Continuity mistake: When Blondie abandons Tuco in the desert, watch the rope around Tuco's neck. It changes between shots, sometimes over his left shoulder, and sometimes hanging down in front of him. It is not due to the camera angle. (00:28:27)
Continuity mistake: When Blondie is saved by the mortar shell, and it shows the empty noose, it is completely different than the noose that Blondie had around his neck. The loop that the noose went through to hold it to the beam has changed. (00:48:25 - 00:49:33)
Continuity mistake: When Tuco is riding his horse, he encounters three bounty hunters - one fires a shot making the horse misstep, and fall, bringing Tuco down to the ground. One of the bounty hunters ask Tuco, "Hey amigo, you know that you have a face beautiful enough to be worth $2,000.00?" He has a big blade of grass between his lips as he backs away from Blondie (Eastwood), however, there was no blade of grass between his lips when Blondie and he were close to one another. As he backed away, he had a rifle in his right hand and a wanted poster in his left, and he knew that Blondie had a gun pointed at him through his overcoat, so he was not able to put a blade of grass between his lips at any point. (00:17:50 - 00:18:50)
Continuity mistake: When Blondie and Tuco are planting dynamite to blow up the bridge, they are standing in the water. During the following blast, they are hiding away next to the river and from then on, they are totally dry again. (02:29:05)
Continuity mistake: When Tuco tosses the rope to Blondie to hang himself with, the rope is all tangled up with no knot showing. In the scene break that cuts back to Blondie, the rope has changed to a nice neat coil with the hangman's knot showing. (00:47:45)
Continuity mistake: When Tuco stops the run away wagon in the desert, Blondie's pistol is not in his waistband. As he walks back to the wagon, it is. (01:07:00)
Continuity mistake: Blondie and Tuco carry a box of explosives by placing it on a stretcher and holding opposite sides of it. On Blondie's side of the stretcher, there is one wooden slat that appears to be a small distance away from the rest of the wooden slats. Seconds later, when they reach the bridge, there is no gap between the wooden slats. (02:24:35 - 02:25:13)
Continuity mistake: When the Union general shows Blondie and Tuco the bridge, he is holding a bottle in his left and right hand, near the bottom. In the next shot, the bottle is in only his right hand and is held near the top. (02:15:08)
Continuity mistake: When the Union general is about to begin walking so that he can show Blondie and Tuco the bridge, he says, "Let's go," and lowers the bottle he is holding. Then it cuts to a wide shot where he starts walking, and the bottle is suddenly raised. (02:14:50)
Continuity mistake: When the bounty hunter falls to the ground after he is shot by Tuco, the doors in front of the bath close behind him. Tuco then stands up to get one last shot, and one of the doors is suddenly open. (02:02:37)
Continuity mistake: When the bounty hunter bursts into the bedroom while Tuco is taking a bath, Tuco's left arm is above the water. When the shot cuts back to Tuco, his left arm is under the water. (02:02:08)
Continuity mistake: Tuco opens a door to find a bathtub filled with water. When he opens the door, his left hand is positioned a few inches away from the edge of the door frame. But in the next shot, his left hand is directly on the edge of the door frame. (02:00:52)
Continuity mistake: When the train is about to run over the corporal's body, there is a shot where Tuco braces for impact. In this shot, the corporal's right foot is pointed directly to the right. Then it cuts to a POV shot of the train, and the corporal's right foot is pointed to the right but more at an upward angle. (01:56:25)
Continuity mistake: When the soldier at the train station is asking the corporal where Tuco is being taken, there are two men wearing suits behind them who are standing in the sunlight. In the next shot, the two men are suddenly in the shadows. (01:49:43)
Continuity mistake: When the corporal stops squeezing Tuco's eyes, he moves his hands away and puts them on Tuco's beard. His right hand appears to be at a straight angle when he does this, but when the shot cuts, his right hand is at a bent angle. (01:46:18)
Continuity mistake: When Tuco is thrown onto the table by the corporal, Angel Eyes puts his hands on Tuco's shoulders to stop him from landing on him. When the shot cuts, his hands are nowhere near Tuco, and Tuco's position on the table has suddenly changed. (01:45:53)
Continuity mistake: Angel Eyes hands Tuco a bottle for him to drink from. When Tuco is handed the bottle, the label is facing towards him. Angel Eyes then asks him why he is going by the name Bill Carson, and the next shot shows the label facing Angel Eyes. In the shot after that, the label is facing Tuco again. (01:40:35)
Continuity mistake: When Tuco sits down at the dinner table, he scoops up a spoonful of stew. There are pieces of spinach hanging off the spoon. Angel Eyes then has a spoonful to prove it is not poisoned, but when the shot cuts back to Tuco, the pieces of spinach hanging off the spoon are no longer visible. (01:39:05)
Continuity mistake: When Tuco walks over to the dinner table, just after Angel Eyes finishes saying "It's been a long time," he has his right hand lowered on the table. When the shot cuts, his right hand is raised above the table. (01:38:53)
Continuity mistake: When Angel Eyes has finished looking at the small case owned by Bill Carson, he closes it. He has two fingers on top of the case, and the other two fingers, as well as his thumb, on the bottom of the case. When the shot cuts, his thumb is on the top of the case and the two fingers on top of the case are closer together. (01:37:35)
Answer: There's a show called "Hollywood Weapons: Fact or Fiction" which dealt with this exact question (s01e03). Blondie is roughly 200 yds away. In the show the host didn't hit the rope, but only missed by an inch on his first attempt. I definitely think an expert Sharps Rifle shooter could make the shot. The issue however, is the bullet would most likely not actually slice the rope apart as seen in the film (they fired the Sharps at point blank and the rope remained partially intact still). They also tested shooting a hat off someone and (as expected) the bullet just goes right through the hat without lifting the hat at all.
Bishop73
That was another thing that puzzled me. On several occasions in this film, Tuco is suspended from a rope, and Blondie cuts the rope by firing a bullet at it, (I think Clint Eastwood repeated the trick in "The Outlaw Josey Wales"). But if you fired a bullet at a rope holding a (rather large) person like Tuco (or a similarly heavy weight), even at close range, would it really sever the rope? I will have to look out for "Hollywood Weapons Fact Or Fiction." I hope they only used a dummy or a model to re-create the shooting feats. I don't think I would have liked to have been hanging on a rope while somebody fired bullets at me to see if this would sever the rope, or to stand there while they fired bullets into my hat to see if they could lift it off my head.
Rob Halliday