Corrected entry: At the senate hearing, in Michael's statement he says he was in the Navy. Towards the movie end during a flashback at the dining room table, Michael tells Sonny he joined the Marines.
Corrected entry: When a young Vito is sitting on the steps with his family during the parade there is one child missing. We know Michael is sitting on Vito's lap. Connie is on Carmella's lap. So either Fredo or Sonny is missing in this scene. (02:05:25)
Correction: That's Fredo on Carmela's lap. I can see why he would be mistaken for a girl, though. Michael is the baby on Vito's lap, and we know Connie is younger than Michael...therefore, she wasn't born yet. So all three boys are accounted for.
Michael is the youngest child of their 4 children. I was wondering where the fourth child is, but looked it up, and Michael is the youngest of the family.
I don't know where you looked it up, but that info is wrong. The youngest is Connie (Constanzia) Corleone, and she's Carmela and Vito's only daughter. After Fanucci is shot during the Feast of San Gennaro scene, Vito returns to his family and when he picks up the infant, he whispers to him in Sicilian, "Michael, your father loves you very much" (02:05:40). At this point, Connie hasn't been born yet. Later in the film, when Vito and Carmela visit the town of Corleone in Sicily, now we see all 4 children are with them. Carmella holds infant Connie, and Vito holds little Michael (02:44:00).
Corrected entry: At the end, Michael says he joined the Marines. Earlier at the Congressional hearing it was stated he won the Navy Cross.
Correction: And? "The Navy Cross may be awarded to any member of the U.S. Armed Forces while serving with the Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard (when a part of the Department of the Navy) who distinguishes themselves in action by extraordinary heroism not justifying an award of the Medal of Honor." The Marine Corps is part of the U.S. Department of the Navy.
Corrected entry: In the flashback scene where Michael tells his brothers that he enlisted for the Navy, Vito's birthday cake suddenly vanishes. In one shot, Connie is placing the birthday candles on the cake, in the next shot, the cake is gone, yet Connie is still there, and the conversation has not stopped. As Vito arrives, and everyone goes to the other room to hide, someone walks past the doorway carrying the cake.
Correction: During the shots where Michael is telling Tom and Sonny that he'd enlisted and didn't want a deferment, Teresa picks up the cake (off-camera). We then cut back to a long shot of the room as Sonny tries to jump on Michael, and we see her carrying it out of the room at the far left of the screen. This may only be visible in full-screen; if you watch it in 4:3 ratio, it does appear to vanish without a trace.
Corrected entry: After the scene at the theater where Vito learns about Fanucci the "Black Hand", there's a long scene panning along the street, and there's a fire burning in a 55 gallon steel drum. The year is 1917, and the drum wasn't invented until later. (00:47:25)
Correction: 55-gallon drums came into common use during World War I, which began in 1914 and ended in 1918.
Corrected entry: When Michael is having the little meeting with Hyman Roth, they are talking secrets, so Roth turns up the volume on the TV. Some seconds later, the volume is on the same stage as before Roth turned it up. It is not his wife who turns down the volume, she first enters the room later. (Obviously deliberate to hear dialogue.)
Correction: This occurs with the 2 men in close-up, implying that we are meant to hear what they're saying, while the TV is masking the sound to anyone else. As such it's a stylistic choice rather than a mistake.
Corrected entry: In the theater, Vito learns from Genca about Fanucci the "Black Hand". Now, here is a man parading the quarter where Vito has lived the better part of his life, sticking out in his white suit and hat, extorting protection money from even the smallest business man, and Vito doesn't know him? (00:45:30)
Correction: Vito didn't know that he worked for Mazaralla, or the exact extent of his notoriety. He had probably seen Fanucci walking around the place before, just not realised exactly what he was or how powerful and feared he was. He learns this from Genca.
Corrected entry: The last scene is a flashback where Vito's offspring are waiting for him at his birthday, where a few things don't look OK. First Sonny introduces Tom's "girl" Teresa who seems to be more a housemaid as her only duty is to set the table and carry the birthday cake away. Then Sonny and Michael start a fight where Sonny's tightly buttoned jacket opens up and closes within seconds. Finally Fredo disappears from his seat and we don't know why and how. (01:04:45)
Correction: Teresa's not having any dialogue isn't a mistake, Sonny's jacket doesn't just pop open and we see Sonny ordering Fredo out of the room, after Fredo tries to congratulate Michael.
Corrected entry: When Connie asks Michael to pay for her trip to Europe she tells one of Michael's men (Al) to fix a drink for her boyfriend Merle. When the camera is on Michael we can see that Al gets busy behind the counter, but when Connie shouts "You are not my father." Al disappears and never returns, let alone with a drink. (00:24:45)
Correction: The conversation between Michael and Connie quickly grows heated and it makes perfect sense that Al would not want to interrupt, by handing a drink to a man the Godfather disdains.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Vito's mother is at Paolo's dead body, she picks up his head and his right hand is clearly moving. (00:03:05)
Correction: It's all geometry: When Vito's mother lifts Paolo's head, she also has the upper part of his body (and therefore his arm) cradled. As a result of the upper arm being pulled away from the ground, the hand shifted back, thus allowing the fingers to approach the natural curl that they have when the muscles are relaxed. She then leans on Paolo and the hand flattens down again.
