Continuity mistake: Linnet is enraged because apparently Salome Otterbourne featured her in her fiction book and equated her to "a nymphomaniacal baboon." Nonsense aside, she gets up holding the book. Angela Lansbury is looking at her, left hand upturned. Cut, and she is staring at her with both hands in her lap, downturned. (00:35:35)
Continuity mistake: When Poirot and race play checkers while Pennington tries to swindle Linnet, a single piece lies at the side of the board in the wide angle, but in the closer views you can count 3. (00:36:05)
Continuity mistake: Pennington sits at Linnet's table and begins putting down contracts to sign. David Niven in the background looks at him, closed fist below the nose, but in the next shot he's staring at him stroking his temple and moustache, and at the following cut he changed position again. (00:36:20)
Continuity mistake: When Poirot and the other tourists are walking in the section of the temple of Karnak with the ram statues, they cast shadows towards the right of the screen, their left. The action focuses on Salome extolling the priapic virtues of the beasts, and the shadow she and the professor cast is at their back. (00:42:30)
Continuity mistake: Mrs. Ottenbourne is in the background while her daughter and the mysterious marxist are getting acquainted. She begins at one point shouting, putting an end to the conversation as Rosalie rushes to her. The rambling shout happens across two shots, and Ferguson's hand is in a different spot on the book. (00:44:00)
Deliberate mistake: Poirot riles up Pennington narrating the story of Grand vizier Ptahhotep who was crushed under the weight of the silver he embezzled. It's a lovely moral story, but Ptahhotep was actually a virtuous administrator and is credited (with various caveats) with writing "The Maxims of Ptahhotep", one of the first books in human history, and there's no record of such a story. It's likely that Poirot made that part of the story up counting on Pennington's ignorance on the subject. (00:44:20)
Factual error: After Linnet Ridgeway had almost been crushed by a stone falling down from the temple of Karnak, Dr. Bessner advised her to go back to the boat to have a rest. She replied that it can be for just a couple of hours, as she must see the temple of Abu Simbel in the evening. In the next scene, she is really visiting Abu Simbel together with Simon and in the late evening they are back on the Nile steamer. This is absolutely impossible, as the distance between the temple of Karnak and the temple of Abu Simbel is about 400km (250 miles). By that time, it would have been impossible to manage 800km (500 miles) within one afternoon just for a visiting tour. And it is not very logical, as the Nile steamer was going up the Nile to Wadi Halfa, so they would have passed Abu Simbel anyway later during their trip. (00:47:00)
Continuity mistake: Take a look at the Karnak temple scene when the massive stone block is pushed off the column to kill Linnet. Seconds before the stone falls, the column and parts of the floor beneath are brightly lit by the sun. Also notice that the stone is positioned maybe 2 yards off to the right of the column's centre. When the stone is coming down in the next shot, most of the column (and the ground) is suddenly in the shade. And when the stone hits the ground it is no longer positioned to the right of the column but in front of it. (00:47:40)
Continuity mistake: When the doctor feels the need to make a precise assessment of the stone's age, the maid is suddenly close to the big rock between shots. (00:49:00)
Character mistake: Dr. Bessner tells Linnet that the Eastern statue she'll see at Abu Simbel is 'the vocal statue', which emits a sound at sunset. The statues the doctor mentions are the Colossi of Memnon, over 500 kms north of Abu Simbel, so the movie here mixes up two very different monuments. (00:49:30)
Factual error: In the Abu Simbel scene, watch closely when they show a side-view shot of Jackie, accidentally depicting the shores of Lake Nasser in the background. This reservoir was built only in the 1960s and didn't exist at the time the movie is set in (1930s). (In fact, the whole temple had to be cut from the rock and moved to higher ground following the completion of the Aswan Dam, so the "original location" was no more available for the film crew.) (00:51:15)
Continuity mistake: When the doctor creepily shuts the door behind him to have a tete-a-tete with Linnet, in the side view his hands are in front of his belly, in a stance entirely different from the front view where his arms are down his sides. (00:53:25)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Bette Davis has lost her shawl there is a shot of her and Maggie Smith from far away. They talk about the time and in the background Angela Lansbury is drinking. She puts down her glass and leans her head on her hand. Then the shot changes to a close-up of Bette Davis and Maggie Smith and you can see Angela Lansbury in the background, with the glass in her hand, just about to take a drink. (00:55:05)
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the scene when Jackie gets drunk in record time, David Niven's shadow on the curtain changes sharply when the angle switches the first time; in the closer view he casts a deep shadow right behind his head, while in the wide angle of the room there's barely any shadow. In the same transition, Linnet is touching the cards with both hands first, simply holding her cigarette in the second shot. (00:57:55)
Plot hole: According to the denouement sequence shown in the film, Linnet Ridgeway is shot asleep in her bed approximately three minutes after retreating from the lounge. Less than 2.5 minutes pass from the moment Linnet leaves the lounge to the moment when Doyle is left alone by the other guests. It takes another 30 to 45 seconds for him to pick up the pistol, rush into his cabin and kill his sleeping wife. How could Linnet have walked to her cabin, taken off her jewelry, changed into her night-dress, retired to bed, and fallen asleep in 180 seconds? (00:59:00)
Suggested correction: The sequence never showed when Linnet goes to sleep. We can't be sure how long it is between her leaving and Simon shooting. All we know is in the actual scene she leaves after having already taken a sleeping pill. This is "movie time", not real time. 3 mins can be 30 mins in movie time. The flashback sequence doesn't clarify anything based on her timeline.
This...is not at all what happens. This is the 1978 movie; Linnet is playing cards with the others up until a moment before cutting the game short not by her choice but because of Jackie's interference, so certainly took no pill in advance nor does she take one on screen, and the characters interact with no interruption from that point on leaving no room for an implied 'movie time' elapsing at a significantly slower rate than 'real' time.
Continuity mistake: When Ferguson helps Simon Doyle on the couch, his tie slides off Simon's non-injured leg once, then in the next shot it is on it again and re-slips. (01:00:55)
Continuity mistake: When the doctor starts cleaning Simon's wound, there's barely any blood on the side, but in the next shot, from the side, there's still a lot of it. (01:04:30)
Continuity mistake: In the longshot where the maid approaches Mrs. Doyle's cabin, the shadows of the deck above reach just the highest part of the starboard cabin doors. When she shouts and runs to get help, the shadows cover the whole louvered top half of the doors. (01:06:50)
Revealing mistake: When Poirot gives the sarcastic explanation of the letter J to the doctor and colonel Race, the chest of the stone-cold dead Linnet quietly rises and falls as the very alive actress breathes. (01:08:35)
Continuity mistake: When the doctor leaves Linnet's room saying he's outraged by Poirot's allegations, the cabinet to the left is closed, but in the reaction shot on Poirot and Race (and in the rest of the scene) the cabinet is open. (01:11:35)
