Corrected entry: During the climactic final scenes of the "movie", Zoellar is shown operating a bolt action rifle as he shoots numerous American soldiers. In at least one scene, a half-dozen soldiers are shot within a very few seconds, something he would be unable to do with a bolt action rifle.
Corrected entry: In the beginning of the movie, when Colonel Landa shows up and Lapidite is chopping wood, the shot before he pauses indicates he's about to chop wood but the stump doesn't have a piece to chop. When he pauses, he just slowly places it on the stump. His action was to chop but there was no wood.
Correction: Lapidite was chopping at the stump to remove it. In 1941 France he would have niether the truck nor have the availability to explosives needed to remove a stump of that size. By chopping at it every few days he would open the stump to the elements and decay quicker.
Correction: I have heard this from several people that he was removing the stump and not a movie error. I actually have a different conclusion from both ideas. When Landa walks by and introduces himself you can see the stump has been perfectly cut in half and shelved. Why make it lower? The girls. If he was caught hiding the Jews he was certain he would be executed and the lowering of the stump is so the girls can try to chop wood for winter time. The stump does not need to be removed - it is not in a field and perfectly located from the house for chopping wood. Hence he lowered half of it in case they would have to use it if he was executed for treason. Soooo I think this is one of first clues landa picks up on! After all he calls himself a "damn good detective." I can't believe it took almost 10 years for me to get around to see this flick! It rocks.
Landa already knew there were Jews hiding in the floor. He didn't get a hint from the stump or anything, he just knew. This was probably the last farm he visited and thus the only one that could have housed the Jews.
Maybe. Maybe someone sold them out. The point of the post and this website is whether or not it is a movie mistake. I was simply providing an alternative no-one thought of about the stump... Now I remember why I stopped spending time blogging - either people would cut and paste it as their own or totally miss (or intentionally ignore) the primary focus of the topic in an effort to dismiss a novel idea. Cheers.
Corrected entry: Before the Kino operation, Shosanna makes a sexy move showing her side, acting like a styled actress and says "Catherine Deneuve." Meaning that at that time Catherine Deneuve must have been some well-known French actress. The problem is that Catherine Deneuve was born in 1943, so in 1944 she was probably 1 year old.
Correction: That's not the name said. He calls her "Danielle Darrieux", a French actress who was born in 1917.
Corrected entry: The strange spelling of 'Inglorious' was due to a genuine mistake from one of the film's producers.
Correction: No, it was not. In an interview in 2005 (during the Cannes Film Festival) Quentin Tarantino confirmed that he had deliberately misspelled both words of the films title and said : "Here's the thing. I'm never going to explain that. You do an artistic flourish like that, and to explain it would just take the p*ss out of it and invalidate the whole stroke in the first place."
Corrected entry: In the bar scene, the Gestapo officer says that he will buy the men a '33 whiskey. However, later, the Gestapo officer says that Lt. Hicox is no more German than that "scotch." Hicox perpetuates this later by saying that there is a "special rung in hell for people who waste good scotch."
Correction: Scotch is a Whisky which is made in Scotland. "Scotch" is just a shorter way to say "Scotch Whisky". There is no error here with this part of the scene.
Corrected entry: Hugo Stiglitz has his name and picture displayed through German newspapers as one who kills Nazis. He has killed many Gestapo officers, and is well-known among the ranks. However, in the bar scene, the Gestapo officer who says that he knows any German officers worth knowing does not recognize him at all, despite the fact that Stiglitz was sitting right next to him.
Correction: Stiglitz was not an officer, the "newsreel" and paperclips show that he is "Oberfeldwebel", an NCO rank. You could argue that Stiglitz still should be well known, but isn't that just the joke the film is making? The completely unlikely situation that an extremely well known person sits there in a false uniform.This is not a mistake in the film.
Corrected entry: During Joseph Goebbels' and Fredrick Zoller's film premier, between Hitler's laughs, there is a shot of a soldier falling from a window into a well letting out the ever-famous "Wilhelm scream." Goebbels' film is said to be released in 1944, but the "Wilhelm scream" debuted in 1951. (Though Tarantino may have deliberately used this as an homage or in-joke, it is still a mistake.)
Correction: Perhaps in this altered version of history, 1951's "Distant Drums" will borrow the sound from Goebbel's movie. It's an inside joke. How do you feel about the use of the scream in Star Wars? The man who screams like that doesn't even live in the same galaxy.
Corrected entry: When Col Landa is discussing with Aldo and the little man how probable it is for his offer to be considered plausible, he says Aldo would be right 999.999 out of a million, which is less then 10%. What he presumably meant was 999,999.999 out of a million, or 999.999 out of a thousand.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Lt. Aldo Raine is briefing the newly formed squad of Basterds, he wears the Special Forces Branch Insignia on the left collar of his chocolate brown shirt. The special forces didn't exist as a separate branch (and had no own insignia) until June 19, 1952. Since this particular scene happens in 1944 it is not possible for Lt. Aldo Raine to wear this SF branch insignia. He is however part of the 1st Special Service Force (shown by the red USA-CANADA patch on his left sleeve), which is the predecessor of the modern US and Canadian Special Forces. (00:22:40)
Correction: There's a lot of things that didn't happen in "our" history in this film (Hitler killed in 1944, etc.); this is Quentin Tarantino's rewriting of history, so the Special Forces could have indeed been a separate branch in this version of 1944.
