Goldfinger (1964) - 77 mistakes

Continuity: The bomb is disarmed with 007 seconds left on the conveniently placed timer with big white numbers. Then, Bond says "Three more ticks and Mr. Goldfinger would've hit the jackpot." What? Well, originally, the timer would've stopped at 003, and the line would make sense, but later the powers that be decided to stop it at 007 instead for a good old Bond joke, and apparently never forgot to delete that line in editing. [The 3 clicks mistake is an interesting one as there are still in existence cuts of the film with the original 003 on the nuclear device timer.  One contributor saw the 003 version in 1970 and was puzzled when the 007 version turned up on TV years later.]

Continuity: You can see when the black Lincoln that Oddjob drives to the junkyard is lifted to be crushed, it has no engine.

Revealing: When Bond is on Goldfinger's plane - if you watch closely when it shows the external view of the plane in the sky you can see the plane is a model with two wires holding it up. The model plane's design and configuration are also quite different in mid-air.

Visible crew/equipment: In the shot when Sean Connery gets another bottle of wine out of the freezer you can see the shadow of the camera as it moves to the right.

Visible crew/equipment: During the scene at the golf club, when the Rolls Royce begins to move off, the reflection from one of the film set lights can be seen on the rear left hand side of the Rolls Royce: There is no way that this could have been the relection from the sun, because the weather during the scene was on the dull side.

Continuity: After Oddjob has knocked Bond out whilst he was looking for some cold champagne, Bond is seen lying in front of an open refrigerator door which has five small and one large bottle on the lower shelf. When Bond awakes there are now six small and one large bottles there.

Continuity: When Oddjob drives away from the golf course, Goldfinger is not in the back of the car for some reason, even though they show him in the car earlier.

Continuity: When Oddjob chops the statue's head off outside the golf club with his steel-rimed hat, the arm starts falling down with it, but then bounces back. It appears to be spring-loaded.

Revealing: When Bond's car crashes at the Auric factory, and the Mercedes comes to a stop, you can see the cut edges of the colored paper covering the headlights of the Mercedes

Factual error: When Tilly Masterson's Mustang crashes, the laws of physics are ignored. Tilly does not go through the windscreen and is not hurt at all, despite the high rate of speed and sudden stop.

Continuity: Oddjob drives a '64 Lincoln into the junkyard. Then he walks away from a '63 Lincoln, which is the car that is crushed.

Factual error: When Oddjob has the Lincoln crushed at the junkyard, it is smashed into a small rectangle, and dropped into the little falcon pickup. even though the crushed car fits into the bed of the Falcon, it still weighs at least 2 tons. That weight would have dropped the back of the truck to the ground, but the truck doesn't even squat a few inches.

Factual error: When the Flying Circus is on it's way to Ft Knox, the lead pilot reports they are proceeding at 240 knots. Top speed on a Piper Comanche 180 (the planes in question) is/was 141 knots.

Revealing: When headshots are shown of Bond inside the Austin Martin at the Auric Factory, and when he drops Tilly off at the gas station, you can see the three holes left in the headliner of the car where they have removed screws for the interior sun visor.

Factual error: It is impossible for Oddjob to have crushed the golf ball with his hand no matter how strong he is. For the way he crushed in his hand enclosed completly around it. It is impossible to crush even an egg that way unless you apply pressure all around. To his credit, Sean Connery wasn't blind to this. He repeatedly complained about this when he first read the script, that the golf ball scene was ridiculous.

Continuity: When Tilly falls after her fatal encounter with Oddjob's hat, she lands on her back. When Bond comes over to kneel over her body, it is face down.

Deliberate "mistake": When we first encounter Tilly Masterson, she overtakes Bond and he decides not to pursue her. Then, when Goldfinger has stopped, Bond is actually ahead of her as she nearly hits him with a rifle shot. Given that most Swiss passes are single carriageways, surely Bond would have noticed her had she parked earlier.

Revealing: When Bond crashes his Aston Martin into a wall, the roof of his car has become magically reattached.

Continuity: After the game of golf between Goldfinger and Bond, Goldfinger gets Oddjob to show off his usually dangerous hat. He throws the hat at the statue and we see it fly off to the right of the screen, well away from the statue. Yet in the following shot, the decapitated head falls down next to the hat on the floor right by the statue.

Continuity: The Aston has a dent in the side that comes and goes between scenes.

