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Quotes

Billy Flynn: Now look, I don't like to blow my own horn. But believe me. If Jesus Christ lived in Chicago today and if he had $5,000 and he'd come to me, things would have turned out differently.

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Mistakes

In the final scene where Roxie and Velma are dancing in the concert hall, Roxie is on the right and Velma is on the left. See more...

Trivia

In 'Cell Block Tango', the scarves represent murder. While the other four murderesses carry only one red scarf, Velma carries two (one for her husband and one for her sister) and Catalina has one white scarf to show that she alone is innocent. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

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Chicago (2002) - 19 corrections

Directed by Rob Marshall, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, John C. Reilly, Lucy Liu, Queen Latifah, Renée Zellweger, Richard Gere, Taye Diggs (add more)

Genres: Crime, Drama, Musical

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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There are 50 stars on the U.S. flag in the courtroom, even though in the 1920's there should be 48 stars. [There are two flags in the courtroom, one behind the witness stand and the other just outside the courtroom. Both flags are wrapped around their poles, so it's impossible to see how many stars are on the flags. However, the lined-up configuration of the stars that are visble corresponds with the 48-star flag -- the rows are not staggered as they are on the 50-star flag.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez
When Velma is telling Roxie to keep her hands off her laundry, Velma's top keeps switching from straight to crooked. [Velma's top is crooked depending on how she stands, because her top follows her body position, ie, her arm hangs down to one side so her top follows the side that is hanging down.]
Edit
at the start of the Cell Block Tango, the bars slide across the cells, opening them. Roxie's cell is at the end, but the bars slide across for ages. [Most of the musical numbers (including the Cell Block Tango) are in Roxie's mind. The scene is not supposed to take place inside the actual jail, but just a random place in her mind - as such, anything can happen.]
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When Roxie is about to sing her self-titled song, she does a little comedian act. In it, she mentions that her husband "made love" to her. This is not what you think. In the 1920s slang, the term "make love" meant to "sweet talk." [While "make love" may have meant "sweet talk" in the 20s in the song she refers to being in bed and makes hand gestures to indicate him playing with her breasts, which I took as indication that she was talking about "make love" in the way we think of it, i.e. sex.]
Edit
In the last line of the song "All I Care About Is Love", when Billy Flynn says the word "is," he throws his arms in the air. In this shot, there is a small black object that appears to be stuck to his left palm. [The object in his palm is one of the sequin confetti that is falling from above. It simply stuck to his hand as it falls.]
Edit Time
After Roxie's trial, she says to Billy, "You get $5,000 and I get nothing?" He says, "Actually, it's $10,000 once I collect from Velma." How can that be if Amos only gave him $2,000? Billy agreed that he would take Roxie's case for only $2,000... [The bill was still $5000, Amos agreed to make payments. Billy at first wouldn't do it without the 5G upfront, but relented.]
Edit Corrected by Jack's Revenge
At the very beginning of the film, you see a close-up of Roxie's eyes, and you see that they are blue. However, during the song "I Can't Do It Alone", you can see that they are brown. [During "I Can't Do It Alone", Roxie is constantly backlit (her face is in shadow). Watching it small on my computer her eyes appear dark, but whenever I pause on her and blow it up to full screen, I can tell that her eyes are not brown. In the shadow, it's hard to tell if they're blue or light grey or light green, but definately not brown.]
Edit Corrected by Myridon
The film takes place in the 1920's, but the song "Nowadays" includes the lines "You can even marry Harry/And mess around with Ike", an allusion to Presidents Truman (1945-53) and Eisenhower (1953-61). [There is no evidence that they are referring to Truman and Eisenhower. They are just using the names Harry and Ike as generic names for men.]
Edit
At the end of the number 'All I Care About is Love', Billy holds up what is supposed to be a pair of underwear. It is meant to be the underwear he was wearing since he has slowly been undressing during the song. It's quite obviously just a square piece of cloth held at the center. Whether or not this is done because of the actor's modesty does not not preempt the fact that this is still a mistake. [It is a musical number set on a fictional stage inside Roxy's mind. It is entirely believable that as part of a stage number in the 30s, a square piece of cloth would have been used as a stage prop to represent a piece of underwear.]
Edit
