The English Patient

Corrected entry: When Juliette Binoche departs from the ambulance convoy to take the burned Fiennes into the Italian monastery, she asks her commanding officer to give her a lot of morphine and a pistol. Binoche is never seen with a pistol. It would be absolutely necessary for a lone Army nurse to have a side-arm in a war zone.

Correction: Nurses and doctors are NEVER armed in combat zones. If they are, they can be legitimately fired upon as combatants. This is a part of the Geneva Convention rules of warfare.

Corrected entry: In his attempt to positively identify the burned man as Katherine Clifton's lover, Caravaggio asks the feeble patient (Almasy) "If I said first wedding anniversary, what would you say? Paper?" The only trouble with this question is that in the flashback scene, Geoffrey Clifton, not Almasy, asks Caravaggio what sort of gift is given on the first wedding anniversary. Almasy isn't even in the scene to overhear the conversation.

Correction: Caravaggio is trying to establish a link between Almasy and Katherine to confirm that Almasy is indeed the German 'spy' that stole the maps from the British expedition and showed the Nazis a way into Cairo.

Corrected entry: About half-way through the movie, Binoche, Fiennes, and the Sheik are talking about India. The Sheik makes a joke about "condensed milk sandwiches." Shouldn't he be saying dehydrated milk or powdered milk? Condensed milk is a liquid, dehydrated and powdered milk are dry.

Correction: Condensed milk is very thick; English condensed milk is as thick as corn syrup. It's more than thick enough to be used as the filling in sandwiches, and often was in India in the 1920s and 1930s.

Factual error: After Hardy dies and they're going through his possessions, a football scarf is pulled from his kit bag. The scarf has a Sunderland AFC badge. The film is set in World War II. The badge on the scarf was introduced in the 1970s.

More mistakes in The English Patient

Hana: There's a man downstairs. He brought us eggs. He might stay.
Almásy: Why? Can he lay eggs?
Hana: He's Canadian.
Almásy: Why are people always so happy when they collide with someone from the same place? What happened in Montreal when you passed a man in the street? Did you invite him to live with you?

More quotes from The English Patient

Trivia: When Almasy returns to the cave, he is wearing a German Wehrmacht issue tunic. From a distance, his outfit looks like German Army. However, looking closer, it is completely without insignia (other than plain privates's shoulder insignia). Makes perfect sense that the German Army would most likely not give him a piece of regulation uniform. If this is intentional, it shows perfect sense for detail.

More trivia for The English Patient

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