Kelly's Heroes

Revealing mistake: 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. (01:00:05)

Continuity mistake: After Cowboy spots the Tiger coming down the street the scene changes to a view of the three soldiers running from away from the bank from the viewpoint of the Tiger. The Tiger's turret is facing the soldiers. In the next shot the Tiger is shown in the distance with its barrel pointing straight forward. In the next shot, the turret is facing the fleeing soldiers again.

AdmRose

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Revealing mistake: 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. (01:29:00)

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 $8,400 per box. Fisher says that they are worth $10.5 million, and each of the twelve men in the squad will get $875,000. The actual amount (125 x 8400) is $1.05 million, making a per man take of $87,500. He's off by a factor of 10 one way or another.

Factual error: The sniper rifle used in the film is a Russian Mosin and were never used by the allies. They should have had a Springfield sniper rifle. The Americans would have had no occasion to "exchange" weapons with Russian soldiers until the end of the war, when they met on the Elbe River.

Continuity mistake: When Kelly visits Mulligan he is carrying a bottle of whiskey, he then visits crapgame who gives him a bottle of whiskey, which suggests that the scenes are the wrong way round and Kelly was originally meant to visit crapgame first. (00:20:05)

Factual error: 14000 bars of gold would be hundreds of tonnes, more than the capacity of the one truck. A standard gold ingot weighs 12.4 kilograms. 14000 would weigh 173.6 tonnes. Even if they divided the haul evenly between Kelly, Oddball and the Germans they would be hauling away just under 58 tonnes of gold each, way, way beyond the capacity of anything on the roads in those days.

Continuity mistake: 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.' (01:44:20 - 01:45:40)

Factual error: Near the end of the movie the general and the army convoy drive through the town and are stopped by all the celebrating going on. If you look at all the cheering villagers, you can see they are dressed in modern (for 1970) clothes and have hairstyles that were not around in the 1940s.

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kelly comes to make a proposition to Mulligan, the sun is on Mulligan's back. When both are in the shot from Kelly's view, both are in the sunlight. Then at the, "I need an authorisation" reverse shot, they are both in the shade, these 2 scenes are obviously shot at two very different times. (00:21:30)

Factual error: In the final shot of the movie, the Tiger tank/T34 is seen driving away emitting masses of diesel smoke common to the Russian T34. However the Tiger was a petrol tank, not a diesel, as mentioned by the German tank commander. The Sherman was also petrol and well known for its ability to catch fire when hit. It was nicknamed the 'Ronson.'

robertvp

Factual error: Almost all the German soldiers in the movie are armed with MP-40 SMGs. In fact, most German infantrymen during World War II were armed with Mauser rifles. MP-40s were only issued to squad leaders and officers.

Factual error: The "BAR" carried and fired in the movies is actually a FN-D Model that was never issued by the US Army in WWII. It was developed post war in Europe. Also the Thompson machine guns and the 1919A4s are all firing at a accelerated rate of fire, much faster than normal. This can be attributed to the weapons being blank adapted.

Jonsm114

Factual error: During Oddball's raid on the German train station, you can hear a radio playing 'All For the Love of Sunshine' by Hank Williams Jr. Hank Jr. wasn't even alive yet, let alone making records during WWII. The soundtrack to the film also contains the song, "All For the Love of Sunshine," which became the first No. 1 country hit for Hank Williams, Jr. (01:00:10)

Factual error: When the raging Tiger is shooting around we can see that the muzzle brake of his gun stands still although it should be moving back and forth.

Revealing mistake: When Kelly is using the gold bars to persuade the others, he hands them over. There is obviously no weight as e.g. Crapgame's hand doesn't drop when taking it. (00:28:40)

Continuity mistake: Don Rickles is assembling the .30 calibre machine gun onto its tripod prior to the action in the French village. Neither he nor his co-gunner have any visible anmmunition. The scene changes, the comes back to the .30 calibre machine gun, which is set up on its tripod and is loaded with a belt of ammunition. Where did the ammunition come from?

Continuity mistake: When the guys are making a "deal" with the tiger tank commander, Big Joe's left hand on the muzzle of the tigers gun changes positions between shots.

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the train station, just as the 3 Shermans turn to face behind the tunnel to fire at the building, they suddenly move a lot closer together. (01:02:40)

Ssiscool

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Oddball is shooting up the rail yard, he aims at a building with the signs "Saint Server" and "2" on the outside of the buildings. In the first shot, the "2" is damaged at the bottom. In the second shot, just as it explodes the "2" is back to normal. Note the baseline. (01:01:50)

Ssiscool

Oddball: Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
Moriarty: Crap.

More quotes from Kelly's Heroes

Trivia: Actor Richard Davalos kept his bayonet razor sharp and accidentally stabbed Telly Savalas in the arm during the scene where the squad jumps over the wall to ambush the Germans on the road, warranting bandages on Savalas' arm. In the film, Savalas kept his shirt sleeves rolled up, until he was stabbed, and then kept his sleeves rolled down to hide the bandages.

Scott215

More trivia for Kelly's Heroes

Question: What type of Allied fighter destroyed the units vehicles? It doesn't look like any allied combat aircraft I've seen before.

AdmRose

Answer: It's a Yugoslav Soko 522 Ikarus.

Chosen answer: From the markings it looks like a P47 jug. Strange thing is it was equipped with rockets, which I have only seen outfitted on the P-38 lightning and the P-51 Mustang. Kelly's is a great movie but far from historically accurate. There is a country song Odd Ball Plays as the blow up the rail yard that not even close to having been released at the time.

James Rowell

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