Best crime movie factual errors of 1976

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Silver Streak picture

Factual error: When Richard Kiel is shooting at Gene Wilder on the train, you hear the "ping" of a "silencer" on the gun. However, Kiel is shooting a .357 magnum, which cannot be equipped with a silencer.

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The Enforcer picture

Factual error: When Harry shoots the last badguy in the tower with a LAW, the safety of the weapon is still on. The pin to arm it has to be pulled out. If it were armed, you would see a little pin, instead of little block, between Harry's little finger and his ringfinger. (01:28:35)

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Assault on Precinct 13 picture

Factual error: In the scene where Julie, the secretary, has been discovered dead; the lieutenant approaches her, kneels down, and checks for a pulse with his thumb. As anyone with any medical knowledge should know, if you attempt to take someone's pulse with your thumb, you will get your own pulse and not the victim's.

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Taxi Driver picture

Factual error: Travis begins the movie at 26 years old, and reports leaving the army with honorable discharge in May 1973. His first diary entry just after being hired is "May 10th." In the newspapers at the end he is still 26, and it says that he has been a taxi driver for 6 months. The movie obviously does not take place in winter, and the only months referenced (plus the timeline of a presidential nomination) are June and July. Besides, 1973 would not be the right year for a story set just before a presidential election, unlike 1976 when the movie came out.

Sammo

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Suggested correction: This error is based on the assumption that he had just been discharged. I don't remember anything in the movie to indicate that as opposed to being discharged three years earlier.

The articles at the end of the movie say "Travis Bickle, 26, has been a taxi driver for six months since he came to New York upon leaving the Service where he fought in a special forces unit in Viet Nam" (sic). I think it's fairly obvious from the context too that he hasn't had much experience with 'real life' after 'Nam, surely not 3 years. The original script didn't have this discrepancy, by the way, because the date of his discharge was May 1971, which would account for just about enough months of difficult civilian life to get involved in the 1972 Presidential race.

Sammo

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Bugsy Malone picture

Factual error: Cagey Joe's pullover definitely looks more 1976 than 1926.

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