Thunderball

Continuity mistake: During the fight at the beginning of the film, you can see the fire in the fireplace burning brightly but when Bond is throttling his attacker with the poker, you now see that the fire (though partially hidden by the table) has nearly gone out, and does not burn as brightly. (00:03:10)

Will

Continuity mistake: James Bond is in the Shrublands clinic. He is snooping in a patients room. The patient (with bandaged face) opens the door. Bond hides behind the door and reaches into his jacket for his gun. A widescreen shot then shows his arm hanging down but in the next shot,his arm is back in the jacket. (00:13:05)

Continuity mistake: When Bond is at the spa and he turns the dial on the steamer, one second the man has a pink/white towel around his neck, the next it has turned blue. In addition, when it cuts back some bottles have disappeared from a nearby steamer. (00:17:05)

Continuity mistake: The scene with the Aston when Lippe's car is blown up by the motor bike rider is filmed at Silverstone. You can see the Stowe grandstands in the background. (00:36:40)

Continuity mistake: Just after James Bond and Domino leave the gaming table to sit at a table to order, the two views of her back shows that she is holding a cigarette in her right hand that is not lit, but in the two views facing her the cigarette is lit with smoke. (00:51:55)

Continuity mistake: After Bond had been dancing with Domino, Largo takes her to his jet boat to return to the Disco Volante for the night. Just when Largo asks her, "What was he saying just then?", in the background one can see Felix Leiter taking his sunglasses off and approaching Bond. Bond even turns his head towards him. The scene continues with Domino and Largo leaving in the jet boat. The scene cuts and the next shot shows Bond with Felix Leiter standing some steps behind him again, still wearing his sunglasses. (00:51:55)

DapperDan

Continuity mistake: When Bond is escaping from the island after he finds the girl is dead, he comes out of a basement/cellar and opens the hatch door. He runs off without shutting it, but when, in the next cut, his followers reach the door, it is now shut. (01:15:20)

Sarmed Mirza

Continuity mistake: Vargas is behind Bond when he is on the beach talking to Domino. Bond turns and shoots a harpoon at Vargas. In the previous shot Vargas was walking towards Bond and Domino and was not near a tree. But when he is hit in the next shot, he gets pinned to a tree with the harpoon. (01:38:45)

Sarmed Mirza

Thunderball mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When James Bond is fighting underwater with an opponent, the opponent rips off James' diving mask (which is blue). Then, James rips another mask off another opponent who is lying dead on the ocean floor. This dead opponent's mask is black. James puts on the black mask, and then he turns around, and the mask is blue again. (01:57:10)

Continuity mistake: When the Disco Volante separates to escape the cruisers firing on it, the "cocoon" is seen facing the pursuing ships stern-first. When the shot changes to show the gunners firing on the ships, the back half of the "cocoon" has turned completely around. The gunners are firing from the separated mid-section of the Volante, and the stern of the "cocoon" is now facing away from the cruisers, making it easy to see which parts of the scene were filmed live and which were done in the studio.

demodon

Continuity mistake: When Bond is being chased through the parade, they show the float with the girls on it. In the background, behind it as it rolls by, is a red sign that says "The Perfume Shop". Later, Bond is seen running up to the float and going inside of it to hide. When Fiona runs up to the float and sees the blood on it, the red sign is still visible, which means it was not really moving in the parade at all.

Continuity mistake: When Bond and Domino are walking along the beach in shallow water, Domino stands on a poison quill spine with her right foot. But when is Bond sucking the poison out, he does so from her left foot because Domino displays the injured foot as the left one.

Continuity mistake: Bond opens the door to the bathroom, and finds Fiona Volpe in the bath. He stands by the door, and when he's talking takes a step forward. The next shot, he's standing by the door again.

Continuity mistake: Bond swims to the beach after inspecting the underside of the Disco Valante for the first time. As he walks out onto the shore, he is carrying his fins and he is wearing a red wetsuit jacket, black shorts and has a knife scabbard attached to his right leg. In this shot it is also clear to see that he is barefoot. He tosses the fins aside and unzips his jacket to remove it. After a quick edit he is tossing the jacket aside and he is now inexplicably wearing shoes and has somehow lost the diver's knife scabbard attached to his leg. There was no way to have acquired the shoes and lost the scabbard in that instant.

Continuity mistake: When Domino is on the beach with 007 she is given a dog tag belonging to her deceased brother, in one shot she has both hands on the tag and moves her right arm to the sandy floor but midway through a sentence the shot turns to a different angle where she has both arms on the tag again.

Continuity mistake: During the underwater fight scene at the end, Largo does not have his eye patch on under his diving mask, but when he comes onto the Disco Volante he has his mask on his forehead with the eye patch underneath.

Continuity mistake: When Bond is examining the canal behind Palymra and he comes swimming, he has bare feet. But when he climbs the stairs from the water he is wearing shoes.

Jacob La Cour

Continuity mistake: In the car scene where Bond escapes, Fiona did not have a cigarette lighter in her hand, but instead the gun with which she held James Bond. He grabs her hand with the cigarette lighter and moves it near the flame, but if that's the case she still would have had a free hand to shoot him with.

More mistakes in Thunderball

Fiona: You look pale, Mr. Bond. I hope I didn't frighten you.
Bond: Well you see, I've always been a nervous passenger.
Fiona: Some men just don't like to be driven.
Bond: No, some men just don't like to be taken for a ride.

More quotes from Thunderball

Trivia: While recording the title song, Tom Jones asked the songwriter what the phrase "strikes like Thunderball" actually meant. The composer admitted he hadn't the slightest clue.

More trivia for Thunderball

Question: In the last scene, what happened to the man who helped Domino? They all (Bond, Domino and man) jumped from the boat before it crashed into the rocks but only Bond and Domino climbed into the lifeboat. They didn't even try to find him.

ginnythecat

Answer: Bond hands Kutze a lifesaver just before they jump off the hydrofoil. Presumably he just floated there before being picked up by the Coast Guard.

Jukka Nurmi

Chosen answer: There's no explanation about what happened to him. I would assume he somehow died when they jumped.

raywest

More questions & answers from Thunderball

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.