The top mistakes in Chariots of Fire http://www.moviemistakes.com/film252 en Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:55:02 +0000 1545 In the 1924 Olympics, the Eric Liddell character is handed a slip of paper prior to running. As he runs in  the race, the paper is not in his hand. When he crosses the finish line it magically reappears. 1546 When Eric Liddell is approaching the end of the Olympic 400 metre race the camera cuts away for reaction shots of those watching and responding to his approaching victory. The close-up shot of Harold Abrahams is taken from earlier in the film when Harold was reacting to his own defeat by Eric. You can see at the bottom of the frame that Harold is wearing a tweed jacket and not the blue official blazer of the British team which he would have been wearing while viewing Eric's race. 24717 When the action gets to the 1924 Paris Olympics, all of the American flags, including the ones on the shirts of all the American athletes, have 50 stars. This design was not used for the American flag until 1959 when Hawaii became the 50th state. The 48 star flag, which should have been used, had a totally different arrangement of the star field with the rows of stars aligned vertically rather than the diagonal arrangement on the current flag. There's one grand sweeping shot of the flags of all the nations competing in the Paris Olympics. The camera pans across the stripes of Old Glory, but the shot is cut just as the blue star field would have come onscreen. Clearly the editor knew about the error, but it was too late for the rest of the picture, as the US athletes were the prime competition for the film's British hereos, and were in a lot of shots. 38848 OK so its arguable whether this is a mistake, since it was a deliberate attempt by the film makers to make the story more dramatic, but here goes: Eric Lidell didn't want to run on a Sunday, but that was the day of his race. The real Eric Lidell found out several months beforehand and had his event changed with virtually no fuss. In the film a chance remark by a journalist alerts Eric to the fact and he changes his event at the last minute. Are we supposed to believe that Eric, a world renowned athlete who has been training for years, would not know what events he was down for and what days they were on when he boards the boat to France? When was he planning to ask anyone? Would anyone have told him? 53509 Once at the Olympics, Abrahams is being massaged in one scene by his coach, Mr. Mussabini, complaining how miserable he was about being "beat out of sight in the 200" and how he was trying to use this failure as motivation for the upcoming 100 meters. Wrong. In the actual 1924 Olympics, Abrahams won the 100 early in the competition, and lost in the 200 later on.