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The Godfather (1972) - 32 corrections

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall (add more)

Genres: Drama, Thriller

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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At the wedding scene, Michael is wearing many ribbons. The 'highest' rated ribbon, the first, is the 'Silver Star'. It is very visible. In a scene much later in the movie there is talk about 'knocking off' Michael but someone says,"He is a war hero. He won the Navy Cross . This is higher ranked than the Silver Star and should have been worn first in the line - if he did in fact earn it. [Character Mistake: The person who said this didn't know what he was talking about. He knew Michael was a decorated war hero, so he mentions a type of medal he'd once heard about, thinking that must be what he had received.]
Edit Corrected by raywest
Everytime someone dies there are oranges (the fruit) in the scene. [Not every time. Tessio can be seen handling oranges in the wedding scene.]
Edit Corrected by LorgSkyegon
Luca Brasi is killed after his left hand is pinned down with a knife. Watch carefully and notice Brasi is wearing a ring on his left hand. In the final death scene, you can see that the hand pinned with the knife appears to be the right hand, not the left and the ring is gone. [Bruno Tataglia holds Luca's left hand on the bar, while Sollozo pins Luca's right with the knife. There is no switch.]
Edit
Carlo beats up Connie when she is pregnant, and she calls Sonny and he is killed on the causeway. When Michael comes back from Italy and looks up Kay, she asks how long he has been back and he says a year, maybe longer. Michael and Kay get married and then the scene shifts to a few years later (Kay and Michael have a son). The Godfather asks Michael how his son is and Michael says he is "smarter than me; he is three years old and can read the funny papers". But then, Michael decides to be Godfather to Connie and Carlos' baby. How long was Connie pregnant? This implies she was pregnant for four years. [Or, thinking a bit more sensibly, that Carlo and Connie had two children. Which they do, Victor and Michael Francis.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
Sonny and the crew get the call from their police inside informant from the station house as to where the meeting between Michael and Sollozzo (along with NYPD Captain McCluskey as Sollozzo's bodyguard) will take place (recall that it is made clear that a Police Captain must let it be known where he will be at all times if he is away from the station house). It is to be held at a restaurant in the Bronx. This is important so they have time to plant the gun in the bathroom for Michael. Tessio immediately says he knows this restaurant - a family place, good food, etc. *but* - in actuality, it would *not* be Tessio but rather *Clemenza* who would know this small neighborhood restaurant, since Clemenza's territory - where he is a captain - is the Bronx and Tessio's is Brooklyn. This is such an obvious mistake it boggles the mind no one on the set caught it, especially the writer, Mario Puzo. [Complete and utter nonsense. What, you think that these people would have total knowledge of their own territory, but know nothing whatsoever about anything outside it? There is absolutely no reason why Tessio couldn't be familiar with the place - restaurants with good food can draw in customers from many miles away; entirely reasonable that Tessio could have visited it at some point. So obviously not a mistake that it boggles the mind that you thought it could have been.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When Sonny beats up Connie's Husband in the street, he throws him into a tiny area where the trash cans are and starts beating him. Watch closely when he hits Connie's Husband with his left hand and you will be able to see that he doesn't even touch him. [Already submitted.]
Edit Corrected by SexyIrishLeprechaun
The scene where Sonny is shot at the toll booth is supposed to take place in the late 1940's. However, as Sonny is driving up to the toll booth, he is listening to a baseball game on the radio that took place on October 3, 1951. In that game, Bobby Thompson hit a home run off Ralph Branca as the Giants beat the Dodgers and won the pennant. [No, Sonny is shot in 1951. If you count backwards it is easy to see this: Vito Corleone dies in 1955 (according to what it says on his tombstone). In Vito's death scene, Anthony was about two-three years old, so he was born in 1952, meaning that Michael had returned home in 1951/early 1952, which happened almost directly after the shooting of Sonny.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall Time
Since the film came out, the Catholic term "Godfather" (the principal witness to a child's baptism, usually a relative) has largely been replaced by "sponsor". [This is incorrect. In Catholicism, the term Godfather (and Godmother) are still used at baptism. Its at the Sacrament of Confirmation (usually when the child is 12) where a Sponsor is chosen- nothing to do with the Godparents.]
Edit
