Changeling (2008) - 8 mistakes

Factual error: A woman is shown receiving electroshock treatment ("ECT") in a hospital scene which took place in 1928. Although chemicals were used to induce seizures in psychiatric treatments at the time, the use of electricity for the purpose was not discovered until 1937 and not used in the United States until 1940.

Factual error: When Captain Jones first introduces himself to Christine Collins he says he is from the Lincoln Park Juvenile Division instead of Lincoln Heights.

Character mistake: Earlier in the film, after Walter's disappearance, Christine insists that the boy is three inches shorter than her actual son. Later, near the end of the film, during the courtroom scene, we hear testimony that the boy is four inches shorter than the real Walter.

Continuity: When the cop shows the killer kid a picture of Walter, the back of the photo keeps changing from wrinkled to straight repeatedly.

Factual error: Candlestick telephones and others of similar vintage are repeatedly shown ringing (and Christine is shown using two different models of telephone in her house when it would have been unlikely that she would have had more than one). Telephones of this period did not contain ringers. Rather, the ringer was inside a large box which was usually attached to the wall behind the telephone. Such a box is not seen in any shot during which a telephone is shown ringing.

Continuity: When Angelina is sitting down at the table at the mental asylum, she is sitting across from a heavyset woman. Before she starts talking to the blond woman, the lady across from her takes a drink. Just as she is raising the glass, the scene cuts to another angle and the lady's glass is down on the table again.

Continuity: When the "substitute" boy gets off the train he is with an older women. The reporters ask the mom and boy to take a picture together. You can see from the camera angle that the older woman is in the background when the flashes go off taking the picture. Later in the movie, the psychiatrist holds up a newspaper article with the picture in it. In the newspaper picture, the older woman is not in the background.

Factual error: In the shot showing the prison Alcatraz, when Joline goes back to get a confession from the killer of her son, the clip of Alcatraz shows a satellite dish on top of the prison tower. There were no satellite dishes in the 1930s, let alone any satellites.