Goodfellas

Goodfellas (1990)

30 corrected entries

(26 votes)

Corrected entry: When Maury jumps into the pool in his wig commercial, his head presumably goes underwater, but when the next shot shows him standing in the pool, his wig is dry. (00:37:30)

matthewgregorycox

Correction: Of course it is. It's a commercial - he is showing how water resistant his ridiculous wigs are by putting a dry one on for his close up shots. It's called advertising.

Corrected entry: Although they are not really mistakes, these glitches were allowed to be put in the film: When Henry takes Karen on their first date to the club, he pays the door man at the side entrance at the club to let him in. If you look closely, the door man has to reach twice to take the cash from Henry. Then, when they are walking through the kitchen, Henry walks into one of the counters and bangs his hip.

Correction: As you mention they are not mistakes. Grabbing for the tip and missing it, plus Henry banging into one of the counters is just human error not a film mistake.

Lummie

Corrected entry: When Pauly and Jimmy go to meet Henry at Janice's apartment (his mistress), Henry offers them a drink which they refuse. This is a good thing considering that the Crown Royal bottle that can clearly be seen on a table behind Pauly's head is empty. The glasses around the empty bottle suggest that the table is used as a mini bar.

Correction: How is this a mistake? He only offers them a drink, and is out of one type of drink that we can see. Even if they had wanted that, he might have had more somewhere else in the apartment.

Lummie

Corrected entry: Ray Liotta's character is wearing the Star of David around his neck, and then the camera cuts away and then back again and he is wearing the Cross of Christ.

Correction: This is commonly pointed out as a gaffe, but if you view throughout the scene, you will notice that Henry wears a chain with BOTH a Star of David and a crucifix...a nod to his union with his wife - Catholic and Jew together.

Corrected entry: When Henry is being followed by the helicopter, he almost slams into another car. Henry's car has a brake light in the back window, but they didn't start that until the mid 80's at the earliest.

Correction: The Coupe de Ville was made available with a third brake light before the law mandated all vehicles have them in 1986. Much the same as how some cars were equipped with airbags before they were required.

Corrected entry: When Pauly introduces members of his family at Henry's wedding, he introduces one member as his brother's second cousin, but his brother's second cousin is also his second cousin, it would not be necessary to say it was his brother's.

matthewgregorycox

Correction: Not necessarily, it could be a second cousin through marriage.

rswarrior

Corrected entry: In the scene where the guys go to Florida to "feed the guy to the lions," the lion first shown is a male with a huge mane. When seen upside down the 1st time it's the male, but the second time it's a female, no mane, slightly smaller, lion. They never show more than 1 lion in the pen, either.

Correction: Like they say, they are feeding him to the lions (plural). Just because we never see more than one lion at the time, it does not mean there are not two (or more) of them. We never get to see the entire lion's pen, so the others could have been just off screen.

Twotall

Corrected entry: The scene where Karen pulls a gun on Henry uses two different guns, one blue and one nickel between the various camera shots.

Correction: Already corrected. The light in the different angle shots make it only appear as if the gun changes colour, but it is just a trick of the light, nothing more.

Twotall

Corrected entry: In the scene where Jimmy and Henry are leaving a diner after Morrie got whacked, Henry asks Jimmy "Well, what the f%&. do you want me to tell Belle?" (referring to Morrie's disappearance). Jimmy says "Who gives a f%&. Tom? Tell her he ran off with some broad. What do you care about her?" Jimmy calls Henry "Tom", then seems to look off screen right. It's as if he realized his mistake and was looking for Marty Scorsese to say "CUT" (01:46:25)

Correction: He does not say, "Tom". When Henry asks, "What do you want me to tell Belle?" Jimmy responds with, "Who gives a f**k? Tell her". The glancing to the right is barely noticeable and doesn't mean anything - he could be looking to see where he's parked.

Corrected entry: During the scene where the crew is having a barbeque and Henry is describing how they were like cops for bad guys, the camera keeps going back and forth to Paulie eating a sandwich. The first two times he has no napkin anywhere in sight, the last shot of him one appears neatly tucked into his shirt, like a bib.

Correction: If you look closely you can see he is holding a napkin in his left hand when we first see him. With the napkin appearing, between the time we can actually see what's on his shirt and the napkin being there, about 30-40 seconds of film time passes. In that time he easily could have gotten another napkin given to him or used the one he had to put on.

Lummie

Corrected entry: When Henry picks Karen up for their first date, he is dressed in a grey and black checked jacket and she is wearing a summer dress. When they arrive at the nightclub, she is dressed in a black evening dress and he is in a dark suit.

Correction: While they are in different clothes from when Henry picks up Karen, there is nothing indicating the scene is a continuation from that first date. Most likely the large change would indicate it was taking place at a different time.

Lummie

Corrected entry: In the scene where the letter carrier is getting his head put right into the hot oven, notice that he grabs the inside of the oven door with his left hand. The oven must have been off, or it would have burned his left hand.

Joe Campbell

Correction: There is nothing to indicate that the oven was on to begin with (i.e. There are no elements seen in the oven that are on) or any evidence that it had been on beforehand.

