The Birds

The Birds (1963)

553 mistakes - chronological order

(16 votes)

Continuity mistake: No one touches the two yellow buoys on the end of Mitch's doc, but after Melanie leaves the birds in the house they've changed position relative to the wooden planks underneath. (00:23:10)

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Continuity mistake: As Melanie gets back into the boat she places her pocketbook in the back with the latch facing her. In the next shot as she watches Mitch on the shore the pocketbook is reversed and it stays that way until she gets out of the boat after being hit by the gull. (00:23:25)

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Continuity mistake: As Melanie watches Mitch from out on the boat, someone opened the shades on the left lower window of the house. In the next shot as Mitch watches her with the binoculars the shades are closed again. (00:24:10)

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Continuity mistake: As Mitch holds his binoculars in order to see Melanie, the left strap comes down in the middle of the palm of his hand. We know he hasn't put the binoculars down but in the next shot he's holding them differently with the strap moved over two inches closer to his sweater's sleeve. (00:24:15)

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Visible crew/equipment: As Mitch watches Melanie with his binoculars he looks directly into the opening of the camera lens. You can see its dark reflection on the right lens of his binoculars. The next time we see them the reflection is gone and both lenses look the same. (00:24:20)

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Audio problem: After the gull hits her in the head, Melanie says to Mitch, "Yes, I think so," but her mouth does not go along with what she's saying. (00:25:35)

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Continuity mistake: As Mitch takes Melanie to try to get help he tells a guy, "A gull hit her" and a long shadow of a wire appears on the white sliding door directly behind them. In the next shot we see the door in middle of the screen and the shadow is gone. (00:26:05)

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Continuity mistake: When Mitch takes Melanie to try to get help after she is hit by the gull the first door they come upon says, "out to lunch". If you look closely as they walk up to the door they're in bright sunlight but in the next shot as they get to the door it's overcast. (00:26:10)

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Continuity mistake: As they go up to the restaurant to get help Melanie says, "I had a booster before I went abroad last May" and the background changes abruptly between shots. (00:26:15)

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Continuity mistake: As they start off going up to the restaurant for help two large brown crates appear out of nowhere on the dock behind them to the left of the screen. (00:26:15)

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Continuity mistake: After Mitch suggests that they get help up at the restaurant, the shadow of Melanie's hand on her forehead changes between shots. (00:26:15)

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Continuity mistake: After Mitch and Melanie walk past the door that says, "Out to Lunch," look at the numbers on the front of the boat behind them you'll see that they change between shots. (00:26:15)

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Visible crew/equipment: As they head for the restaurant, a crew member's reflection can be seen on the far left of the screen moving in the lower green section of the phone booth just as Mitch's shadow passes the phone booth. (00:26:25)

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Continuity mistake: As Melanie and Mitch approach the restaurant there's a fence that they pass on the left before they get to the door. When we see this spot later in the movie the fence is not there. (00:26:25 - 01:26:15)

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Continuity mistake: As Melanie and Mitch walk past the side of the restaurant look closely at the windows at the top left of the screen. They have transparent green shades on the rear windows that are pulled down about one-third of the way from the top. In the next shot, when we see the back of the restaurant, no shades are pulled down. (00:26:25)

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Continuity mistake: There's a fixture with a wire hanging down from it in the front left corner of the restaurant. When they built the interiors for this scene they forgot to put it there and when Melanie opens the phone booth door trying to get out the wire hanging from the bottom of the roof of the restaurant is missing. In the close-up as Melanie tries to get out the cord that we saw previously sticking out has been tucked back in towards the phone for this shot. (00:26:25 - 01:26:45)

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Continuity mistake: As Melanie and Mitch walk past the side of the restaurant look closely at the second and third windows from the right. Now we can see right into the place through these but after they walk into the restaurant look behind the bar all three windows have drawn blinds. (00:26:25)

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Continuity mistake: No one is sitting inside the window at the left of the restaurant as they walk by. In the next shot inside the restaurant there are people sitting there. (00:26:25)

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Continuity mistake: The phone booth changes when Melanie is in it during the bird attack later in the movie. Here the green part on the bottom has three vent slits per row, later when the fire is behind it you can see four vent slits per row. (00:26:25 - 01:26:15)

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Continuity mistake: As they get to the restaurant door, Melanie is to the right of Mitch, but in the next shot inside the restaurant she walks around him again to get on his right side. (00:26:30)

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More quotes from The Birds

Trivia: Although it lasts for only several minutes on screen, the scene where Tippi Hendren is attacked by the birds in the bedroom took seven days to film.

More trivia for The Birds

Question: When the birds attack the town a gas station attendant is hit by a bird and drops the gas hose he is using to fill a car. The gasoline flows down the street and under a car; a man drops a match and lights the gas causing an explosion. Why didn't the gas pump shut off when the man dropped it?

michael g

Answer: The movie takes place in the 1960s, so presumably gas pumps worked a bit differently back then. This is also a small town and probably the gas station had not modernized. There may not have been automatic shut-offs, or if there was, it was faulty.

raywest

The automatic shut off is in the handle of the hose. When a person grips the handle they have to lift a levered switch to allow gas flow; the lever is spring loaded so that if it is released the gas will stop flowing. I have looked at older antique gas pumps and they are all the same; even the visible glass gravity flow ones. If that hose was dropped the the gas should have stopped flowing.

michael g

More questions & answers from The Birds

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