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Mrs. Van Schuyler: Well, rules are made to be broken. At least mine are. By me. (00:33:10)

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Other mistake: The flashback that shows when the culprit is able to inform the accomplice that Mrs. Ottenbourne is about to expose them differs in many small details from the original; when she enters the room, Ustinov by the door fixes his jacket with one hand, and in the original scene he did it with two, when Simon urges her to tell the story from the beginning she has her hand on her chest in the flashback and not in the original. And her last words are "I saw that it was" vs "I saw it." This is no subjective, hypothetical flashback. (01:48:05 - 02:10:05)

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Continuity mistake: When Poirot calls the doctor's testimony "irrelevant", the doctor's left hand is on his leg, but he's holding his clock's chain in the next shot. (02:00:25)

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Continuity mistake: When Poirot says "That's not quite right" in rebuttal to Race's frustration, he raises his index finger. The same gesture in the reverse angle has him with both index and middle finger raised. (01:46:10)

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Continuity mistake: Poirot has a chat with Jackie before dinner after the murder. She says she is ashamed, holding the railing. Poirot tells her that now he, Simon, is available to her again, and Mia Farrow has just the back of her fingers against the railing. (01:40:45)

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Continuity mistake: Inside Pennington's cabin, Poirot finds the document they were looking. He shows it briefly to Race, who is holding a file with a black binding on the right side (so he's holding it the wrong way). George Kennedy shows up in the next shot, and Race is standing there holding the file this time the correct way, and facing the other way after a further cut. (01:38:05)

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Continuity mistake: When Poirot accuses madame Otterbourne repeating the "can't libel the dead" phrase, Angela Lansbury is staring him down with her left hand nowhere in sight. Reverse angle, and she is clutching her pearls with that hand. (01:35:05)

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Continuity mistake: When Mrs. Van Schuyler mentions a "popping sound", David Niven's position is different in the two takes; first his hands touch, then he suddenly has one hand on the armrest. Similarly, when she mentions "an indifferent champagne" her hand is on her embroidery, but she was gesticulating away from it before the cut. It's then Peter Ustinov's turn to be inconsistent; Niven asks "Could it have been a small pistol" etc. and Ustinov is fingering his moustache, but in the next shot he isn't. (01:29:00)

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Continuity mistake: Race hears Poirot's morse code and grabs his mighty swordstick; look at his tie. When he's inside Poirot's room, his Royal Green Jackets tie is styled different; in his own room the small end reach approximately the second-to-last red diagonal stripe of the wide part, while in Poirot's room the small end reaches barely the third-to-last stripe. (01:26:40 - 01:27:15)

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Plot hole: It's not solely the adaptation's fault, but in the visual medium it sticks out more. We know that the killer used nail polish to simulate the blood the first time around, and then throws away the stained handkerchief and replaces it with a clean one which will be stained in real blood. The problem is, you see the fake blood, which is nail polish, drip down his pants and soak his hand; while the pants may not be too much of a problem since the doctor cuts them off in the proximity of the wound (even if we see a drip in the uncut part, it's likely that Poirot never took a look at them), Simon still has a hand covered in paint, which has also a characteristic odor as Poirot remarks in a different part of the movie, and wouldn't come out easily. Somehow that goes entirely unnoticed, and it wouldn't take the sharp instinct and senses of Poirot to pick up on the anomaly, you'd think. He was also of course mighty lucky that nothing spilled on the couch or carpet.

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Continuity mistake: Poirot watches Jackie leave the hotel seemingly falling for Simon's ruse. He's having breakfast; when he puts the croissant in his coffee, the hand holds the brioche with its flat side upwards. Ustinov in close-up is eating the brioche with the curved side up. (00:27:00)

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Continuity mistake: When madame Otterbourne says hi from her natural element (the bar), David Niven pokes his head in behind Ustinov's, but in the next shot he's not leaning in, he's more like standing behind him, straight. (01:34:00)

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Continuity mistake: When Colonel Race comes to Poirot's rescue, Poirot's arm is outstretched and stays that way even after a reaction close-up on Peter Ustinov with his arm lowered, as you can tell by the part of his arm in frame. (01:26:55)

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Continuity mistake: When Race and Poirot lift Simon Doyle from the bed, he helps himself up using Peter Ustinov's arm in the first shot, David Niven's in the second. (01:20:05)

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Continuity mistake: Mr. Ferguson and Rosalie Otterbourne say goodbye to Poirot; Ferguson is holding a suitcase in his right hand, but when Poirot says one last thing to them, the suitcase disappeared mid-stairs. (02:17:15)

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Plot hole: This movie adaptation adds an odd bit where an attempt is made on Poirot's life using a cobra. How in the world did the culprit manage to get a hold of a venomous snake, is never explained or addressed and goes against the carefully designed plot, since the culprit would have needed to obtain it through a third party (a member of the staff, perhaps) and that would expose them. Poirot actually says "you found another use for that serpent" but the idea that Simon actually obtained the snake before they devised the plan and somehow just happened to carry it around on honeymoon when the plan for his uxoricide was entirely different and carefully prepared, is even more absurd.

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Continuity mistake: Inside the saloon, Poirot says he knows who killed the three victims. Maggie Smith is looking at him, her left forearm raised. In the reverse shot, her arm is down. (01:52:55)

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Continuity mistake: The 'moray eel' on Poirot's plate is shown in close-up. The garnish is on the left side of the plate. In the wide angles though (and at one point Poirot lifts the plate, so we get a good view) the plate is turned differently, the garnish being on the side opposite Poirot's seat. (01:43:00)

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Audio problem: During the dinner scene when Poirot finds an eel in his plate, the quartet plays a song in perfect classical music, but they are using instruments typical of the local folklore. A rebec does not sound like a violin. (01:42:55)

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Continuity mistake: Poirot uncovers the dead body in the ice cellar; he does not touch the body anymore, but the hair is scattered on the table in a different position when Race retrieves the pearls. (01:36:45)

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