Charade

Charade (1963)

3 plot holes - chronological order

(1 vote)

Plot hole: Reggie finds Tex's body stretched out on the bedroom floor, his feet tied to the radiator next to the wall and his hands bound to the bed frame, suffocated with a plastic bag over his head. The bed is a twin-sized, wood frame that Tex, a tall, strong young man, could have pulled the end of it with his hands and arms close enough to his face to at least attempt to tear a hole in the plastic bag so he could breath. He was obviously conscious early on because he wrote the name "Dyle" in the dusty floor with his finger. Considering the floor is covered in dust, there's not even the slightest sign of a struggle to free himself. Instead he just neatly prints the name on the floor before he dies.

raywest

Plot hole: When Cary Grant is chasing after Audrey Hepburn where she has to meet Walter Matthau outside the Paris Opera he shouts "Reggie stop - that man is Carson Dyle". Tex recognised him, that's why he wrote Dyle on the carpet. But Cary Grant hadn't gone back into the room at the hotel, so he couldn't even have known Tex was dead.

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Suggested correction: While Cary Grant doesn't see 'Dyle' written on the floor, Cary Grant sees Audrey Hepburn after she's exited the room and while fleeing she yells out that 'Tex is dead and wrote Dyle on the floor and you're the murderer' (paraphrased). That's how Cary Grant can refer to it in the next scene.

Suggested correction: You must have seen an edited version of the film. Not only does Grant go back to the hotel, but Hepburn explicitly tells him that Tex is dead and he wrote Dyle on the carpet.

No, Hepburn believes Grant is the killer - she phones Matthau (who she still thinks is the embassy guy) to tell him what Tex wrote on the carpet. When she leaves the room, Grant is coming up the stairs as she descends in the lift and he chases after her. She wouldn't have needed to try to get away from him if she'd already told him this.

Check out of the specific dialog in the scene: "Reggie! The stamps! Where are they? Reggie! Wait!" "Why? So you can kill me, too? Tex is dead. He wrote Dyle on the carpet." "I'm not Dyle. You know that." "But Tex didn't know it. You're a murderer." If your version of the film is missing this exchange, you have an edited copy. Since the film is in public domain, that is possible.

Plot hole: When Walter Matthau is interviewing Audrey Hepburn in his "office," she is looking at a picture. She identifies various faces in the picture. Matthau correctly identifies the person without knowing which face she was asking about. Other than her husband, he could not know which of the other three faces she was studying.

Noman

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Suggested correction: I believe Matthau/Dyle handed the pictures to Hepburn and knew the order in which he had put them, and therefore who was in each pic: first, second third.., as she went through them in order from the top.

Continuity mistake: When James Coburn is about to leave the phone booth where he's been lighting matches, the number of matches he leaves on the top of the phone changes between shots.

Sacha

More mistakes in Charade

Reggie Lampert: Well, wasn't it Shakespeare that said, "When strangers do meet in far off lands, they should e'er long see each other again"?
Peter Joshua: Shakespeare never said that!
Reggie Lampert: How do you know?
Peter Joshua: It's terrible. You just made it up.

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More trivia for Charade

Question: When the Inspector said "We discovered your husband's body lying next to the tracks," I assumed that meant no one actually saw Dyle toss Lampert off the train. And since Lampert was killed in his pajamas before daylight, I assumed that meant Dyle first confronted him in his compartment. So after the murder was committed but before it was discovered, why didn't Dyle retrieve the travel bag, or at least take the agenda, letter and key with him?

Answer: Dyle didn't know that what he was looking for was inside the travel bag. Lampert had used the stolen gold to buy the rare and valuable collector stamps. He then affixed them to the envelope to look like ordinary postage. Dyle, who was impersonating a government investigator, was also letting Reggie (Dyle's widow) figure things out about the key, letter, etc. As Lambert's widow, she had access to her late husbands property and, eventually, would have unwittingly led Dyle to what he sought.

raywest

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