Continuity: When Bond and Tilly Masterson stop at the garage after her car is ruined by the Aston, we see her wooden case on the rear parcel shelf of the DB5. She gets out and so does Bond, yet when he reaches in to give her back the case he only just reaches in with his arm. There is no way he could reach the case.

Factual error: After Bond make the tanks explode, he goes to see a woman. A man enters the room with a bar in his right hand. James sees that in the eyes of the woman, but the image is not reversed like it should be.

Continuity: When Oddjob drives into the junkyard, watch his shadow as he exits the car. Then look at the shadows while he drives off. Some hours have passed between the shootings, perhaps the missing hours are the ones it took for the engine to be removed from the car? (Check the other mistake from this scene).

Deliberate "mistake": When Bond interferes with Goldfinger's cheating at cards in Miami Beach, we are watching the shot in which Goldfinger snaps his pencil and hits the table with his fist through binoculars from Bond's position far away on the hotel balcony. The sound of Goldfinger's actions are audible making the scene more effective. However, Bond and therefore the viewer wouldn't actually be able to hear it.

Other: Right at the end of the golf match when Bond is about to make his final shot, you can see two shadows being cast onto the lawn. Since the only source of light in this scene is supposed to be the sun, there should only be one shadow. The second one is caused by the set light.

Continuity: In the opening, Bond finds the button to let open the secret hatch in the oil tank. This hatch looks very heavy and is driven by a motor or something; you can hear the humming sound of it as well. When Bond is inside, now he can close it by hand. Also when he leaves the oil tank, he uses the same hatch, and can now open and close the hatch again with his hands.

Other: Pussy Galore's flying circus is approaching Fort Knox flying in a V-shaped formation. Pussy is counting down from 5 to 0 before they release the nerve gas. On each count, we see another female pilot in a different plane but we also see another plane through the right side window. If you fly with 5 planes in such formation, only 3 planes can have another plane at their right side, not 4 or 5.

Visible crew/equipment: As Bond regains consciousness after being knocked out by Oddjob, the shadows of the moving camera and boom are visible on the cupboards.

Continuity: At the card game in Miami, before Goldfinger joins his opponent at table, the card backs are blue, but when he sits down and they begin the game, the card backs are red.

Other: The crushed 'cube' car is not the whole Lincoln; that kind of small cube is produced in junkyards from the body only, without wheels, drive train, etc.

Continuity: In the scene in Miami, when Goldfinger comes down the stairs, you can see on the shadows cast by the other persons that the scene is shot in the studio. All the persons walking around cast multiple shadows from floodlights and not just one from the sun.

Continuity: After Bond leaves Fort Knox we see the crew of his plane lying tied up and struggling inside the hangar. A few clips later we see them again - this time unconscious.

Factual error: The plane with Pussy and Bond is crashing very very fast. There is no way they could jump out in a parachute - and survive - at that speed.

Continuity: When entering Fort Knox we see the laser cutting from left to right across the metal door, which is subsequently pulled out. But when we see the door from the inside, it looks as if the laser has cut also both sides. There was no time for that - and we do not see the laser make such movements as going up or down.

Continuity: In the teaser, when Bond has come out of the water and climbet\d the cliff, right after he kicks the guard he is seen running away. In that frame you can see he is wearing leather shoes with light brown leather soles - which are completely dry. He was not wearing those in the water.

Continuity: The suit Bond is wearing in the teaser - after he comes out of the water - is not a wetsuit, but some sort of nylon suit. The clip of him climbing out of the water is very short, but you can tell its not the same suit.

Factual error: When Bond goes to open the "nuclear device" he picks up 2 solid gold bars and proceeds to use them to open the casing. Due to the density of gold, it is virtually impossible for a person to lift even a single bar without the use of two hands. Let alone one in each hand, using them to open a box. Regarding the same scene, there was no damage to the gold. Gold being the softest of metals, it should have shown severe damage if used in that manner.

Continuity: After Goldfinger has been sucked out of the plane, and it is diving as Bond makes his way to the cockpit, there is a man lying on the floor in the cabin who was not previously in this scene. Where did he appear from, as the only people in the cabin were Bond and Goldfinger? This scene has obvously had something edited out.

Continuity: When Bond first sees golden Jill on the bed she is lying diagonally across the bed with her right foot on the bed and pointed like a ballerina on points. As Bond approaches the bed her right foot is pointing towards the camera. The last shot of Jill's legs show both her feet hanging over the end of the bed meaning that she has changed position and is now lying straight along the bed.

