Kelly's Heroes
Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kelly asks Little Joe for the brandy to interrogate the German officer, he is handed a square bottle with a short neck. In the next shot, as they sit down for their "friendly drink" Kelly sets down a round bottle with a long neck. (00:10:05)

Continuity mistake: While Big Joe is talking down to the Captain in the boat, Joe is blocking the stairs to the upper deck with his whole body. As the Captain moves up the stairs, Joe is off to the Captain's right. When the Captain emerges from the lower deck, Joe is dead center of the Captain and then moves out of the Captain's path. (00:12:00)

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Suggested correction: Watch closely as the captain starts climbing the steps. Joe moves to the screen right ever so slightly but still covering most of the steps. When the shot changes to outside the boat, Joe is still slightly to the side of the steps with his arm across the rest. He then moves out of the way completely. No mistake here.

Ssiscool

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Joe is talking to the Captain about having a guide for the town, the Captain's chin strap on his helmet is twisted or untwisted depending on the shot. (00:12:30)

Ssiscool

Continuity mistake: When Kelly visits Mulligan he is carrying a bottle of whiskey, he then visits crapgame who gives him a bottle of whiskey, which suggests that the scenes are the wrong way round and Kelly was originally meant to visit crapgame first. (00:20:05)

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kelly comes to make a proposition to Mulligan, the sun is on Mulligan's back. When both are in the shot from Kelly's view, both are in the sunlight. Then at the, "I need an authorisation" reverse shot, they are both in the shade, these 2 scenes are obviously shot at two very different times. (00:21:30)

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Big Joe gets out of his jeep, salutes Captain Maitland, and converses about the upcoming time off for the men. Behind Big Joe is one of his half tracks and he is on Maitland's right. The scene cuts and Maitland's "liberated" yacht is behind Big Joe and he is directly in front of Maitland. (00:25:00)

Scott215

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene when Kelly is shown the Oddball's tank for the very first time, the Sherman has a loudspeaker mounted on the right hand side of the turret. The loudspeaker is placed on the opposite side of the turret for the rest of the movie. Also as far as luggage and other external storage is concerned, this tank actually looks different in every scene. (00:32:50)

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The scene where Crapgame is telling Oddball about Kelly being a former officer, Oddball is holding a gold bar in his hand. The front shot of Oddball has him holding the bar at a low angle with the tapered top of the bar facing upward, while the shots over Oddball's left shoulder shows him holding it higher with the wider base of the bar facing upwards, instead. (00:37:20)

Scott215

Continuity mistake: As the squad are taking a break on top of a hill, just before the fighter-bomber attacks them, Corporal Job is distributing ammo and Jonesey can be seen walking past in the background with four boxes of K-rations. A moment later, Crapgame and Jonesey are sitting together sharing the contents of the boxes. After Crapgame goes to the jeep for some water, the shot cuts to Kelly sitting by a tree. Jonesey walks up to Kelly with a message from Big Joe - carrying four unopened K-rations boxes. (00:51:05)

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Oddball is shooting up the rail yard, he aims at a building with the signs "Saint Server" and "2" on the outside of the buildings. In the first shot, the "2" is damaged at the bottom. In the second shot, just as it explodes the "2" is back to normal. Note the baseline. (01:01:50)

Ssiscool

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the train station, just as the 3 Shermans turn to face behind the tunnel to fire at the building, they suddenly move a lot closer together. (01:02:40)

Ssiscool

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the squad is crossing the cleared cornfield and encounters mines, each individual is forced to meticulously check with his knife and crawl individually to where he could follow Kelly's path. The cornfield surface all around is uniformly chewed up with moist dirt and lots of plant debris. However, when the German patrol shows up, the remaining soldiers escape along a well-worn, tamped path and the surrounding field looks dried out, smoother, and with much less plant debris. (01:12:00)

