North by Northwest
North by Northwest mistake picture Video

Revealing mistake: In the shooting scene in the Mount Rushmore cafe, a boy in the background puts his fingers in his ears, because he knows the gun is about to be shot.

North by Northwest mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Cary Grant writes a message on a matchbook and Eve Marie Saint reads it, the number of lines in the message changes. He writes 3 lines, she reads 4 lines. (01:58:30)

North by Northwest mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Thornhill is about to be run over by the truck his jacket is covered in dust. When he falls on the ground it's spotless, only to appear dirty a shot later.

Sacha

North by Northwest mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Thornhill's cab arrives at the UN there's a couple behind him, a rear projection. Later on, when Valerian's car arrives at the UN the same projection is used, with the couple a mere two meters away form where they were before.

Sacha

North by Northwest mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When the crop duster and the truck are about to explode and the truck drivers run away, one can tell it's not Cary Grant watching the havoc but his stunt double because of his rounder face and slightly different hairstyle. Also confirmed by actress Eve Saint-Marie.

Sacha

North by Northwest mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Thornhill watches the road from the crop field, the way he holds the crop and how the leaves bend, differ between the front and back shots. Also, his hands disappear and the leaves swap between dry and green.

Sacha

North by Northwest mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Thornhill makes a call at the train station the cord of the phone is curled in the wide angle but straight in the close-up.

Sacha

North by Northwest mistake picture

Other mistake: At the train station, the same red-haired woman in a green dress with two distinctive suitcases appears three times in different places despite her walking the opposite way. Sometimes she has a hat and others not.

Sacha

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Trivia: Cary Grant was born on January 18th, 1904, and the actress playing his mother, Jessie Royce Landis, was born on November 25th, 1896, making her just seven years older than Cary. According to commentary on the DVD, it was thought that casting Landis as Cary Grant's mother would make Cary look young enough to be a believable love interest for Eva Marie Saint.

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Question: Why do the kidnappers take Thornhill to the Townsend home and pretend to be Lester Townsend and members of his household? They could have taken him to some obscure place instead, at less risk of being found out.

Answer: More than likely, they felt that Roger would be dead and they would not be found out. The fact that he survives their DUI plot and returns to the house with the police only serves to makes him look more suspicious and guilty. It's to move the plot along, nothing more.

ChiChi

The bigger plot hole is, if Van Dam really believes Roger is Kaplan, why would he think that Roger would bring the police and go through the trouble of preparing "Mrs. Kaplan" to make the police think he's crazy? If Roger really was a spy, he doesn't need help from the police and would have just disappeared instead of retracing his steps. So if Van Dam anticipated the actions taken by Roger, he must believe at some level that Roger is telling the truth and would have looked deeper into it.

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