Corrected entry: When Shoshanna is putting on makeup, she puts two war-paint like stripes on her cheeks. A few seconds later, they're gone.
Corrected entry: During the outdoor interrogation scene where Wicki is translating, you can see a bright yellow maple leaf on the left side of his chest. This may be a reference/homage to the bright yellow stars that Jewish had to wear on the left breast of their clothes during the Nazi regime in some countries in Europe where they had control.
Corrected entry: I'm not sure if this qualifies as trivia or if it's just a coincidence. During the scene where Wicki is translating for the German sergeant about the location/number of German troops in an apple orchard, there is a single bright yellow maple leaf on his left chest. This perhaps is an homage to the bright yellow stars of David that Jews had to wear on their clothes during the Nazi regime.
Correction: Trivia or coincidence it is certainly not a mistake.
Corrected entry: In the bar, Major Hellstrom, while recognising accents, refers to the two German-speaking Basterds as Lieutenant Stuttgart and Lieutenant Munich. However, these are both in Germany and Wicki is Austrian-born. Either a mistake or Hellstrom isn't as good with accents as he thinks he is.
Correction: Major Hellstrom actually says Munich for Wicki and Frankfurt for Stiglitz, not Stuttgart. Aldo cleary states earlier in the movie, during the scene where the Bear Jew beats the German Seargant, that Wicki was an Austrian Born Jew that got out of Munich while the getting was good. Just because Wicki was born in Austria doesn't mean he didn't move at a young age.
Corrected entry: During all the time that the German major is intruding on Von Hammersmark and her conversation with the German-born Basterds, the major doesn't appear to recognize Stieglitz. He murdered 13 German officers: one would think that his face would be plastered all over on "Wanted" posters or advisory communiques to the German military. It doesn't seem likely that the German army would forget about his treason so quickly. Landa knew about Stieglitz and what he had done, so why didn't the German major? You'd think he'd be high enough in rank/security clearance to know this information.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Landa and Shosanna meet in the café, we see Landa light his cigarette. In the next shot of him, a mere five seconds later, it appears to have burnt down by almost an inch - much further than one might expect. (01:00:00)
Correction: A lot of the cigarettes during WWII were not tobacco cigarettes, as tobacco was hard to come by. Even name brand cigarettes often used fillers. Because of this, a lot of the cigarettes burned a lot faster than we might expect, especially if the smoker drew hard on the cigarette trying to get nicotine from the little tobacco that was in them.
Corrected entry: The outer layer of human skin is bonded to the subcutaneous layers beneath. When Raine is cutting the swastika into Landa's forehead at the end of the movie, the extreme close-ups reveal that the "skin" is a thin layer of rubber attached to a blood pack - you can see the edges peel up as he is making the incisions.
Correction: This is true for most skin, except the areas of the scalp and forehead - because of the unique nature of this skin, there often is more mobility and separation between these layers than in other areas of the body. I have watched these scenes again, and, as someone who has made incisions in these areas, I have to say this looks very realistic.
Corrected entry: When the "Kraut Sarge" is beaten to death by Donny, you can see that the baseball bat strikes the direct center of the German's forehead after he is on the ground, though when his body is shown lying there, there is no gash in the center of his forehead, but instead on his left temple. The wound has changed positions.
Correction: There's no way to tell where the "Kraut Sarge" is hit but based on the angle before he is hit, we presume he has been hit directly in the left temple. The only mistake occurs when Donny begins to beat his chest.
Corrected entry: At the beginning, when the SS motorbike is on its way to the farmer's house, we can see the motorbike going over the very same part of the road again, and again, and again, in 3-4 shots.
Correction: It's not true. First time i saw that scene i thought that too, but after rewinding i saw that motorbike is moving normally, not at the same part of the road.
Corrected entry: Col. Landa is referred to as an SS officer, but on the sleeve of his uniform you can see (for example- when he meets the actress and her companions at the cinema) the letters SD, which is a completely different branch of Nazi armed forces.
Correction: The Sicherheitsdienst (SD, Security Service) is the intelligence service of the SS. (source: Wikipedia).
Corrected entry: Fredrick Zoller has a rank of "Oberschutze" (he has a 4-pointed star on his sleeve). This rank was in use only before the war to differ experienced privates from new recruits. Having such rank in 1944 is impossible.
Correction: The rank of Oberschütze was indeed in use during WWII, and would not be impossible in 1944. The following is taken from several sites explaining the rank: The use of Oberschütze reached its height in World War II when the German Wehrmacht maintained the rank as both an Army and Air Force position. The rank was also used in the Waffen-SS where it was known as SS-Oberschütze. Unlike its earlier counterparts, the World War II rank of Oberschütze was not bestowed based on leadership and ability but rather simply as recognition of time served in the military. Typically, a Schütze would be promoted to the position after six months to one year of military service. Generally, the rank was given to soldiers with little aptitude, as promotion to Gefreiter could normally be expected in the same time period. Oberschütze rank was generally given to those not expected to rise to non-commissioned rank (ie Unteroffizier or higher).
Correction: It's a fake movie, which is glorifying his exploits.
MasterOfAll