Continuity mistake: In the film the Eye Creatures have landed their spaceship in a field during the night and the Army has been called in to survey the spaceship. A soldier gets on top of the space ship and starts using a welding unit to try and open it and it's bright and clear out. The temperature of the welding ignites a fuse on the spaceship which causes the ship to explode. When the scene shows the spaceship blowing up it's now pitch black outside.
Factual error: Sergeant Bostick tells Colonel Ryan he is from the 113th Armored Division. The U.S. Army never had a 113th Armored Division in WW2.
Factual error: The main plot of 'The War Lord' is based on a total fallacy. Chrysagon, a nobleman in eleventh century Normandy, falls in love with Bronwyn. She is betrothed to Marc, a villager on Chrysagon's estate. When Bronwyn and Marc marry Chrysagon claims 'Droit Du Seigneur', a law that a lord is allowed to sleep with a lesser man's wife on their wedding night. It is often asserted, even by some medieval historians, that 'Droit Du Seigneur' was legally enforced in the middle ages, but no reference to the practice has ever been found in any surviving medieval law code, legal text book, or historical source. It is first mentioned in the sixteenth century, and then as a discontinued practice from a barbarous past (like human sacrifice or cannibalism) but the earliest accounts of the custom do not provide any verifiable sources, suggesting that it originated in over-active minds of writers of popular romances.
Continuity mistake: Harry Palmer uses the leather wrist restraints to lacerate his wrists - the pain enables him to resist being involuntarily hypnotised. The next time he is woken roughly by the guards for another hypnosis session, his wrists are unmarked.
Revealing mistake: When the gang tries the growth formula in the theatre, they quickly grow out of all their clothes until they are naked. But the scrunchy in Jean's pony tail is still in place and shows no signs of being stretched, even if the pony tail now is 20 times bigger.
Factual error: In a wide shot of a battle, pictured in the background is a cooling tower for a nuclear plant. These did not exist during this time period.
Factual error: Before the damaged plane is dismantled, in some shots the three propeller blades of the port side engine are a mixture of clockwise and anticlockwise type. (The twist along the length of the blade goes the opposite direction depending on the type).
Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the film when Natalie Wood first gets in the limo, she is waving goodbye to her mother who is on the pavement. As the limo is driving away and Wood is leaning out the window waving, there is a lamp post behind her that is so close it looks like it might hit her. When the camera moves back to her mother you cannot see the lamp post.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Rusty is trying to keep Dana and Valerie from seeing each other, it is supposed to be night time. But, when Rusty opens to curtains to usher Valerie out the door, you can see that the sky is much too light to be night time.
Other mistake: Just before Ladyfingers starts as the dealer in the big poker game, we are shown how skilled she is, with a close-up of her hands doing an expert shuffle of the deck. Lancey even tells her she hasn't lost her touch. But then she deals the third and fourth cards so badly that they flip in the air and are easily seen as a red deuce and a black deuce. It happens toward the bottom of the screen but slowing down the DVD makes it obvious.
Continuity mistake: During Janet's musical performance in the French cafe, she is wearing cymbals on her knees in one scene; in the next, they are missing.
Continuity mistake: Lombard trips going up the stairs in the dark; he falls on his right side, but he waves the others to go up lying on the opposite side, facing the opposite way. (01:04:30)
Audio problem: When the band is marching with the Massingale rally one can hear flutes and many band instruments, but the band consists of only a few brass instruments.
Character mistake: Ryan's final diary entry says the US Cavalry fought against "French irregulars." The French lancers were actually regular troops.
Revealing mistake: In the scene at the end of the movie where Lee Marvin is running interference during the escape by shooting in the air, horses pulling a beer wagon get startled and run into the street where the wagon turns over. At the beginning of the shot, when the horses begin to bolt, you can see the stuntman driving the wagon. He is sitting low behind the wooden front of the wagon (which has holes cut in it so he can see out).
Continuity mistake: James Garner figures out he's being duped, and tells Eva Marie Saint to run out of the room screaming to draw attention to herself. She does and there's a shot of her on the hospital lawn with staff all around her. The next shot is James Garner looking out the window to see what their reaction is, and Eva Marie Saint can be seen behind him in the room.
Continuity mistake: When the crooks are climbing over the wall into the police station yard, when they are on the pavement, the ladder dosen't reach the top of the wall. But when seen from inside the police station yard, it reaches above the wall and looks like a different ladder.
Continuity mistake: During the second solitary visit that the Native Girl pays to doctor Bwana, she has to hold him steady after he drank the torpedo juice. Her right hand is in a completely different position in the various shots, and she lets Buster Keaton go once but is still holding him after the cut.
Factual error: Rifles and more so, cannons of the type shown in the movie were not close to being invented in the 1500s.
Continuity mistake: In the animal mortuary, Robert Morse opens a refrigerator with two dogs in it as he reads from a book. When he returns to that same refrigerator seconds later, the dogs are gone, replaced by a crumpled white cloth and a cat. (01:01:30)
Suggested correction: Is this actually an error? I believe the British Regiment who feature in this film are The Ninth Fusiliers. Well, there never has been a Ninth Fusiliers in the British army, either! For that matter, there never was a Colonel Joseph L Ryan, or a Major Eric Fincham, or a Major Battaglia. While this film is set in the Second World War, it is openly admitted that it is a wholly fictional story. Some Second World War films (A Bridge Too Far; The Longest Day; The Battle Of the Bulge) were made to recreate historical events, and so refer to soldiers and military units who existed. Other Second World War films like this one (Sahara, Escape To Victory, Ice Cold In Alex) while referencing actual events, and, showing sequences of events that are not beyond probability, are still stories. Since this is a fictional, imagined story, is it acceptable for soldiers to serve with fictional regiments or imaginary fighting units?
While some fictional accounts can be taken for granted and not counted as errors (even films based on true stories can have fictional characters), there are limits when setting films in the past. To have a 113th Armored Division is a valid mistake as the highest number in WWII was the 20th Armored Division, unlike Infantry Divisions that went into the 100's. This could almost be the same as giving a character an 8 or 11 number phone number.
Bishop73
The anonymous drive by hit and run "contributor" (not referring to you, Bishop73) may not have seen another post I made about Sgt. Bostick wearing a 4th Armored Division patch on his uniform: he says he is from the 113th A.D. (which never existed) but wears the 4th A.D. patch, which did exist in WW2, but did not see service until France in 1944.
Scott215