The Color Purple (1985) - 22 mistakes

Revealing: Right after young Celie gives birth, take a look at the baby after it is handed to her. It is obviously a stiff doll.

Continuity: When the mayor slaps Sofia her two children change positions between shots. When she knocks him out the girl disappears.

Revealing: Oprah Winfrey's character is supposed to be knocked unconscious, but as she is lying on the ground, the wind blows her skirt up and she reaches down, pushing her dress back down.

Continuity: Mister's tie changes from red to blue when he asks for Nettie, and back to red when he inspects Celie.

Deliberate "mistake": During the scarification chant, you see Adam being scarred on his right cheek. At the end of the movie when Adam meets Celie for the first time, there is no scar on the right side of his face at all.

Continuity: When Sofia comes to her in-laws' house for the first time Celie offers her a glass of lemonade. She empties it completely, but when she gives it back to Celie it's almost full again.

Continuity: After Harpo and Sophia are married, Harpo leans in to kiss Sophia but she is whisked away by relatives and he turns away. In the next shot we get a side view of Harpo and he is still leaning in to kiss her after he had already turned away in the previous shot.

Other: 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.

Continuity: When Celie imagines throwing chocolate dollars from the train platform they scatter around, but the imagined Nettie finds them all in one place.

Other: Mister cooks Shug Avery a breakfast of grits, biscuits and ham, and takes it to her room. She throws the breakfast against the wall. The breakfast leave a bright yellow and bright red stain on the wall. There was nothing on the tray that could have left those colors on the wall.

Continuity: When Celie is combing Shug Avery's hair while she is in the tub, you see Albert creeping up the stairs looking to see what is going on. In the background you hear his father shouting at the house, wondering if anyone is home. At the time Albert is at the top of the stairs he is wearing a reddish shirt. The next shot shows him walking out the door to meet his father, but now he is wearing a green shirt.

Plot hole: 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.

Continuity: Before Squeak hits Sofia she hands a tray with a bottle to Harpo. He hardly catches the bottle before it falls down, but when the camera angle changes he is holding the bottle upright.

Continuity: 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.

Continuity: In the scene where Shug and Celie start kissing Celie covers her smile with one hand in a wide shot but with both hands in close-up.

Factual error: When Celie is leaving Albert, she is riding in the back of the car with Shug. As the car drives away down the dirt driveway you can see the telephone pole and electricity wires at the end of the driveway. Not unusual now, but in rural Georgia in the 1930's, it would have been impossible.

Audio problem: In the scene where Albert tries to make a move on Nettie she tells him that she has to go to school. Her mouth isn't moving the whole time.

Continuity: When Celie is shaving Albert, the "patterns" of cream on his face change from shot to shot.

Continuity: The letters that spell "sky" on the piece of waxed paper change throughout the whole movie.

Continuity: While Albert is throwing Nettie out of the yard, the sky changes. First, you can see the sun, then the sun is covered by a bunch of clouds, then the clouds are gone.