The Rockford Files

The Rockford Files (1974)

134 mistakes in season 1 - chronological order

(6 votes)

The Rockford Files mistake picture

The Countess - S1-E4

Revealing mistake: When the car falls off a cliff at the end, it's an entirely different looking model with different headlights (square vs round), and empty (at least nobody in the passenger seat for sure). (00:46:30)

Sammo

The Countess - S1-E4

Revealing mistake: In the climax of the episode, the car goes off a cliff when Rockford steers abruptly. Definitely not your ordinary maneuver, but other people must have chosen to commit suicide in that spot, since there are previous tire marks of a sudden turn in that exact spot. (00:49:20)

Sammo

Exit Prentiss Carr - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: After the police inform Rockford that Prentiss Carr's cause of death was suicide, when it cuts to the closeup of Carr's widow pouring the drink, the woman in the closeup has long nails and is not wearing a belt. In the following shots Janet Carr is wearing a long red belt and her nails are shorter. (00:08:50)

Super Grover

Exit Prentiss Carr - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: The nasty policemen pull Rockford over. A woman with black hair, a blue jacket and a brown bag is walking from left to right. Later in the scene, when Police Lt. Earl Furlong says Rockford tried to burn them with the Chief, the same woman is walking in the same path and place. (00:16:00)

Sammo

Exit Prentiss Carr - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: When the two officers threaten Rockford for putting them in bad light, Police Lt. Earl Furlong has the collar of his shirt perfectly tucked in during the wider shots, but parts of it overlap the right lapel of his jacket in close-ups. (00:16:05)

Sammo

Exit Prentiss Carr - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: Rockford checks out of the receipt from the liquor store. In close-up he folds it neatly and places his thumbs on top. In the medium shot that follows, his thumb is tucked in between two folds. The paper does not look the same either, with a more yellow color. (00:22:35)

Sammo

Exit Prentiss Carr - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: Rockford intercepts the liquor store delivery for Carr. He then buys himself some time at the front door not to tip off the delivery guy about him not being the actual homeowner. When it cuts to a long shot, the bill note is gone from the paper bag. (00:26:15)

Sammo

Exit Prentiss Carr - S1-E5

Audio problem: Driving his dad's pickup, Rockford gets flanked by one of the worst dressed killers in history. The guy shoots him about 3 times, but the audio is at really low level for a revolver shot from a couple of meters of distance and there's no flash or smoke indicating that any shot in fact is fired. Combined with the fact that it's preposterous that the guy could miss from such a short range and no arm/body movement is present, it's an adequate guess to imagine that the sounds have been added in post to add some sense of danger and were not planned when shooting the actual scene. (00:41:20)

Sammo

Exit Prentiss Carr - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: Escaping the bare-bellied killer in his truck, Rockford drives through an industrial site (lumber yard, turns out). A worker dives out of the way. Then there's a close-up of James Garner vigorously turning the wheel, but in the shot showing the road, the truck actually goes ahead a few meters still, perfectly straight, before the turn occurs. (00:41:40)

Sammo

Tall Woman in Red Wagon - S1-E6

Deliberate mistake: When the workers hit the coffin lid with the shovel, it is (obviously) fully buried and they moved just a little bit of soil off it. Rockford moves closer, and instantly the inside of the coffin is covered by the thinnest layer of dust, uniformly. (00:02:30)

Sammo

Tall Woman in Red Wagon - S1-E6

Continuity mistake: Rockford gets a grazing bullet wound to the right of his skull; he puts his hand to his right temple and had it been the left side, he would have been dead, looking at the angle. But in the rest of the episode turns out that he was shot in the left temple after all. (00:03:30)

Sammo

Tall Woman in Red Wagon - S1-E6

Audio problem: When Rockford is having his no dill lunch with Sandra Turkel, the audio, in particular at the beginning of the scene, changes ambience noticeably when the camera angle changes - not quite justified, they are sitting at the same cafe table. (00:05:20)

Sammo

Tall Woman in Red Wagon - S1-E6

Continuity mistake: Sandra is explaining to Rockford pyramid as a "copywriting word." She puts on the table the glass, but she repeats the same gesture at the cut. Similar mistake later, when he explains his need for a "professional arrangement." Her hand is limp in midair by the glass, firmly around the glass at the cut. (00:05:25)

Sammo

The Countess - S1-E4

Jim Rockford: We're all scared to death. I guess that's a penalty we pay for living in a world where all the price tags end in 99 cents and they sell mortuary plots on billboards next to the freeway. What you do is, just keep laughing. (00:48:30)

Sammo

More quotes from The Rockford Files
More trivia for The Rockford Files

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.