Other mistake: In the pet shop doorway Melanie is mouthing something other than Mitch's license number (WJH 003) before she writes it down. (00:08:00)
Other mistake: In the long shot of Melanie just before she pulls into Bodega Bay there's a shadow of her car where it shouldn't be, moving from left to right about 100 feet in front of her just below the matte drawing of the background. (00:11:55)
Other mistake: As Melanie and Mitch come back down from the hill the camera pans to Annie, you can see the stage lighting flickering on her sweater. (00:51:40)
Other mistake: In the close-up of Melanie holding Cathy Lydia starts to laugh as she tries to fend off all those birds. (00:55:30)
Other mistake: When Mitch is in the car, after listening to the radio he switches it off and the subtitles read 'Clicks of radio', yet it should be 'Clicks off radio.' (01:49:50)
Other mistake: Annie is the only teacher in the town, and there is only one classroom with students, all who are around the ages of 10-12 years old, even though the schoolhouse she teaches at is a two-story, mid-sized building with multiple rooms. There are no administrators, staff, custodians, or other teachers and no students in lower and upper grades at all. Even when Annie and Melanie are evacuating the children during the crow attack, there is only the two women and Annie's students. There is no-one else.
Other mistake: It seems well established that the film takes place over a weekend. However, Melanie drives up on Friday, stays at Annie's apartment that night, goes to Cathy's party the next day, Saturday and stays at Mitch's that night. Nowhere in the movie is it implied that she stays another night and in fact she doesn't. Everything else in the movie after the attack at Mr. Faucet's farm takes place on Sunday and there would be no school in session when the children are attacked.
Other mistake: When Melanie is signing the card for Cathy on top of her car there is a brown paper bag underneath the card, she leaves it, when she drives out it's no longer there.
Answer: The movie takes place in the 1960s, so presumably gas pumps worked a bit differently back then. This is also a small town and probably the gas station had not modernized. There may not have been automatic shut-offs, or if there was, it was faulty.
raywest ★
The automatic shut off is in the handle of the hose. When a person grips the handle they have to lift a levered switch to allow gas flow; the lever is spring loaded so that if it is released the gas will stop flowing. I have looked at older antique gas pumps and they are all the same; even the visible glass gravity flow ones. If that hose was dropped the the gas should have stopped flowing.
michael g