Continuity: When Pussy Galore's Flying Circus lands at Blue Grass Field, the blonde girl we see getting out of the first Piper is not among the group of pilots who report to Pussy in the next shot.

Audio problem: When Goldfinger is at the airport, we see a jet taxiing in the background but hear a piston-engined aircraft.

Audio problem: Whenever we're looking away from the bomb's countdown timer, it fails to advance as fast as it should, even though from time to time we do hear ticking at the same rate that the counter changes. For example, we see it tick from 010 to 009 and then hear 4 more ticks before it is stopped, but it then displays 007 and not 005.

Continuity: When Bond enters Goldfinger's hotel room in Miami we see that the transmitter is on the table next to Jill. Bond turns it off but when Jill turns around and says, "Who are you?" we see that Bond is too far away from the table to have just turned off the transmitter.

Continuity: Bond drops a bottle of wine onto the floor after being hit by Oddjob and he falls and lands almost on top of the bottle, but in the next shot it's a few feet away to his left.

Continuity: Goldfinger's crew uses a giant truck-mounted laser to burn their way through the Fort Knox entrance. Several shots of the truck show the laser beam being moved across the entrance extremely rapidly; however, when these shots are intercut with views of the entrance itself, the beam inches across the entrance door very, very slowly.

Continuity: At the Miami resort, when Goldfinger walks towards the card table, on the far left you can see Bond and Leiter standing watching Goldfinger in the background. In a close up shot of Bond and Leiter we see Bond reaching for a towel and putting it on his shoulder, but then in the wide shots there is no towel over his shoulder and he never moves.

Factual error: Goldfinger's disguised henchmen are dressed in Army uniforms, however, their rank insignia is Air Force.

Factual error: When Bond looks at Tilly Mastersons attache case in the rear view mirror as he's driving along, the initials on the case are the right way round instead of being backwards which they would've been when seen in a mirror.

Deliberate "mistake": When Bond is getting chased by Goldfinger's gangsters, he sees a car's headlights coming straight at him (which is later revealed as a mirror reflecting his own headlights). To save his life, he crashes into a nearby wall. In some versions of the movie, his car only goes in part way, while in older versions, his car goes all the way through the wall. The filmmakers must have changed this so the scene following that, which has Oddjob opening the door and revealing Bond unconscious, could work.

Revealing: During the scene where Bond is at the hotel at Miami, in several scenes you can see that film was shot at a hotel, and then the editors placed the card game opponent's figure in the film. The filming of the figuires is a lot clearer and crisper, while the background looks like a homemade film.

Factual error: The homing device shows Goldfinger traveling North, from Geneva. The mountains in the long shots are on his right (looking west)?

Continuity: When Goldfinger is being sucked out the window of the airplane, he suddenly shrinks to about half his normal size.

Revealing: At the beginning of the film, Bond shoots his rope gun to climb over the wall. If you look closely, the rope he shot didn't even come out of his gun. It comes from off the left side of the screen. Very visible in slo-mo, or paused

Audio problem: We know that all of Goldfinger (Gert Frobe)'s dialogue was dubbed by another actor. It was done quite well, except in the scene where Goldfinger is showing Mr. Ling around his factory. His lips are moving, but none of the dubbed dialogue matches it.

Continuity: After we first see Tilly Masterson's car overtaking Bond's Aston, the next few shots of the scenery are inconsistent. What is seen through Bond's car windows does not match the scenery in the subsequent long shots. And Tilly's car is shown leaving the village, then after getting out on the open road, the shot through her rear window shows her leaving the village again.

Plot hole: In the scene where Goldfinger meets with the gangsters to explain in detail his plan for entering Fort Knox why does he go to the trouble of announcing his plan when he is going to kill the gangsters a few minutes later? It only serves to let Bond (and the audience) know what's going on, but makes no sense in the movie at all. The gas is fatal - he only tells them it knocks people out to win their confidence.

Continuity: The blade on Oddjob's hat is only visible when he beheads the statue in the country club.

Other: When Felix and his partner are following Odd Job to the airport, thinking they are tracking Bond, they are supposed to be in Kentucky but palm trees are visible in the background en-route.

Continuity: When Bond ejects the car seat with the Korean from his Aston Martin, the Korean leaves through the roof of the car with his legs straight (as seen inside the car). The scene changes outside the car and now the Korean can be seen fully seated in the car seat.

Revealing: When the small jet taking Bond to Washington is shown taxiing away from the assembled VIP the engines are not running (no exhaust) and one can faintly see a tow cable pulling the plane to the right.