When Velma Kelly takes out a bill from her garters after saying, "Couldn't buy it?" you'll notice the bill is a modern dollar bill. Dollars like that were not made until at least the creation of the mint, which occurred during the Great Depression and created by FDR. [The United States Mint only creates coinage - not paper money. It was established in 1792. The United States' Treasury's Bureau of Printing and Engraving prints all U.S. paper currency. It was established in 1862. Frankin D. Roosevelt began his presidential term in 1933, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of the Mint.]
Edit Corrected by Bruce
In the scene after Roxie has been found not guilty, the pressmen run outside to see the woman who shot her lawyer. Roxie looks out the window, where there are drops of rain running down the pane, however in the shot outside the courthouse it isn't raining. [There was no rain, but there WAS snow... melting snow in fact, dripping from the roof of the courthouse.]
Edit
In the opening dance number (the number which is supposed to be a duet for Velma and her sister), there are other dancers involved - some of which have direct interaction with Velma. As this was supposed to be a dual dance number, what happened to the dancers that were supposed to interface with Velma's sister? And the ones who were supposed to be the background for her? They would have had to have been on stage, as no one knew it was only going to be Velma there. So where were they? [When the manager asks her where Veronica is she says that she's by herself tonight. All of the dancers were backstage so they would have heard.]
Edit
During the Razzle Dazzle number, a girl on a swing drops a gun. Billy catches the gun in his right hand and moves stage left. In the next shot Billy, moving stage left has no gun in his right hand. He looks up and a gun drops in his hand. [This is a tricky one. I had to watch it twice to get what happened: right before the shot cuts, you see Billy toss the gun up behind his back, then you see him catch it again.]
Edit
In the scene with Fred and Roxie are in bed, Fred takes off his undershirt. He remains shirtless for a few more shots, but when they're, uh, done, he's wearing his undershirt again as he gets up off of Roxie. [The scene where he gets off her is at a later date. It is not the same night.]
Edit
At the end of the trial, when Roxie is found not guilty, Billy hands her back her diary and says "I hope you don't mind, I added a few erroneous phrases in there... sorry I couldn't tell you". Wait a second. That's impossible. We had already proved that the opposing lawyer had fabricated that exact evidence without Billy's knowledge. So unless Billy can stop time in the middle of the trial when the diary is revealed and add a few more paragraphs in there to make the diary seem even more ambiguous, he couldn't have. [Lawyers lie. Billy lied about the other lawyer writing stuff in the diary so it could not be used against Roxie in the trail. Billy was the actual one who wrote the extra stuff in. He knew it would come up and he could turn it against the prosecuter.]
Edit
After Roxie fires Billy Flynn, she asks whats happening and Velma says 'its the Hunyák, she failed her last appeal'. Then when you have Mary Sunshine and the band leader saying her name, they say 'Katalin Helinski'. ["Hunyak" is an early twentieth-century slang term for "Hungarian," not a real name.]
Edit Corrected by meburste Time
During the Cell Block Tango number, Velma says 'Well, I was in such a state of shock, I completely blacked out. I can't remember a thing. It wasn't until later, when I was washing the blood off my hands I even knew they were dead.' Since she washed the blood off her hands at the theatre, and was supposedly 'blacked out' prior to that, why would she assume the blood was from her husband and sister? I know this was her defense, but it's just so transparent I can't imagine anyone buying it. [It is feasible that when she was washing off the blood from her hands she remembered what she had done, it's a defence which has been used in real cases before.]
Edit Corrected by Kara
During the 'Cell Block Tango,' the words chanted throughout the song are supposed to relate to the murders that the prisoners were there for. 'Pop' because Bernie was killed for the irritating gum-popping habit, 'Six' because the Morman had six wives, 'Uh-uh' because Kaityn was innocent, 'Cicero' because Velma's sister and husband were murdered at the Hotel Cicero, and 'Lipschitz' for Al Lipschitz, the womanizing artist. But the murderess whose word was 'squish' never uses it once and never explained how it was involved with her story... [Not quite. Although the woman who uses "Squish" doesnt actually use the word, It's a bit obvious (at least to me) how it's connected. She stabbed her husband. The sound a stab makes is "Squish."]
Edit
In the scene after Razzle-Dazzle, when Roxie and Billy Flynn walk into the courtroom, everyone is taking photographs of her. The flashbulb falls out of one of the cameras. [In the 1920s cameras had a switch that allowed dead flashbulbs to fall out so a reporter wouldn't have to wait for the hot flashbulb to cool down and then unscrew it before replacing it (since the key is to get the best pictures before the other papers). While I don't know if this is what the directors wanted to be happening in that scene, it's entirely possible, especially considering the reporter is looking at the front of his camera as the bulb falls out.]
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