Best movie mistakes of 1968

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2001: A Space Odyssey picture

Other mistake: There is something drastically wrong with the design of the spherical 'Aries' moon shuttle. Some seats and many fixtures are 'upside down' relative to the up-down orientation of the shuttle itself, and we see loose food trays and equipment about the place as if this is routine. But - the shuttle is designed to land on the moon. What happens then? The moon has gravity, remember? There are going to be quite a few very disgruntled people dangling upside down like spiders, and there will be loose gear (and perhaps a stewardess or two) bouncing about all over the place. It is not a matter of stowing loose gear or lying flat on landing - some parts of the shuttle are upside down relative to others, which is why the stewardess has to do that famous 180 degree upside down walk. Whichever way you look at it the shuttle is going to encounter serious problems when it reaches a gravity well, which will occur whenever the engines are fired up, never mind landing on the moon.

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Suggested correction: The shuttle lands "on its back" with legs extending beyond the engines. As in most traditional sci-fi, and ALL actual, space flights to date, the launch (and landing) orientation for humans is to be on one's back. This minimizes blood being sucked down to your feet if you were sitting upright at launch - you could pass out. So we see this when the shuttle lands on the moon - the cockpit (red window) faces up (pilots on their backs, facing out the window). When we presume that the passenger cabin was 180 degrees spun around from the cockpit seating, they're still on their backs. Any loose objects would have been stowed before landing - the airlines don't lock down your bags, newspapers and coffee cups, right? They're loose in the cabin during flight, but put away on takeoff and landing.

Airliners do not fly upside down. The Orion shuttle cannot possibly operate the way it does if it lands in a gravity environment - some rooms are upside down relative to others - why else would the stewardess do the 180 degree vertical walk? It is an idiotic design flaw, and the posting is 100% correct.

The Aries passengers sit and stand with their feet down towards the moon. The pilots sit with their back down to the moon, as conventional astronauts do on Earth. But the attendant's 180-degree walk is completely wrong to the orientation of the shuttle's interior: it should have been only 90° if you look at the Aries exterior. One assumes that Kubrick preferred a longer, more cinematic shot, over a technically accurate shot. But nobody was upside-down to the moon.

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Oliver picture

Continuity mistake: In the early-morning scene at Mr. Brownlow's house, Oliver is shown sleeping in his bed. He awakens and his hair is in complete disarray as he walks towards the open balcony doors. Standing on the balcony and gazing outside, however, his hair is combed neatly.

Christie_Love

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Planet of the Apes picture

Revealing mistake: Most of the posed, fake displays in the ape's Museum of Natural History contain real people who are slightly moving if one pays careful attention. Especially noticeable are those posing with objects held in - or above - their hands.

Hans Deutsch

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Where Eagles Dare picture

Plot hole: Why do all the Germans abandon the cable car control room after the alarm has been sounded? If the cable car is critical for access to the castle then you would expect a hard core of SS troops to remain behind to control access and protect the machinery in the event of an attack. (01:42:55)

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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang picture

Continuity mistake: Truly crashes into the pond three times: first when the kids are playing in the road and she takes them home, second on the day of the picnic when she says she has nothing else to do and will go on the picnic too, and third at the end of the film when Potts finds out he is rich. In the second of these three, when Mr. Potts carries Truly from her car in the pond, the end of the ribbons on the back of her dress gets soaked in mud, but when you see her again at the beach there is no sign of the dirt.

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Green Berets picture

Factual error: The final scene of the movie has Col. Kirby and the little Vietnamese boy supposedly on the beach at Da Nang, Vietnam. Kirby is saying, "The future of 'nam is you, kid", and the camera pans out to the sea and the sun is going down. The sun's sinking in the east...

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Suggested correction: Nowhere in the film are we told where in Vietnam the Green Beret base is, just that it is in South Vietnam (of course). South Vietnam has a Western coast, along the Gulf of Thailand, along which anyone can watch the sun set over the sea.

Around the 18:00 - 18:30 mark a character welcomes John Wayne to Da Nang. This base is returned to throughout the film, including the infamous sun setting in the east scene. Da Nang's beaches face to the Northeast. Only when you get south of Nha Trang does the Vietnamese coast begin to offer a south to southwest horizon on the ocean.

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Suggested correction: We have had the power go out at our house before and the doorbell still worked.

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Hang 'Em High picture

Continuity mistake: At the beginning, Eastwood dismounts from his horse to rescue the calf lying in the river. His horse is left standing in the river with the water up to his knees. When Eastwood places the calf on dry land, his horse is standing nearby. The horse's legs are dry.

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Bullitt picture

Continuity mistake: Steve McQueen passes the same green Volkswagen at least three times while chasing the black Dodge Charger R/T. This is due to the same downhill portion being shown to us from multiple angles to artificially extend the length of the scene.

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Hellfighters picture

Other mistake: The crew goes up to Calgary in January to extinguish an oil fire, yet there's no snow on the ground, the grass is green, and all the deciduous trees have leaves.

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Rosemary's Baby picture

Continuity mistake: Minnie gives her the necklace with the tannis root inside and Rosemary holds the chain between her thumb and first two fingers. In the next shot the chain is draped over her fingers. (00:32:15)

????

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Columbo: Prescription Murder picture

Continuity mistake: At the very end Fleming sees the dead body of his girlfriend being hoisted onto a gurney - she is soaking wet, having been hauled out of the swimming pool. Later we see it is a policewoman acting as a stand-in in order to fool him into talking - and after a few minutes under a blanket on the gurney she, her bikini, and her hair are all bone dry. Not only that, her hair looks like it has just been styled and her makeup is perfect.

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Once Upon a Time in the West picture

Continuity mistake: At the end of the movie when Cheyenne is shaving, while Harmonica and Frank are having their shoot-out, he cuts himself at the sound of the gunshots. When Jill tells him that he is a handsome man the cut is gone. (02:22:25)

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Night of the Living Dead picture

Continuity mistake: At the beginning, Barbara finds a corpse at the top of the farmhouse stairs with its face partially eaten away. Later, when Ben drags the corpse into another room we get a fleeting glimpse of its face and it shows no sign of decay of any sort.

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Barbarella picture

Continuity mistake: When Barbarella first has to go down for an emergency crash landing, she puts her right arm up to her head in panic. However in the next shot it is her left arm that is up to her head instead of her right. (00:12:35)

Hamster

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Charly picture

Continuity mistake: When doctor Nemur, that other doctor, and Mrs. Kinnian are discussing possible complications with Charlie's surgery, there's one shot where Dr. Nemur takes the cigarette out of his mouth and in the next shot it's back in.

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Carry On Up the Khyber picture

Continuity mistake: During the bombardment of the British Consulate, there are several continuity errors, including a self-repairing window and blind situated behind the piano. And it cannot be put down to the nature of the film because several errors have been carefully avoided.

David Mercier

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The Odd Couple picture

Revealing mistake: When Walther Matthau is making sandwiches for his poker pals (during the movie's first poker game), Matthau drops a slice of bread on the kitchen floor. If you look at his hand, you'll see that he flicks his thumb to make the slice of bread fall.

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