Corrected entry: In Cuba, they are passing the "telephone made of gold" from one to the other. When Roth gets it he lifts it easily with one hand. If it were made of gold it would be very heavy, and Roth would have a hard time lifting it since he is 80 years old and very sick. (01:17:00)
Correction: Obviously the telephone is not a solid block of gold - it's a working telephone. Gold is too soft to make a telephone body out of - it's gold plate, barely heavier than a normal telephone.
Corrected entry: When young Vito is processed at Ellis Island he doesn't answer when asked his name so the officer reads his name tag and names young Vito "Corleone" after the town he is from in Sicily. However, when young Vito is quarantined and goes into his room, his name tag can be read, and it states Vito Andolini.
Correction: Historically accurate. The guards at Ellis Island were notorious for their lack of concern for their 'clients', and often renamed people on a random basis like that. Schmuel Gelbfisz, later to become famous as Samuel Goldwyn, left Ellis Island as Samuel Goldfish.
Corrected entry: When Clemenza is shown rolling up the red carpet to give to the young Vito Corleone it is only 6 feet wide but when Vito and Clemenza are shown going up the steps into the building where Vito lived they where both shouldering a rolled up carpet that was 12-15 feet long and later when it was shown on Vito's floor it was back to 6 feet. (00:56:20)
Correction: They roll the carpet along its length rather than its width. The carpet is about 13 by 6 feet, which is why it appears to be 12 to 15 feet 'wide' when rolled this way. They cut the carpet up to fit Vito's small living room.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Michael "takes Fredo back" (in the boat house after Fredo and Connie see Mama's body), you see his stainless steel / silver watchband as he sits with his children. When he hugs Fredo later in the scene, he's wearing a black leather strap.
Correction: If you watch closely Fredo is wearing the black-leather band watch. Notice the position of Michael's hands. He is hugging Fredo up high around the neck where as the cutscene is around the back. It's Fredo's arm around Michael.
Corrected entry: Near the end we see some leaves being blown along by a strong wind at Michael's estate. However, the trees in the background don't move at all. (01:00:55)
Correction: It looks like a sudden gust of wind blowing by the ground. Also, note that not all leaves are being blown along.
Corrected entry: During the communion party Senator Geary thanks Tony's parents for their donation. Then he asks "Mike, Pat, and Kay" to stand up. He should have said Tony instead of Pat, as Pat is his own first name and Tony gets up with his parents. (Intentional in-joke.) (00:14:05)
Correction: This post is incorrect. The Senator said "Pat" and then quickly corrected himself and said "Kay," in reference to Michael's wife. The misspoken name was put in to show how fake the Senator was and that he didn't even know Michael and his wife all that well, to the point where he actually thought her name was "Pat," before correcting himself in mid-sentence. He was NOT trying to say "Tony." The misspoken name was on purpose and not a movie mistake.
I've always thought this odd too since the senators name was Pat.
Respectfully, I have watched that scene over and over and get no sense that the senator is "correcting" himself, he just says the wrong name. It is possible that he had so little respect for Michael that he got his son's name wrong because he didn't care to remember it, but I do not think he was correcting himself at all.
Corrected entry: When they are questioning the senator about the dead prostitute you can clearly see the corpse breathe when he sits next to it. (01:12:40)
Correction: She is breathing because it is a set up. The Senator is drugged and slightly delusional, taking time to even recognize Hagen. The hooker is in on it, as Michael Corleone is very unlikely to order a woman to be murdered due to his principles and his sympathy for a woman's death (Apollonia). This is why her breathing is extremely noticeable.
Don't forget in Part 1 when the button men kill Tattaglia, they bust into the room where he is having sex with a prostitute. They kill both of them.
Correction: That's not her breathing - it's her body flexing as the senator moves about, and the mattress moves slightly as he does.
Just before Tom says "All that's left is our friendship." The rhythmic movement of the bed sheet is too difficult to miss.
Corrected entry: When Michael is having the little meeting with Hyman Roth, they are talking secrets, so Roth turns up the volume on the TV. Some seconds later, the volume is on the same stage as before Roth turned it up. (01:00:50)
Correction: Roth's wife comes in and turns down the TV.
Corrected entry: During the Senate hearings the senator with the white hair who is to the right of the main speaker can be seen taking off his glasses in one scene and then they are back on in the next, and then back off again in the next.
Correction: The senator in question wears his glasses when he is reading or writing, otherwise not. Nothing wrong with the scene.
Corrected entry: The initials on Michael and Kay's duvet cover in the Las Vegas assignation attempt are wrong - they say MCF not MCK.
Correction: The US Marines are part of the Navy.