The Aviator

Factual error: When Hughes flies the open cockpit H-1 at over 350mph he isn't wearing goggles. There isn't a sign of any wind at all in the cockpit. Even with a windscreen, the wind would cause your eyes to water well before 350mph.

Factual error: While in the air shooting scenes for Hell's Angels, a camera mounted on a wing breaks and film flies out. The film is brown in color, the hue of undeveloped color film, and Hell's Angels was obviously filmed in black and white. The film should've been grey or blue as this is the color of undeveloped black and white film.

Private Joker

Factual error: In the 1940ish Connecticut scenes of the Hepburn family, one member was taking movies with a Bolex reflex movie camera not manufactured until the late 1950s.

Factual error: Some of the glasses in the film are too thin and modern to belong to the time period, such as the ones that Robert Gross wears. As well, his lenses, as well as those of Senator Brewster, reflect light with the distinctive iridescent green/purple of non-reflective coating, which was not available back then.

Factual error: Howard asks for ten chocolate chip cookies in a scene set in 1928. Chocolate chip cookies didn't exist until 1933, and they were known as "Toll House" cookies then. The generic term "chocolate chip" wasn't coined until the early 1960s.

zendaddy621

Factual error: When Hughes flies (and crashes) the first XF-11 prototype the plane has the wrong markings - a U.S. insignia with a red bar. This red bar was added in 1947 (to all planes, including the second XF-11 prototype), the year after the first prototype test, after the U.S. Army Air Forces became the U.S. Air Force.

The Aviator mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Near the beginning of the film where Howard Hughes flight tests the silver monoplane (the H-1), the close up shots show an open cockpit while the longer shots show a closed cockpit.

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Ava Gardner: You don't own me, Howard. I'm not one of your teenage whores and I'm not some damn airplane.

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Question: The colors in this film are otherworldly, (almost like the colors in a black and white movie that has been artificially colorized) and could not have been natural or achieved with any net or filter. I'm fairly certain that there is no method of stylized pre-exposure, and digital colorization, while possible, would have been painstaking on such a grand scale. How did they accomplish it?

Answer: The first sections of the film are shot in two-strip and three-strip technicolor, a common practice in the early versions of color filmmaking that were happening at the time. The scene on the golf course between Howard and Kate Hepburn is a prime example. As far as the later sections of the film, never underestimate the power of digital effects. :)

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