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Mistakes

When Celie tries on one of Shug's dresses a record is playing. While the song is still on we see the record player again and the label has changed. Then Shug turns the record around, and now the label is the one from the beginning. See more...

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The baby that Celie delivers in the beginning of the film is actually a rubber doll. They covered it in dry ice in order to make it steam. See more...

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Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg (add more)

Genres: Drama

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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When Celie sees her baby in town with the Reverend's wife, she says that she stitched the baby's name [Olivia] on all her diapers. But at the beginning of the movie, the baby is taken from her right after she's born [Celie even states that at her mother's funeral]. How could she have known the baby's sex to have stitched 'Olivia' on her diapers? [When Nettie delivered Celie's 2nd child she says out loud that it is a girl. That is how she know the sex of the child to give her the name Olivia.]
Edit
It doesn't make sense that Celie's children can't speak a word of English when they come back from Africa. They had been with Nettie all the time and with the missionaries for many years, and even if they had eventually resorted to speaking the local language exclusively there should be enough English left that they could greet their mother. [If you listen closely to Olivia, she is actually speaking perfect English to her mom. She says, "Mama, I want to know you mama. My mother?" she then, as she is crying and being embraced by her mother, repeats, "I want to know you mama."]
Edit Time
Sofia leaves Harpo together with her children. Years later, when she gets slapped by the mayor, two of them are with her, and they haven't aged since. [Harpo and Sophia have more than two children. The last child to be removed from Harpo's lap when Sophia leaves is infant/toddler age and placed in the truck. The names of the children (more than two) are mentioned by Celie when she bids them farewell. The two children in the scene with the mayor years later are most likely the two youngest, including the one that was the infant/toddler years before.]
Edit Time
When Celie is giving birth to Olivia it says Winter 1909. Later on in the movie when she is in the cloth store and thinks she sees her daughter, Olivia, it says Spring 1909. [No, in 1909 she gave birth to her son Adam. Olivia had already been born and given away.]
Edit
Sophia is carrying her baby as she and Celie enters Sophia's house. After they enter, Sophia goes to the table and gets the baby's bottle and tells the baby, "Miss Celie gonna get the baby some milk." She should have said her own name, Sophia. [Sofia says "Now let's see, we gonna get you some milk."]
Edit
In the scene where Sophia confronts Celie in the cornfield, she starts by saying, "You told Harpo to beat me". Later she tells Celie, "If you want a dead son-in-law Miss Celie, you keep on advising him like you do". Harpo is actually Celie's stepson, NOT her son-in-law. [More of a character mistake than a film error. Since Celie was Sophie's stepmother-in-law, Sophie probably assumed, in the heat of anger, that Harpo was Celie's son-in-law.]
Edit
As Albert is driving Shug in the wagon to his home in the rain, we see the outside of the house, which is not Albert and Celie's farm house. The house shown has elaborate steps and pillars. [It is simply the other side of the house. Throughout the movie we see mostly the back of the farmhouse. The side with the elaborate pillars is the front, which is not used often.]
Edit
In town, Celie checks Corrine's baby's diaper to see if she had a diaper on that Celie had stitched with the name Olivia. However, Nettie teaches Celie to read and write after Celie's marriage to Mister. [Celie also states she embroidered moons and stars on the diapers. She could have been checking for those, as well.]
Edit
Late in the film, Albert takes one letter out of the mailbox from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In the typed address, the numbers '02' can be seen after the state of Georgia. ZIP codes were not in use until the mid-1960's, not in 1937. In addition, the '02xxx' ZIP code is for Massachusetts, not Georgia. [There is no zip code shown for either the return address or the delivery address.]
Edit Corrected by ChiChi
Ceeli doesn't know Mister's real name until after Shug Avery comes into the picture and calls him 'Albert'. This was after Nettie was sent away, yet when Ceeli finds a letter from Nettie in the mail and reads it out loud Netti refers to Mister as 'Albert'. How could she know this? [Presumably, she found out from the people she traveled to Africa with, which must also be how she found out about Celie having a different biological father.]
Edit
Whoopie Goldberg's character writes notes to herself on waxed paper. She's not shown actually writing, but the medium is obviously felt-tip marker, which was invented decades after the action takes place. [If she is not shown writing, then we can't be sure a felt-tip marker was used. It looks more like a thick pencil lead.]
Edit Corrected by Ral0618