Titanic (1997)

Factual error: The lake that Jack told Rose he went ice fishing on when she was threatening to jump is Lake Wissota, a man-made lake in Wisconsin near Chippewa Falls (where Jack grew up). The lake was only filled with water in 1918 when a power company built a dam on the Chippewa River, six years after the Titanic sank. (00:39:05)

Factual error: At the end of the movie, the Straus' are seen lying in each other's arms on their bed with water coming into the cabin under the closed door as the ship is sinking. This is not true, their cabin was on C deck, but his body was found in the following days of the sinking. For his body to get into the open water it would have had to float through a closed door, and up several flights of stairs. Historically, they refused to leave the ship, and were last seen sitting in deck chairs. They were there when the ship sank on the boat deck. Her body was never recovered.

Factual error: Rose mentions Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's ideas on the male preoccupation with size to Bruce. However this is 1912, and Freud did not publish the work relating to this until 1920 in "Beyond The Pleasure Principle." Also, up until 1919, Freud relied solely on data from women. (00:33:40)

David Mercier

Factual error: In the film the water tight doors are shown to lower mechanically all the way down, however in reality the last 20 inches or so they would suddenly drop by their own weight to effectively "dent" into the floor creating the water tight seal. A few of the crew in the film getting through "at the last moment" would have actually had their lower legs shattered by several tonnes of iron.

Factual error: The hymn that they sing at the church service about "those in peril on the sea" has four verses. "Peril on the sea" was written in 1860 but the verses that have "protect them by Thy guarding hand" and "O Spirit whom the Father sent" were not written until 1937, and thus could not have been sung at the service. (01:10:40)

Factual error: When the men are checking the store room for Rose and Jack, the men are using huge battery powered bright white flash lights that look like they're from Jurassic Park. Back then they would have produced yellow light. The light used in the movie was a Short-Arc Xenon bulb, you can tell this by both the very high color temperature of the light and the center of the light has a "hole" in it where the actual tube is blocking the beam. Such technology was not around at that time. (01:33:15)

Factual error: During the drawing scene, 'Jack' is using modern square sided, pressed charcoal with numbers embossed in the side of it. In 1912, Jack would have been using vine charcoal which was round and made of 'charcoalized' willow twigs. (01:23:30)

Factual error: In the beginning of the film, when Jack is running to the boat on the pier, his rucksack is a Swedish Army rucksack, model 1939, and nowadays widely sold as army surplus. (00:25:10)

Factual error: Margaret Brown never went by the name of "Molly" Brown during her lifetime. It was not until after her death that she was referred to as "The unsinkable MOLLY Brown". (00:27:50)

Factual error: When Jack and Fabrizio are searching for their cabin, Jack can be heard muttering the cabin number - G60. Not only did G60 not exist, it would have been in Second Class, as third class cabins weren't prefixed with their deck letter. Cabin 60 itself was on F deck and bunked 8 people rather than the small cabin in the movie. (00:27:10)

Factual error: When Jack is handcuffed to the pipe below decks, the elbow joint is a modern welded joint, not a bolted flange joint as in the rest of the ship. I'm sure this was done to allow Jack to move about with greater ease as the water level rose. (01:47:50)

Factual error: When Jack, and Rose were trying to escape the rising water they were trapped by a locked gate. Jack and the crowd pulled up a bolted down bench to use as a battering ram. When they pulled the bench loose they showed a close up of the wooden floor shattering. The wood was pressed fiber board which would never be used as ship decking, not to mention, pressed fiber board wasn't invented until decades later. (02:06:05)

Factual error: The car which brings Rose and Cal to the docks at Southampton has an RB registration plate. But RB wasn't introduced as a car registration index mark until 1929. (00:20:30)

Factual error: When Rose, Jack and his friends come up to the boat deck while the ship is sinking, they ascend using the second class staircase and its exit on the deck. When Jack lets go of the door it is able to hit the side of the deckhouse. On the actual Titanic there were walls on the bow side of each door, which supported an overhang above the entrance. This is not included in many scenes in the movie. (02:08:05)

Factual error: When Jack and Rose are being chased by the bodyguard, they run through the ship's boiler room, prior to winding up in the car. Titanic was fueled by coal, and the boiler workers were called the "black gang" due to what happened as a result of working there. Yet Rose was wearing a pale dress which stayed pristine after going through the area, as did her shoes. She should have picked up at least a little soot along the way, at least on her shoes and the hem of her dress. (01:28:00)

Factual error: The Master-at-Arms office, where Jack is handcuffed, was in actuality an inside cabin and had no portholes at all. (01:51:10)

Factual error: It is fairly well known that James Cameron built a virtual full-size replica of the ship for shooting the exterior scenes. However only the starboard side of the ship was constructed in full, facing land (port side only down to B deck); when scenes were required that need to show port side Cameron generally employed a method known as 'flipping.' For example, in the early scenes of the film we see Titanic at 'Southampton' and passengers boarding the port side. This was achieved by reversing the camera angles. All the signs on passing carriages/vans and White Star logos were printed back-to-front so that when the scene was printed it could be reversed, thus showing both sides of the ship. The problem is that in reality the starboard side of Titanic was not a mirror image of the port side. On one side of the forward boat deck there were entrances to the First Class Gymnasium and forward Grand Staircase, while on the other side there were the windows of the Officers' Quarters and the entrance to the Wireless Room. On Cameron's Titanic you get to see the gym etc. on both sides of the ship. (00:20:20)

Factual error: A small one & probably only noticed by dog trainers like me. When the dogs are being brought on board, they are on leather leashes made by J&J Dog Supplies, invented in the 1970s. It is the type of leash preferred by professional trainers, who probably supplied the dogs for the movie, and is distinguished by the "braid" near the snap, rather than by a sewn or riveted section. J&J's website is: www.jandjdog.com. You can see the leashes there. (00:22:50)

Factual error: When the stern (back) of the Titanic is rising into the air, there is one shot where it appears bone dry. Easily hundreds of gallons of water would have been pouring off the still wet hull. (02:34:10)

Factual error: Rose and Jack retreat aft of the 3rd funnel while D deck (1st class dining salon between funnel 2 & 3) is being flooded. They go down to E deck, which floods then they come back up to D to the locked gate, then escape to C deck just as D floods to the top. The 1st class dining salon extended across the entire width of the ship, so D deck was flooded to ceiling aft of 3rd funnel at the time they escaped below decks. In reality, if the ship were flooded that high, only the stern would be sticking above water. The 'split' did not even show the water that high and far back in the ship. (02:20:25 - 02:25:30)