end of the film as Oddball's Sherman drives into the French town, the amount of ammunition in the ammo holder on the turret .50 calibre machine gun gets larger in almost every shot. As the tank crashes through the bushes approaching the town there is hardly any ammo in the box, up until the second Tiger is ambushed when suddenly there is plenty of ammunition.

Plot hole: When Kelly drives into the American area after capturing the Colonel we see an M16 (Multiple Gun Motor Carriage) firing its machine guns into the air. What are they shooting at? Its an artillery barrage not an air raid, and Big Joe even comments later on that it's too lousy to fly so it couldn't have been enemy aircraft.

Continuity: At the end when confronting the last tank to get the bank doors open, Oddball, Big Joe, and Kelly line up in an alley as if they are directly facing the tank and start walking forward. In the next shot, which is wider and much farther away, you see that they are actually walking down a curved alley and can't see the tank until they come all the way around the corner.

Continuity: When Kelly asks Little Joe for the brandy to interrogate the German officer, he is handed a square bottle with a short neck. In the next shot, as they sit down for their "friendly drink" Kelly sets down a round bottle with a long neck.

Continuity: Two of the German SS Tank officers are walking together through the streets of Clairmont chatting. In the first scene with them, the officer on the left carries the rank of 'Obersturmführer,' denoted by his lapel badges, and the officer on the right has lapel badges showing him to have the rank of 'Sturmbannführer' (although both officers' shoulder badges show no correlating rank to their lapels). However, in the second scene with the same two officers still walking and chatting, the officer on the right has been demoted as he is now showing the rank of 'Untersturmführer.'

Factual error: During the battle at the bridge, Kelly asks Oddball about the other Shermans. Oddball replies, "No man, they've both had it. One is in the river and the other is on the other side burning." Soon afterwards we see Big Joe and Cowboy arguing with Bellamy about staying behind to fix the bridge, while crouched beside a Sherman. This is obviously not Oddball's Sherman as Big Joe and Cowboy are on the opposite side of the river, therefore it must be the one that Oddball said was burning. However, no right-minded soldier (or anyone else) would crouch next to a burning Sherman.

Factual error: At the beginning of the film as the camera follows the security sergeant he taps a man on the shoulder. The man was standing next to the crossroads signs in a camouflage poncho. As he turns, you can see that he that he is wearing jeans and not a standard uniform of the era under the poncho.

Continuity: When the last surviving Tiger rages in Clairmont, shooting at surrounding buildings, there are a couple of shots, when we see both the tank's gun firing and the 'shell impact' effect. The tank's gun is not always pointed at the exact spot where the 'shell' explodes - it's particularly visible when the Tiger lowers the gun and shoots a hole in a wall, immediately after Big Joe threw a grenade and fired at the tank with his SMG. The hole in the wall appears a good few feet to the left, from where the gun points and the actual projectile would hit.

Revealing: At the end of the scene with the destroyed bridge, when Oddball's Sherman drives away, Cowboy is nearly left behind and climbs onto the rear of the tank by standing on a box attached to the rear plating. The next time we see this tank from the rear, the box is gone. It was obviously there only to help Cowboy climb on.

Continuity: In the scene when Kelly is shown the Oddball's tank for the very first time, the Sherman has a loudspeaker mounted on the right hand side of the turret. The loudspeaker is placed on the opposite side of the turret for the rest of the movie. Also as far as luggage and other external storage is concerned, this tank actually looks different in every scene.

Continuity: In the scene where Kelly is guiding Oddball's tank into the shell of the building to shoot at the rear of the Tiger tanks, there is a bright blue bucket on the top left corner of the Sherman. During the scene the shot keeps switching from Kelly's point of view to Oddball's. When Kelly climbs off the tank the bucket dissapears but as soon Oddball looks back, the bucket appears again. Through the rest of the scene the bucket between shots the bucket keeps disappearing and re-appearing. At one point its not even the same color.

Revealing: When Oddball's tanks raid the train station, watch the two Germans with the MP 40s caught by the first cannon blast. When the explosive charge used for the effect goes off, they jump forward.

Other: When Telly Savalas drives into the farmhouse he leaves the chaplain in the jeep which is approx. 50 feet from where Clint Eastwood and the rest of the soldiers are planning to steal the gold. For about five minutes they are arguing quite loudly about if it is a good idea and afterwards they then agree to the heist and they all crowd around the map and are extremely jubilant. Is the chaplain still sitting in the jeep listening to all this? We never see him again.

Other: When they are lifting the boxes of gold at the end of the movie you can tell that the boxes are empty.