Casablanca (1942) - 21 mistakes
Directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Claude Rains, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman
Continuity: When Ilsa is in Laslo's bedroom, she is shown from behind looking out the window at the street below, then after an edit she is shown looking at the street from out side the window. The problem is that the first shot showed her looking through a roll-type window shade, and the second is a slat-type Venetian blind.
Factual error: When Rick is talking about the German guns shelling near Paris, he describes them as 77's (non-existent) - likely meant the famous 88's used as anti-aircraft and tanks as well as for wheeled guns. [The line was originally "88s" but was changed at the request of the War Dept. so as to not tip the German's hands that we knew about the 88s.]
Factual error: Major Strasser refers to Rick as a "bumbling American." Capt. Renault then replies, "We mustn't underestimate American blundering. I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918." During World War I, no Allied soldiers ever attacked or occupied Berlin. In fact, when the war ended Germans still occupied some French territory. This led in part to the rise of Hitler and World War II because of the belief that Germany did not really lose World War I but was sold out by various conspirators.
Continuity: When Rick goes to see Ferrari at the Blue Parrot the first time, there is a bottle on the table between them. Ferrari is shown taking the cap off the bottle, pouring a drink, and then returning the cap to the bottle. In the next cut, the bottle is gone, and in the cut after that the bottle is back, but without the cap, which should still be on it.
Continuity: When Rick and Renault are sitting at a table outside Rick's Cafe, a bottle disappears from the table between one cut and the next and then reappears. In the shot without the bottle, there seems to be a champagne bottle at an angle in the background, something that is not visible in the other shots when the first bottle is on the table.
Factual error: Major Strasser is supposed to be a member of the Gestapo (Secret Police), but he is wearing the insignia and rank badges of a Luftwaffe (Air Force) major. (The Gestapo uniform was essentially the same as that of the Waffen-SS and would have had the double lighting bolt insignia on one lapel.)
Continuity: In scenes at Rick's Cafe, Captain Renault is wearing a white dress jacket with three medals. The right-hand medal, possibly the Légion d'Honneur, is first seen on a long ribbon. Less than a minute later, it is on a short ribbon; over the next nine minutes, it becomes long, short, long. It's not a medal, it's a yoyo.
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