The Italian Job

Other mistake: When the Mafia are having a dinner party, the film cuts to Charlie Croker throwing his bicycle into the substation to cause a powercut. After the big explosion, the camera switches back to the dinner party and then all the lights go out. But before the lights go out, if you look at the end of the dinner table, there is a doorway, and you can see smoke coming from the candles which have already been lit before the lights go out. Within seconds of the power cut, these candles are brought in from doorway and another set comes in from the left-hand side. A little premature.

Other mistake: When the film about planning the job is being shown to Mr. Bridger in the prison: at the end of the film the mafia man walks right up to the camera to watch the English guy walk off. This seems a bit odd, him being able to walk right up to the camera and the camera operator still filming. Wouldn't he have wanted to keep the fact that he was watching them all the time a secret and not give the game away that the mafia were on to them?

Factual error: While Bridger is watching the film of the Mafia boss following Beckerman he signals for the film to be stopped so he can look at the close up shot of the man. He is watching a 16mm film shown through a bog standard projector - stop a film like that for more than two seconds without closing down the projector shutter (this doesn't happen - if it did the screen would darken instantly) and it will melt and catch fire. This doesn't happen.

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Question: What happened at the end? How did they get out of that fix?

Answer: We may never know. The ending was originally a set-up for a sequel, but the sequel never materialized.

Cubs Fan

Answer: Michael Caine himself once suggested in an interview that all they had to do was wait until the bus, the engine of which was still running, ran out of fuel. The fuel tank was at the rear of the bus, hanging over the cliff and so adding weight at that end. As it emptied, the balance would shift to the front and they would be able to move the gold forward. How they could then get it off the bus, or transport it from the roadside is another matter.

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