Corrected entry: At the climax of the final poker game, the commodore (James Coburn) shows his cards and says, "I have two small pair - eights and eights." In the rules of poker, if you do this, then you have two pair, not four-of-a-kind. A simple straight or full-house would beat his "two pair" because of how he declared it. (01:44:56)
Corrected entry: A big issue is made during the first poker game with the gunfighter and the Spaniard that Brett was watching for tells in the first hour of play while he lost. During the dispute with the Spaniard over the bluff, Brett states that the Spaniard's tell told him that he had great cards-which he did-2 aces. In that game, that is a very strong hand. Yet Brett, one of the best players in the game, BLUFFS with inferior cards. There is no amount of bravado that can explain such stupid behaviour. It's obvious the writers meant to showcase Brett's ability to read other players, but no real player would bluff knowing for a fact that the other player has a strong hand.
Correction: Why not? I've bluffed my way to winning the pot when a simple pair of twos would have beat my hand. perhaps Brett was able to read him well enough to know that if he kept raising then eventually the Spaniard would give up.
Corrected entry: After the incident with the runaway coach, Maverick is walking away and Annabelle trips or pretends to trip and falls against his leg. When she does she accidentally fires his holstered pistol. It would be impossible for her to do that as the pistol a single-action revolver, which means she would have to cock the hammer (pulling it up and away from the ground) and THEN pull the trigger, also up and away from the ground.
Correction: No, it is not impossible. Annabelle could have half (or less) cocked the hammer and then let it slide back. Consequently, it could have hit a bullet and caused a shot. This accident happened very often in the "Old West", so often that most revolver-users just loaded five bullets into their revolvers and let the hammer rest on an unloaded chamber. Maverick apparently didn't, but that is not a mistake.
Corrected entry: During the scene when Maverick is delayed getting to the poker table a pendulum clock is shown. Pendulum clocks don't work on board a boat as the movement upsets the pendulum.
Correction: This was a river boat moving a few miles per hour on a calm river. If they encountered water turbulent enough to upset the clock, then that would be the least of their worries for the paddleboat. The riverboats would have billiards and roulette which would be far more sensitive to the motions of the boat, without problem. A ship at sea would have great difficulty with a pendulum clock due to the waves and the high speed of travel as you describe.
Corrected entry: In the final hand of the final poker game, the crooked dealer deals the Commodore four-of-a-kind, and deals Angel a straight flush. Why would the dealer, who works for the Commodore, deal Angel a better hand than the Commodore? Even though Angel and the Commodore are working together, you would think the Commodore would want to win his own tournament, and therefore have the dealer deal him the better hand. The Commodore even looks surprised when he sees that the dealer has dealt Angel a better hand than him, so it wasn't something that he intended.
Correction: It would look more fixed if the Commodore won his own tournament. Since he is working with Angel then it would make sense to have a skilled "favorite" be the winner since he would get his money either way. And as far as acting surprised - it would look kind of goofy if Angel laid down his hand and the Commodore just sat there like he didn't care that it was better. He is putting on a show.
Correction: Given the looks exchanged, it seems that Angel had gone in with the dealer to switch out the deck and win the final game.
Correction: If there was a fear of it looking fixed if the Commodore won his own tournament, why would he bother even entering it? He could have just had Coop steal the money no matter what happened. Besides, there's no mention of the dealer helping the Commodore, only that Coop was to steal the $ if anyone other than the Commodore won.
He entered the tournament to be a good sport since he was hosting the tournament. Celebrities enter celebrity tournaments all the time with no expectation of actually winning.
Corrected entry: How is it possible that the dealer could switch decks on the last hand in front of all those poker players and Maverick was the only one to see the switch?
Correction: He was the only one who paid attention.
Corrected entry: At the end, Ms. Bransford claims that both Maverick and his father sing the same wrong words to "Amazing Grace," but from what we heard of the song, all three of them sang it correctly.
Correction: In fact there are two sets of words - the ones they sung are the newer ones, which a lot of people view as "wrong", despite the fact that most people know them better.
Corrected entry: When Maverick and his last opponent in the qualifying round of the great game shake hands you hear applause although nobody in the room is moving his hands. (01:29:40)
Correction: The ballroom in which the poker tournament takes place is pretty big and the camera just covers a portion of this room. The applauding people could be behind the camera or right next to it.
Corrected entry: Maverick makes quite a fuss over his shrunk shirt sleeves after Annabelle had washed it too hot. However, from the moment he sits in the carriage the length of his sleeves is back to normal although he didn't change his shirt. (00:37:15)
Correction: WELL...when Cooper tells Maverick to go stop the horses, Maverick complains and tells Coop, "You do it, I just put on a fresh shirt." So he really *did* change his shirt, it's not a mistake.
Corrected entry: After Maverick stops the runaway horses with the dead driver, he has dirt all over him, because he was dragged under the carriage. However, after this has happened, in later scenes, his clothes are magically clean again, even though he hasn't changed clothes since.
Correction: Actually, in the scene just before Maverick steps out of the moving carriage, he makes a statement that he just changed into nice clothes.
Corrected entry: When Maverick is talking to Joseph after getting back the money from the fake indians, look in the background during their talk, you can see a car in the background driving down the road.
Correction: I tried really hard to spot the car but the only thing I could see was a cloud of dust in the background that MAY have been caused by a car that MAY have been deleted when the DVD was re-edited. I think this mistake, if it is valid, should be specified a little better, e.g. by a time code.
Corrected entry: When Bret is kissing Annabelle goodbye to become the "human sacrifice" she starts off holding the sides of his face while kissing him, as shown from the camera angle in the front, but when they are shown from the back, her hands are near the back of his head, then they are back on the sides of his face when the camera angle goes back to the front again.
Correction: Annabelle's hands are at no time near the back of Maverick's head. She starts with her fingers at his ear and slowly lets his head go while they kiss. Continuity guaranteed from shot to shot.
Corrected entry: When Coop is showing everyone that his 2 guns are the only ones allowed on the boat, he starts off with the smaller black gun in his left hand but when he goes to put the guns back in his holsters, the small black gun is now in his right hand.
Correction: The small black gun is still in his left hand. It looks a bit like the other one in this shot because its handle is white.
Corrected entry: As the dealer stands to shake hands with Bret after he wins the second-last game to qualify for the final, watch his chair. It stays stuck to the dealer's butt as he stands. Rewind and watch Mel Gibson and you can see that he starts to giggle as does the dealer who pushes the chair to the floor quickly.
Correction: The characters giggle because something funny has happened and this is perfectly plausible.
The dealer is Richard Donner the director of the movie. Yes Mel breaks character because of the stuck chair.
The dealer in this scene is played by Steve Kahan, who plays Captain Murphy in The Lethal Weapon Movies. This is also referenced in the IMDB trivia section. Https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110478/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv.
Corrected entry: When Maverick, Cooper, and the commodore are in the woods near the end of the movie, Maverick throws a gun up in the air for them to fight over but Cooper still had his gun in his holster. He was never forced to give it up so therefore he didn't need to fight the commodore over the tossed gun. (01:56:10)
Correction: .SPOILERS. Since Coop is Maverick's father, he probably knew that gun was not loaded, and not in any danger from the Commodore.
Correction: In a no wild card/natural hands game of poker, the cards speak for themselves. You cannot "misread" your hand. In fact, if the Commodore would have just laid down his hand and not said anything, the dealer's responsibility would have been to "call" the hand as four eights. The hand speaks for itself. You cannot call a hand smaller in rank than it actually is. The Commodore was just trying to be cute.