During the fight with Sonny and Carlo on the street, the actor who played Genco, Vito Corleone's old friend and business partner in Part II, is seen in the crowd (maybe a younger relative?). [If this is a mistake, it should be listed under "Godfather II", as it would be there the continuity error would have been noticeable. But as the submitter says, this can be explained by the person watching the fight being a younger relative that resembles Genco, so there is really no error.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
When the heads of the other families get killed during Michael Jr.'s baptism one guy gets shot through a blocked glass door. The first shot that's aimed at his body shatters the glass but leaves the man unharmed, only the second shot causes a visible wound. [First: the child being baptized is Michael Francis Rizzi, Carlo and Connie's child; there is no Michael Jr. Second: The first bullet could have been deflected by the glass in another direction. The man behind the glass (Cuneo?) isn't reacting to being shot; he's already shouting because he realizes what's happening to him.]
Edit Time
When the heads of the five families meet to call a truce, right in the middle of where Don Barzini makes his famous comment, "After all, we're not Communists," his elbow slips off the table. I guess Coppola decided to keep it in. [How is that a movie mistake? It's not even a character mistake. That's a human slip up.]
Edit Corrected by Jane Doe
When Tom Hagen is meeting with Jack Woltz at the restaurant, the server fills his wine glass with red wine. Yet when he lifts it to drink, there is nothing in the glass. [First, they're not in a restaurant, they're at Woltz's home. Second, Tom has two glasses next to his plate, a small glass for wine, and a larger glass for water. The glass that Tom picks up to drink is the larger one with water.]
Edit Corrected by Jane Doe
When Michael visits Kay for the first time since he's been back, the first shot shows a cloudy day, then when they are walking with the car behind them all of a sudden it's a beautiful day. [When Michael sees Kay, she's seen walking with her students. When they take a walk, one of her students greets her while riding his bike. This means that it's later in the day, and school is over. So enough time has passed by for the day to clear up.]
Edit Corrected by Jane Doe Time
Prior to killing the mob leader and cop in the restaurant Michael tries out a Colt .38 Spl pistol in the basement. There is a close-up of the pistol being fired; there is no recoil and one spark is seen coming from the barrel. This pistol had significant recoil and a substantial muzzle blast would have been visible in the close-up. [The pistol used was .22 caliber, not .38 caliber. A .22 has significantly less muzzle blast and recoil than a .38 caliber pistol.]
Edit Corrected by Mobrien316
In the scene in the hospital when Michael is wheeling the Godfather's bed to another location for safety, as they go through the doorway you can see that Marlon Brando's hand get pinched. He jerks it up to his chest, despite the fact that he's meant to be unconscious... [Even unconscious, a body will react to pain.]
Edit Time
Michael is accused of killing the heads of the 5 families in 1951, but during that scene in the movie, he leaves the church in a 1954 Packard. [The shooting of the other Dons happen in 1955. Sonny is shot in 1951, Michael returns home, reunites with Kay and has Anthony in 1952, which makes Tony three years old in the scene where Don Vito dies. Also, Vito's tombstone is marked '1955'. So if Michael becomes Don in 1955, the 1954 car is entirely in its place.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall Time
Clemenza has Paulie pull over so that he can go urinate in the bushes. The man in the back seat shoots Paulie in the head. Clemenza and the shooter then leave the car there, with Paulie's body inside. How do Clemenza and the shooter get home? Hitchhike? [Many different ways that were not shown in the film. Hitchhike. They could have hidden bikes along the route. They could have hidden a car. They could have planned to be picked up on that spot at a certain time. Not everything needs to be shown.]
Edit Corrected by Rlvlk
When Brando is being taken home from the hospital there are mercury-vapor street lamps visible in the area. They were not in use in 1946 or so. [Not so. Mercury vapor lights were introduced in the 30's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_street_lighting_in_the_United_States.]
Edit
Tattaglia tells Tom that the Godfather survived in spite of having been shot five times. But even if the first two bullets missed while he was running we can tell from the way the hitmen aimed at him that he is hit close range at least nine times while he is leaning against his car. [It's quite possible that the information he is getting about The Godfather's shooting is not totally accurate. The Godfather may have actually been hit nine times, but unless he is getting the info directly from the doctor, it's possible that "the word on the street" doesn't parallel with the medical reality of The Godfather's condition.]
Edit Time
As the gangster hands Michael a pistol to try in the basement he tells him that the grip and trigger has a special tape that latent prints can not be lifted from. There is no such tape. [At the time, fingerprints had to be very clear to be lifted from an object. Simple atheletic tape has a rough enough texture that would make it nearly impossible to get prints from.]
Edit Corrected by BillyBlake

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