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Quotes

Basil: Hello? - Ah, yes, Mr O'Reilly, well it's perfectly simple. When I asked you to build me a wall I was rather hoping that instead of just dumping the bricks in a pile you might have found time to cement them together...you know, one on top of another, in the traditional fashion.

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The recording of the final episode, "Basil the Rat", was cancelled due to a BBC strike, and therefore the episode was not broadcast until October 1979, six months after the rest of the series. See more...

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Fawlty Towers (1975) - 33 mistakes in season 1

Directed by John Howard Davies, starring Andrew Sachs, Connie Booth, John Cleese, Prunella Scales (add more)

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Season: Whole show  1  2  All

A Touch of Class

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Visible crew/equipment: At the end of the end of the episode where everyone is cleaning up, there is a shadow of the boom mic on the wall.

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Continuity: When Basil brings in Lord Melbury's cases, they swap hands between the exterior and interior shots.

Edit Submitted by David Mercier Time
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Audio problem: Throughout the episode the picture Basil is distracted from putting up has no glass covering on it. However, when he smashes it at the end you can hear the distinct sound of glass breaking.

Edit Submitted by David Mercier Time
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Visible crew/equipment: When the bald hotel guest asks Basil for his drinks and slams his hand on the table, in the next shot a boom mic can be seen briefly as it is pulled away.

Edit Submitted by Dwarf Time
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Visible crew/equipment: Near the start of the episode, after the guest has told Basil that he will only be staying until Sunday, Basil walks from the dining room to the office, and the shadow of the camera following Basil can be seen in the reflection of the studio lights in the picture above the Drawing Room door.

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Visible crew/equipment: When Basil asks the family sitting by the window to move, a boom mic can be seen in the top right hand corner.

Edit Submitted by Dwarf Time

The Builders

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Deliberate "mistake": When Basil is arguing with Polly and eventually decides to call O'Reilly, he trips over the gnome. However when we see Basil come out from behind the desk, he takes the gnome out of a side gap in the desk, perfectly out of reach of Basil tripping over it.

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Continuity: Towards the end of the episode, a couple of scenes before Mr Stubbs arrives, we see Basil start up the tape player prior to hiding in the kitchen. The garden gnome on the desk is right next to the tape player at this point. When Sybil turns the tape off the player has rotated 45 degrees or so (despite nobody else having come into reception in the intervening time) and the gnome is now further along the desk towards the camera as we look on the wide shot. The gnome in the next shot is seen beside the checking-in book when Basil wanders out of and back into the office a couple of scenes later, yet when Mr Stubbs is asking about the lintel for the new door shortly after that and we see Sybil writing in the book, the gnome has moved out of shot altogether.

Edit Submitted by Neil Jones
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Revealing: In the scene where Polly brings Mr O'Reilly a cup of tea, it is obvious on several occasions that there is nothing at all in the cup. Not only does he hold it in such a way that you can see inside, but when Basil snatches it away nothing spills out.

Edit Submitted by David Mercier
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Continuity: After hitting O'Reilly, Sybil goes to the desk and grabs the phone. In the first shot, Sybil grabs the phone with her right hand, she puts it next to her ear and then put her left hand on the microphone. She turns her back to Basil and O'Reilly. In the next shot, the phone has not been put next to the ear yet, while Sybil's left hand is not on the microphone but on the cable.

Edit Submitted by Great_Captain Time
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Continuity: When Sybil catches Basil with the closed-off dining room and they start an argument, the door to the rooms upstairs is closed, two shots later it is open, but nobody came or went that way during their conversation.

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Revealing: In the part where John Cleese is smacking Manuel's head against the place where the dining room doors are supposed to be, you can see very that Manuel is kicking the wall right when his head is supposed to hit it, creating the sound of his head hitting the wall. Check it out because it's very obvious and hard to miss.

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Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise)

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Revealing: When the Major first meets Basil, the same shot is used twice of the Major twitching.

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Audio problem: In the first scene when Basil is trying to repair his car, when he tries to start the engine, the engine sounds are totally out of sync with Basil turning the ignition key.

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Continuity: When Basil goes to fetch the branch to give the car a thrashing after it breaks down, the car manages to move onto the pavement all by itself.

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Continuity: There appears to be a very obvious splice edit in this episode. When Basil manages to get Kurt off him after being pinned to the kitchen table, he pushes Kurt against the wall knocking him out. Before this Basil is lying flat on the table and we never see him get up to a standing position beforehand.

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Revealing: When Basil is out of the car and shouting at it after its final breakdown, you can see a crew member reflected in the right hand side of the windscreen giving John Cleese cues. It's not Cleese himself, as the reflection remains after he runs out of shot to get the tree branch, and the reflection doesn't mimic every action performed on screen.

Edit Submitted by UKFilmFan
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Audio problem: When Basil is pretending to be a duck and quacking, you can tell it is false because the quacking stops a second after Basil stops pretending to quack.

Edit Submitted by OliviaD3601
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Continuity: When Basil's car breaks down for the final time after reversing away from the van, watch closely on the garden path of the house right next to the car. The garden gate is open, and you can see it swing shut (look at the black shape just above the hedge) just as Basil says "One, two three." The gate was shut when he first reversed around the corner, but was open again after the shot cuts back to the car (after it's moved to the right along the pavement).

Edit Submitted by UKFilmFan
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Audio problem: When Basil impersonates the duck, the sound effect used continues when his mouth is closed.

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