The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim - S2-E5
Factual error: At Poirot's, Hastings browses a copy of Speed magazine - but it's the August 1936 issue. The story is set in mid-October 1935 (not just for consistency with the rest of the season, but also because the newspaper brought by Hastings towards the end mentions Duff Cooper as Financial Secretary for the treasury, which is a position held in that year before the elections - which are also mentioned). (00:18:30 - 00:43:40)
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim - S2-E5
Plot hole: The safe is behind a painting that acts like a real door. When Mrs Davenheim spots it, it's wide open. But Japp questioned her in the same room and the painting was in place back then. It really makes no sense that with a story depicted as being so big (it makes the first page of the national newspapers) and with an investigation in place, nobody in a week has checked the safe at all. (00:27:50)
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim - S2-E5
Continuity mistake: During the conversation between Lowen, Hastings and Japp through the car window, in his close-ups Tony Mathews moves his torso closer to the window and then back towards the wheel, several times. That is not always reflected accurately in the reverse shot with just the shoulder visible. For instance, right at the end of the scene, he leans in saying "Good God, you don't think you can keep a thing like that secret, surely", but his body is exactly in the same spot in the shots before and after. (00:24:20 - 00:25:10)
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim - S2-E5
Other mistake: Lowen allows Hastings inside his Bugatti, but then leaves to join a member of his staff who beckoned him. We actually see him in front of the staffer and the person with him. Cue Japp, who has then a little comical interlude with Hastings for about 20 seconds. Cut then to Lowen who.is just now being introduced to the guy he came over to greet. Surely he has not been standing in awkward silence all that time. And even if we assume that this conversation is supposed to happen simultaneously to the Hastings and Japp show, it is half as short, meaning it would have cut into their antics when he ends it by yelling at them. (00:23:15)
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim - S2-E5
Factual error: Poirot reads a fake copy of the Daily Express with a big article about the mystery disappearance. What makes it a not so believable fake, besides the odd artwork instead of a picture (a clash of style with the real Express first pages), is that you can make out of the words of the article closest to the camera, and like it happens to other props used this season, it mentions the Abyssinian crisis...but saying that "Mr. Churchill himself made the only speech." Churchill was not in office in the 30s. (00:17:05)
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim - S2-E5
Factual error: It is shown explicitly that The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim includes the fact that before going to his study at 4:30 PM, he starts the record player, with Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture", and that the record stops at 4:45 PM. The problem with it is that Mrs. Davenheim during the whole 15 minutes stayed in the same spot, absent-minded, and in 1935 a recording of that song would have been on a three sided 72 rpm record, since 33 rpm LPs were introduced in 1948. (00:03:15)
Continuity mistake: Mrs Pengelley is outraged by Hastings' question about the niece. Poirot opens his umbrella and begins to move forward to ask a different question. The left side of his coat is mostly spotless, but in the next close-up that side is instead covered in water stains, including a quite visible streak on the chest. (00:05:40)
Factual error: One of the two police cars identified as Unit 10, is appropriately enough, a Sunbeam-Talbot Ten. The episode is set in 1935 though (with amazing accuracy for some details, including the poster for the movie "George White's Scandals 1935" shown before the car tailing starts), and that car was manufactured only after 1937. (00:19:55 - 00:22:00)
Other mistake: Japp manages to coordinate the pincer action of the 3 police cars using a very broad map and no real information about the whereabouts of the suspect. The whole scene is rather silly, it would work in a modern thriller with a GPS, perhaps, not with toy cars and a street map of London.
Continuity mistake: His Bankship visits Poirot during the evening, and begins telling him the story of the silver mine. "For half a century, men have died", he says. Poirot has the magnifying lens in the right hand, but also the rock in the left; cut to a different angle, the hand with the rock is held low, out of frame, and then back to the first shot, with the rock exactly where it was. (00:11:55)
Continuity mistake: The cream colored shoes of the Lady are prominently featured in the finale. When the actress has to run, not only are the heels replaced by modern tennis shoes, but they're black, in contrast with her white stockings. (00:46:40)
Factual error: To meet The Veiled Lady the second time, Hastings and Poirot go to the Natural History Museum. The establishing shot is the iconic "Dippy the Diplodocus", right in the main hall. But in 1935, Dippy would have been in the reptile hall instead, and with his head and neck mounted differently. (00:37:35)
Continuity mistake: Poirot tells Miss Lemon to calm down because "It is only the simple blackmailer." Pauline Moran has her right hand on the bag, but in the close-up that follows her hand is at a distance from it. The difference in position (and thus in the takes being edited together) is reflected by a mistake happening a few seconds later, when you can notice as she turns around to answer the door, that her gloves have also switched hand. (00:12:10)
Continuity mistake: When Poirot and Hastings enter the Athena, there's an establishing shot as they walk to the right of the concierge. In the following shot, some elements like the lady with the flower dress by them are consistent, but the desk employee is suddenly on the phone and a bellboy appears by the stairs. Also the lady in the corner changes from a blonde to an elderly woman in a red coat. (00:05:50)
Other mistake: Poirot, Hastings and The Veiled Lady go upstairs because the lobby is 'too public'. The man spying on them is hiding behind the same newspaper prop used in the previous episode of the season, where Hastings was reading it in Cornwall at the beginning. So must be a pretty old issue now (Peril at End House takes a few days, and they were on holiday). (00:07:40)
Continuity mistake: Sitting on the park bench, Japp narrates the jewelry heist to Poirot. The passersby during the scene change in the various angles, and the most evident demonstration is offered by the fella that starts his walk exactly when Japp sits down. Grey pants, a sleeveless vest and hat, he walks all the way to the path in the background and exits stage right. But he's walking behind Japp when he says "The stones in his pocket were not the real stones." (00:03:00 - 00:03:45)
The Adventure of the Cheap Flat - S2-E7
Continuity mistake: In the first scene with the 'G-Man', the room in the shots with the camera roughly by his shoulder is lit in a different way, with his body fully in the 'sun'. Especially visible when he picks up the phone and starts spouting yankee-isms going all "Yeah yeah so what yeah." (00:09:00)
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim - S2-E5
Continuity mistake: The race is presented through actual footage of the era, with a cameraman from Pathe shown, saying that Lowen's car is number 3. But the car shown in the stock footage is different from the one Lowen is driving, which does not even have the number in the same position. (00:33:10 - 00:33:45)
The Kidnapped Prime Minister - S2-E8
Continuity mistake: At Scotland Yard, Poirot is readying the glasses for the moment when Japp will pass him the paper he's reading, about the driver. When the view switches, his hands, that were above the desk level, start off from underneath the desk. (00:33:35)
Character mistake: The rude doctor says that Edward Pengelley "wouldn't poison his grandmother's dog", to which Poirot irately blurts out "but it is not the dog of Madame Pengelley's grandmother that has been poisoned." He should have said "of Monsieur Pengelley." (00:12:50)
Answer: He definitely says "Belgian", but the subtitles get it wrong and show him saying "American."
Wblank71