Deliberate mistake: To keep things simple, the movie relies on the Lancaster County Sheriff as a county police force. In reality, the county sheriff serves the county court (transporting prisoners, for example) but does not serve as a county wide police force. In PA, each city, borough, and township has its own police force. Note the varied colors of police cars at the farm in one of the final scenes. These were borrowed from the various local police forces (Lancaster City, for example, is robin egg blue with a white top).
Witness (1985)
1 deliberate mistake - chronological order
Directed by: Peter Weir
Starring: Harrison Ford, Danny Glover, Viggo Mortensen, Lukas Haas, Kelly McGillis, Josef Sommer
Continuity mistake: When Harrison Ford confronts (and beats up) the tourists, there are a number of close-up shots of the people in the first wagon, including one where Viggo Mortensen leans forward and tells the driver to do nothing, even though he is being provoked. In all these close ups, Mortensen is bare-headed. When the shot changes to Ford's perspective, from the cart behind, we see one of the tourists grab a straw hat from Mortensen's head. The hat has appeared out of nowhere in a split second. There is a child with a straw hat behind Mortensen, but the hat stays on his head in both shots. (01:22:50)
Rachel Lapp: Are you enjoying your reading?
John Book: Oh yeah. I'm learning a lot about manure. Very interesting.
Trivia: Viggo Mortensen's feature film debut.
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