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...
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.
Factual error: The Germans in the castle are using Bell 47 helicopters which a) were American, not German, and b) weren't even in operation until 1946.
Factual error: Near the end, when Cooper and Rachel are talking in the street, you can see in the background a multi-story brick and glass office building. It appears again a few shots later.
Factual error: In the opening shot of the city of Verona, it is possible to see a bicycle moving in the distance. Bicycles weren't invented at the time the film takes place.
Factual error: When the hitman shoots the Mustang's windshield, the damage is not consistent with a shotgun blast at close range. The windscreen is actually hit in two separated areas. Winchester would be very unhappy if their guns really shot like this.
Suggested correction: It's fairly realistic for a shotgun blast to be scattered like the one to the Mustang's windshield. Shotguns throw a loose pattern that is often random in their impact.
Factual error: "Ice Station Zebra" is one of dozens of films which make the mistake of showing people carrying rifles such as M-16s with the magazines inserted. In the scene where Marine Captain Jim Brown arrives at the submarine via helicopter, he comes aboard passing his M-16 through a hatch with the magazine inserted, barrel first - a double safety violation. I first saw the movie in a Marine Corps base theater, and all of us yelled at the screen when we saw that.
Factual error: Rosemary calls Dr. Hill from a pay phone and says, "The baby's due on Tuesday, you remember you told me June 28th" (and June 28th 1966 does fall on a Tuesday). In the previous scene in Dr. Sapirstein's office his receptionist is making an appointment "next week" for a patient and that date is "July 10th" indicating that if Rosemary is due on June 28th (which she says is next Tuesday) the dates do not match and it must still be the week of June 20th which is at least two weeks before July 10th. (01:44:45)
Factual error: There's one scene where Charly's just woken up from his surgery. The next scene shows him working on a puzzle, and he has a full head of hair and no bandages. If he'd just got brain surgery, don't you think he'd still be wearing bandages or at least have his head shaved?
Factual error: It seems unlikely that the bullet hole in Harmonica's jacket should have burned edges - he was shot at a distance of more than ten metres. (00:36:35)
Factual error: Eleanor uses a paisley-shaped mirror. The paisley pattern comes from India and is designed after the mango, therefore unknown in the England of 1138, centuries before the British set foot on the subcontinent. (01:04:40)
Factual error: The German tanks are American M47s, post WW2. They had the same hulls as the M46s (also post-WW2), but a better slope and greater effective armor on the turrets.
Factual error: In the famous tugboat scene, Fannie rides out on a New York Central tugboat painted jade green - a color which wasn't instituted on the boats until the early 1960s. To be accurate, the tugboat would have to have been painted red with a black stack and the New York Central logo.
Factual error: When Premier Kamenev shows Kiril a map over the Chinese-Soviet border, it shows the Korean peninsula as a part of China.