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Quotes

Alex: David, please be rational. Let's go and see Dr. Hirsch.

David: Yeah, be rational. Sure. I'm a fucking werewolf, for Christ's sake.

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Mistakes

In Jacks first appearance to David in the hospital room, Jack uncovers the food on the tray and takes a piece of toast from another plate on the tray. The silver cover on the tray changes position throughout the scene in various shots. Sometimes the cover is resting partly on the tray and sometimes flat on the tray table surface. See more...

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John Landis wanted to use Cat Stevens song Moon Shadow for the opening credits. Cat Stevens refused because he believes werewolves actually exist. See more...

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An American Werewolf in London (1981) - 18 corrections

starring Brian Glover, David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, Jenny Agutter (add more)

Genres: Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, Romance, 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.

Mistakes
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The doctor and nurse state to David that he's been unconscious for several weeks when he wakes up from his coma (after the attack by the werewolf in Yorkshire). He is in an ordinary bed, in an ordinary (hospital) room. How was he fed, how was he given fluids? There are no signs of intravenous fluids and/or nasogastric tubes (a small tube inserted via the nose all the way into the stomach to help feed (semi) comatose patients). He in fact just moves and acts as if he has been asleep for only one night. [These are all questions, not mistakes. Perhaps they removed the IV before he woke up. And remember, he's a werewolf. He has fast healing.]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
In the very first scene, Jack is trying to get David to tell him a knock-knock joke. He instructs David to say "knock-knock", to which he then replies "who's there". What exactly is Jack trying to accomplish here? Does he expect David to magically come up with a punchline? If anything, he should have been the one to say "knock-knock" and start the joke off. [Everybody knows a knock-knock joke and Jack wants to hear one, for whatever reason.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
The wolves used in the London Zoo scene were kept privately by Roger Palmer in the UK and appeared in several TV programmes and in adverts. Roger went on to found the UK Wolf Conservation Trust which keeps wolves to this day. [Copied word for word from IMDB.]
Edit
The location filming of the front of Alex's flat and surroundings was filmed on or around Lupus Street in Pimlico, London ('Lupus' is the Latin for 'wolf'.). [Copied word for word from IMDB.]
Edit
When David is turning into a werewolf for the first time in Alex's apartment, he sees his hand starting to change and he begins to scream. As he's screaming you can see that some of his teeth have caps. [Unless there is a shot of his mouth showing no caps, (which there isn't) this is not a movie mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Damian Torres
When the two Americans are walking on the moors, their shadows are always in front of them, despite them having changed direction numerous times. Additionally, with the moon always being behind them, how are their faces being lit? [Their changing direction is irrelevant. They would have to change orientation relative to the light source, which is 250,000 miles away. Difficult to do. Their faces are lit because moonlight is very diffuse and reflects off many surfaces, including the atmosphere itself. Next time there is a full moon, go outside and see.]
Edit
On the DVD re-issue, when David sees Jack outside the porn theater (chapter 17) the sign above Jack reads, "See You Next Wednesday" (a John Landis in joke). But the Spanish subtitle reads "See You Next THURSDAY". For any of you that know Spanish, Wednesday is MIERCOLES, not JUEVES. [This is NOT a film mistake. It is a mistake made by a subtitler many years after the film was completed and released, and has nothing to do with the film itself - it is akin to mistakes on a film poster or DVD cover.]
Edit Time
In the scene where the doctor visits the Slaughtered Lamb Pub and orders a Guinness. He starts playing chess with Brian Glover and his glass is half full. When he next picks it up it is virtually full. [Copied and pasted from www.imdb.com.]
Edit Corrected by Jazetopher
When David first transforms into the werewolf in Alex's lounge room, we see him after the transformation roaring at the camera and we get a good look at the wolf's face. Yet for some reason when David turns into the wolf at the end, his face looks completely different and nothing like before. Guess the makeup guy couldn't decide. [That's because the transformation wasn't done yet. Note that his fur hasn't completely grown in yet in the slow pan before the scene change. He just finished becoming the werewolf off camera.]
Edit
In the bar, Jack refers to the pentagram on the wall as a pen-ta-gon. [Character mistake - Jack mixes up the two words, or he is simply unfamiliar enough with geometry that he only remembers the word "pentagon" for a shape with five corners.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
When the two men are attacked on the moors they are obviously fully clothed with big puffa jackets on. You even see a shot of Jack lying on the ground dead, with blood everywhere and all over his jacket. In the next scene where David is lying injured next to Jack, he looks round and Jack is completely naked from the waist up. His clothes have just disappeared. [The man on the floor next to David is not Jack, but the now dead werewolf (who has returned to human form) Jack is still clothed and remains so throughout the rest of the film.]
Edit Corrected by Mad Ade
David is in the flat after Alex has gone to work and switches the TV on. He flicks through the channels, where the BBC1 test card is showing. Surely it being a Saturday, "Saturday Superstore" or "Swap Shop" would have been on. How do we know it's Saturday? On the third channel is an advert for the "News Of The World". [When this film was made, the BBC didn't broadcast 24h a day. David is awake too early for childrens TV to have started. Remember that Alex is a nurse and may start fairly early.]
Edit Corrected by tw_stuart
How does David (as a werewolf) get out of the flat without doing any damage? Alex is home when he gets back in the morning and doesn't say anything along the lines of, "How did the door get ripped off its hinges?" [Earlier in the evening, David opens the door as he is feeling hot/restless. He never closes it, so presumably that scene was included to explain how he escapes the flat in wolf form. The real question should have been "why was a London flat not emptied by burglars when the door was left wide open all night?".]
Edit
The first time David sees Jack's corpse, it's over 2 weeks since the attack and Jack looks like a fresh kill. Over the next 2 days, however, Jack rots faster than meat in a Food Lion's butcher section display case. [We don't know how the supernatural mechanics of the undead work. It may be that he appears to David in the freshly killed form because this is the first time that David is fully awake. After that, time is running out, so he decomposes more.]
Edit
In the whole film David's relatives don't seem to bother to visit/contact him after this nasty ordeal of an attack in Yorkshire which left his friend dead. We know he has been there at least a month given the next full moon which triggers the events of the London Werewolf. [The relationship between David and his family is never established. He may be estranged and his call home near the end may be a last chance at mending the fences.]
Edit
When the man in the bowler hat arrives at the London Underground station he is subsequently attacked by the werewolf. The whole station is empty. This is 'Tottenham Court Road' station in the heart of London near Oxford St. and Soho. Hundreds of travellers pass the corridors of this station every minute virtually 24-7, yet the man in the bowler hat is the only person present. [And a big ol' werewolf won't have scared all those commuters into fleeing? Methinks they'd have run away.]
Edit
There is no explanation why David transferred to a hospital in London even though the attack took place in Yorkshire. [Granted there is no explanation in the movie but it's not a mistake. People get transferred between hospitals all the time. It's to be expected that a hospital in London has better facilities and as an American citizen (in a coma), the embassy may have requested that he be transferred to a location near them.]
Edit Corrected by tw_stuart
In the scene where the doctor visits the slaughtered Lamb Pub it is raining. The doctor pulls his coat up over his head and dashes into the pub. After his drink he has an umbrella - did he steal it from someone in the pub? [You can see the doctor carrying the umbrella under his coat as he runs into the pub. You can also see him hang it on the wall when he gets inside.]
Edit