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Mistakes

Once at the Olympics, Abrahams is being massaged in one scene by his coach, Mr. Mussabini, complaining how miserable he was about being "beat out of sight in the 200" and how he was trying to use this failure as motivation for the upcoming 100 meters. Wrong. In the actual 1924 Olympics, Abrahams won the 100 early in the competition, and lost in the 200 later on. See more...

Trivia

The film's title was inspired by the line "Bring me my chariot of fire" from the William Blake poem which was adapted into the popular hymn, "Jerusalem". The hymn is heard at the end of the film. See more...

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Genres: Drama, History, Sport

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.

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The dress Sybill wears to her first date with Harold is far, far too low cut for 1912. The neckline goes below the lower curve of her breasts. In 1912, forget it. This isn't a character choice - wearing a dress like that in Edwardian London would be like turning up naked nowadays. Couldn't happen, didn't happen. [No scene in this movie is set in 1912. The scene in question is set in the early 1920's. The Oscar winning costume department did quite a lot of research to produce accurate period attire.]
Edit
Harold Abrahams excuses himself during the interval of "The Mikado" to ask out one of the singers. In the previous scene we see him and Liddel watching the "Three Little Girls From School" song being performed - this is part of the second act and appears *after* the interval. [ The "Three Little Girls from School"-trio happens halfway into the first act and thus well before any interval.]
Edit Corrected by Ioreth
In the closing scene Harold Abrahams is seen arriving at a train station from the Dover Ferry. This should have been London Waterloo, but the station depicted is London Paddington. [The station is never named. Just because it can be identified as being Paddington in reality doesn't mean it is supposed to be Paddington in the film. Another example of this is that 'Cambridge University' in this film is obviously Eton, as it was the only place they were allowed to film. Not a movie mistake, just a choice of location.]
Edit
The parade of the participating nations in the opening ceremony is wrong. The countries march in alphabetical order according to each countries native tongue (ie. regardless of host country's language). Therefore 'Great Britain' would go before 'United States'. [How could you alphabetize the nations if each one marched under its own name in its own language? The march-in is always alphabetical by the host nation's own language. The official Olympics web site (olympics.org) has film from the 1924 opening ceremonies showing the nations marching in with their names on signs in French. Thus, Etats Unis came before Grande-Bretagne.]
Edit
When Harold and his friends are watching "The Mikado" in the theatre, there is an illuminated exit sign behind them in the balcony. I don't think these were around right after World War I. [Neon gas was first discovered in 1897 and in 1910, Georges Claude passed an electrical current through a tube of the gas and discovered what we now see as neon signs. The sign industry almost immediately picked up on the discovery and began making signs out of it in the 1910's. ]
Edit
This 'college dash' that Abrahams impresses Cambridge University by completing - something's not right. The challenge is to get around the courtyard in the time it takes the clock to strike midday. The big deal is that this challenge is supposed to have been around for almost seven centuries and no one has ever completed it successfully. That means that the college dash originated in the early 13th century. There couldn't have been a clock like the one used to time the dash back in the 1200's. [There could have been manually-rung midday bells.]
Edit Corrected by J I Cohen
When the committee is discussing what to do about Eric not running on Sunday, one members calls the Prince of Wales, "David". Unfortunately, that's the actor's name, not the Prince's. [The Prince of Wales of called "David" because, and this is a quote from a biography of the Prince of Wales, "The eldest son of George V, Edward (known to his family as David)" so that is NOT a mistake in the movie.]
Edit