Other: In Fort Knox, where Bond has just gotten un-handcuffed from the bomb and is battling it out with Oddjob, Bond throws a gold bar quite a horizontal distance and hits Oddjob in the chest. The fact that it bounces off is in keeping with the fantasy of Oddjob's strength - but how in the world did Bond throw it that far? A Fort Knox gold bar weighs over 27 pounds.

Continuity: When Bond is first put in the truck, it shows both of the larger trucks as 1964 Internationals, lead by a new Jeep CJ series with curved front fenders. In the next few shots, the Jeep becomes a 1950s version with flat front fenders, and the larger trucks are now darker green 1956 Fords. When they arrive at Fort Knox, the Jeep and trucks have changed back to the newer models.

Factual error: Dropping a large gold bar onto a golf green, as Bond does, would have left a considerable dent in the ground, yet it didn't. A bar that size would weigh approximately 30 lbs. so even on a well-tended green, this would have done visible damage

Deliberate "mistake": Goldfinger has imprisoned Bond in a jail cell guarded by an Asian. Bond draws the Asian into the cell by smiling through the small barred prison door window and then slowly sinking out of sight. When the Asian enters the cell, Bond drops on him from above. While it is physically possible for Bond to work his way up the walls into that position, he could not do it in the time elapsed nor could he do it without passing his body in front of the small barred window (which would be seen by the Asian guard).

Continuity: In the scene when Bond is in Goldfinger's suite he hears voices and sees Jill for the first time, lying on her front. In the next shot she is on her back, then on her front again.

Continuity: When Goldfinger loses his card game, he gets mad and snaps his pencil in half. I have doubts that the pencil would make such a loud noise, but either way, there is no way Bond could have heard this, seeing as we're to believe Jill's radio only goes one way.

Audio problem: When Bond fights Oddjob in Fort Knox, he tries to hit Oddjob with a metal pole, but it ends up to wall, and Oddjob cuts it with his hand. The remaining piece of pole falls to floor and it sounds like the pole is made of styrox.

Revealing: Bond drives his Austin Martin into a wall because he believes that the headlights appearing before him belong to another car (actually, they were the reflection of his own lights). When he first sees the lights, they are directly in front of him, but only just before the crash, the angle of the reflection changes. And the way the mirror was hung up when Oddjob looks at it, it was in no position to reflect the light the way Bond sees them.

Continuity: While Bond is strapped onto a table while talking to Goldfinger, the distance the laser beam travels up the table towards Bond varies from one shot to the next.

Continuity: When Bond enters his hotel room he hangs his gun on a peg that is a significant distance away from the bath tub. When the assassin lands in the tub, the gun is suddenly within arm's reach.

Factual error: The girl is killed by having paint all over her body, supposedly suffocating her. While a widely believed theory at the time, it is not actually true that you can be suffocated by cutting off air to the skin - as long as you are still breathing, you won't suffocate. The only way damage might be caused is that by being unable to sweat/cool, you might get heatstroke, alternatively the toxic elements of the paint might prove fatal, but both of those effects would take far longer to kill you.

Continuity: The scene on the plane when Goldfinger pulls his golden gun on Bond, the side shot shows him pulling back the hammer of the revolver, then the next scene from Bonds perspective the gun isn't cocked and they show Goldfinger pulling back the hammer again.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Goldfinger writes the check to James Bond after losing the golf match, look at the window of the Rolls Royce and you can see the whole camera crew reflected in the windows.

Other: When several cars are pursuing Bond and Ms. Masterson through the woods, the first car falls prey to the smoke screen. As the second car continues pursuit, a man leans out of its passenger window to shoot at Bond. But he doesn't appear to be aiming, or even holding his gun tightly; the muzzle waves far to one side for the first several shots.

Factual error: Due to the actual weight of gold, it would be inconceviabe for the gold to be stacked in such a way as it is depicted in Fort Knox.

Other: After Goldfinger has lost the golf round and is about to depart, Bond hands Oddjob the Slazenger 7 and says 'I believe this is yours'. Oddjob (who's obviously upset that Goldfinger lost) crushes the golf ball and throws it out the window. It's ridiculous. 1: Golf balls have a liquid or rubber core, so you'd see the residue. 2: A golf ball has several very hard layers to prevent it from collapsing on a hard impact. 3: When Oddjob throws it, look closely and it looks a bit like a section of a styrofoam cup.

Continuity: In Switzerland when Bond chases Tilly, the weather suddenly changes from almost clear skies to quite overcast.