Lummie

Actually, isn't that a pizza that we see in the oven? The oven is likely on... But regardless, the scene freezes the frame not even a full second after his hand touches the oven door. Had the scene gone on, he likely would have pulled his hand away in pain (we do hear him make a small shriek when it happens).

jshy7979

Corrected entry: After Henry gets out of prison and goes to Paulie's house for dinner, Paulie says, "I bet you never ate this good in prison?" Only a few scenes earlier, there's a prolonged scene of all the great food "wise guys" eat in jail. Both Paulie AND Henry are in that scene.

Correction: Paulie was in prison for a year, Henry was in for ten. Henry wouldn't have had access to all the nice food and cooking after Paulie and other wiseguy inmates were released. Added to this Paulie was referring to the standard of cooking. Whilst the wise guys in the prison got good food and were pretty good cooks they couldn't make everything they wanted. In the prison scene Henry says "We didn't have access to a broiler" so they were limited with certain areas of their cooking and what could be made.

Lummie

Corrected entry: When Karen is sitting on Henry's chest, confronting him about his girlfriend Janice, with a gun in his face, you can look in the cylinder of the .38 in every shot that looks down the barrel and see that the cylinder is empty. The gun is not loaded.

Correction: Despite the gun not being loaded, both characters may not have noticed. Karen was extremely emotional and wanting to prove something to Henry, whilst Henry was looking at his wife trying to calm her down. One of the other factors in the scene was that Karen says "I couldn't bring myself to shoot him" meaning she may have even unloaded it or kept one round empty to make sure she didn't shoot him no matter what.

Lummie

Corrected entry: When Tommy shoots Stacks, in the first viewing he holds the gun close to the back of Stacks' head. In the slow-mo replay, Tommy is shooting from so far away that Stacks isn't even in shot.

Correction: If you notice in the orignal scene, Tommy shoots Stacks in the back of the head and Stacks slumps over. Then off camera you hear Tommy shooting Stacks several times again. The off camera shot is the one repeated in slo-mo not the original head shot.

Corrected entry: Billy Batts gets whacked in June, 1970. He is then driven away and buried upstate. Yet when Jimmy Conway tells Tommy and Henry - six months later - that they have to dig up his body because they are set to build in this spot they are all wearing short-sleeved shirts. Six months later? That would make it December. It's doubtful anyone would be digging up a body in upstate New York in December with short sleeves on.

Correction: They are working right next to a roaring fire- between that warmth and working hard to shovel frozen ground, it would be reason enough to remove their coats and work in their short sleeves, even in December in the woods.

Corrected entry: When Tommy goes to Kill "Stacks" in his apartment (Samuel Jackson), count the shots that are used to kill him. Now compare that number to the amount of shots fired when they replay the scene in slow motion...you will notice they are different.

Correction: This doesn't seem to be a replay of the actual scene. The guy that comes with Tommy is seen in the doorway during the first shot of Tommy killing Stacks, but, in the later scene, he's not there, which implies that it is not a straight replay of the scene. Remember that Henry Hill's character recounts the whole film through narration - this is presumably how he remembered the killing of Stacks, rather than the actual event.

Lummie

Corrected entry: When the henchmen start being killed off, the one who is found in the meat freezer hanging from a meat hook can be seen to be breathing slightly.

Correction: Whilst it looks like he is breathing slightly, the camera isn't completely still; it's the jiggling of the camera that gives the impression he is breathing.

Lummie

Corrected entry: When Henry Hill calls his home from the hotel room and tells the girl not to make any outside calls for fear of his phone being tapped by the police, wouldn't they be listening to the incoming calls as well?

Correction: In the scene he knows that she is going to make a call to check on her flight or something like that. He knows that because she will need to make a call that the information will tip off the cops. Its not likely he thought someone would call up and give details of any crimes to her or anyone else in the house so I dont think the cops would be able to get anything from incoming calls. In essence he only tells her about making calls because he wants to remind her that the phone is almost certainly bugged by the police.

Lummie

Corrected entry: When Tommy and Henry hijack a truck and Tommy asks to ride shotgun, he fires his revolver in the air 7 times through a paper bag. The revolver only holds 6 shots.

Correction: Tommy only shoots the gun 5 times.

Continuity mistake: When Paulie and Jimmy go to visit Henry at his girlfriend Janice's apartment to talk to him, after Paulie sits down and begins the conversation with Henry, both a Star of David pendant and a crucifix pendant can be seen hanging from the necklace around Henry's neck. At first the Star of David is hanging over the crucifix, then it has switched to the crucifix hanging over the Star of David. (01:16:15)

More mistakes in Goodfellas

Henry Hill: What happened?
Jimmy Conway: They whacked him. They fucking whacked him. I can't fucking believe it.

More quotes from Goodfellas

Trivia: The lines in the scene at Tommy's house where his mother makes dinner for them were entirely improvised by the actors.

More trivia for Goodfellas

Question: What is the song being played during the scene when Henry is being chased by the helicopter towards the end? It starts when he puts the bags in the trunk of his car before going to pick up his brother, but it's not on the soundtrack and I can't see it listed in the end credits.

Stacey

Chosen answer: The song is called "Jump Into The Fire" by Harry Nilsson, and is not on the original motion picture soundtrack.

More questions & answers from Goodfellas

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