Continuity mistake: Two of the German SS Tank officers are walking together through the streets of Clairmont chatting. In the first scene with them, the officer on the left carries the rank of 'Obersturmführer,' denoted by his lapel badges, and the officer on the right has lapel badges showing him to have the rank of 'Sturmbannführer' (although both officers' shoulder badges show no correlating rank to their lapels). However, in the second scene with the same two officers still walking and chatting, the officer on the right has been demoted as he is now showing the rank of 'Untersturmführer.' (01:44:20 - 01:45:40)

Continuity mistake: At the end when confronting the last tank to get the bank doors open, Oddball, Big Joe, and Kelly line up in an alley as if they are directly facing the tank and start walking forward. In the next shot, which is wider and much farther away, you see that they are actually walking down a curved alley and can't see the tank until they come all the way around the corner.

brantlee

Continuity mistake: After Oddball's tank gets across the river, the movie returns to the general's headquarters where Carroll O'Connor is yelling at his officers for not knowing anything about the battle. There is a soldier standing behind O'Connor with his hands on his hips and his shirt sleeves rolled up. The scene changes briefly to show the officers that O'Connor is yelling at before switching back to O'Connor. The soldier behind O'Connor still has his hands on his hips, but now his sleeves are rolled down.

Continuity mistake: Near the end of the film as Oddball's Sherman drives into the French town, the amount of ammunition in the ammo holder on the turret .50 calibre machine gun gets larger in almost every shot. As the tank crashes through the bushes approaching the town there is hardly any ammo in the box, up until the second Tiger is ambushed when suddenly there is plenty of ammunition.

Continuity mistake: The Tiger tank blows a hole in the bank door, so the team can gain access. A check made previously for another entrance was obviously not successful since it was necessary to blow the hole with the tank. Kelly et. Al enter through the hole but immediately are joined by others from some unexplained side entrance.

Continuity mistake: When the last surviving Tiger rages in Clairmont, shooting at surrounding buildings, there are a couple of shots, when we see both the tank's gun firing and the 'shell impact' effect. The tank's gun is not always pointed at the exact spot where the 'shell' explodes - it's particularly visible when the Tiger lowers the gun and shoots a hole in a wall, immediately after Big Joe threw a grenade and fired at the tank with his SMG. The hole in the wall appears a good few feet to the left, from where the gun points and the actual projectile would hit.

Continuity mistake: After Cowboy spots the Tiger coming down the street the scene changes to a view of the three soldiers running from away from the bank from the viewpoint of the Tiger. The Tiger's turret is facing the soldiers. In the next shot the Tiger is shown in the distance with its barrel pointing straight forward. In the next shot, the turret is facing the fleeing soldiers again.

AdmRose

Kelly's Heroes mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The scene where Crapgame is telling Oddball about Kelly being a former officer, Oddball is holding a gold bar in his hand. The front shot of Oddball has him holding the bar at a low angle with the tapered top of the bar facing upward, while the shots over Oddball's left shoulder shows him holding it higher with the wider base of the bar facing upwards, instead. (00:37:20)

Scott215

More mistakes in Kelly's Heroes

Big Joe: If I hear any more threats against Captain Maitland's life, if I hear any more wild talk about going down to headquarters and killing the General, or raping the nurses at the field hospital, I'm going to strangle the guy with my bare hands! You understand that? (00:35:24)

More quotes from Kelly's Heroes

Trivia: While on set, actor Donald Sutherland contracted spinal meningitis, went into a coma and was expected to die. Sutherland made a full recovery and continued filming.

Scott215

More trivia for Kelly's Heroes

Question: What type of Allied fighter destroyed the units vehicles? It doesn't look like any allied combat aircraft I've seen before.

AdmRose

Answer: It's a Yugoslav Soko 522 Ikarus.

Chosen answer: From the markings it looks like a P47 jug. Strange thing is it was equipped with rockets, which I have only seen outfitted on the P-38 lightning and the P-51 Mustang. Kelly's is a great movie but far from historically accurate. There is a country song Odd Ball Plays as the blow up the rail yard that not even close to having been released at the time.

James Rowell

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