The Changeling

The Changeling (1980)

4 corrected entries

(10 votes)

Corrected entry: In the beginning, when the main character's wife and daughter are killed, being accidentally run over by the truck, you can see in the wide shots that there is no blood, no bodies, nor any sign at all that they were hit. They simply disappear in the shots where the truck supposedly hits them. Obviously done for the sake of safety, but still a pretty blatant mistake.

Correction: The wife and daughter were killed by the station wagon pushed over them by the snow plow. They were under the car.

Angela Canning

Corrected entry: When John is in his Manhattan apartment reminiscing, we see his daughter throw a ball at him. If you take a close look at the ball, you will see how beat up it is. However, when the ball is falling down the stairs in his rented house for the first time, it has become new and shiny.

Correction: No. When the ball bounced down the stairs for the first time at the new house, it was just as beat up as when the daughter had first thrown it. It wasn't until it bounced down the stairs the second time - while it was wet from having been thrown into the ocean - that it appeared (obviously) wet and shiny.

Corrected entry: When John discovers the boy's booklet in the attic, it is dated 1909. Later we find out that the boy was murdered in 1906, and his father never returned with the changeling until 1918.

Correction: The book on the desk is not that of Joseph but the girl Cora who did die in 1909. Russell went to her grave and in the seance asked the spirit if it was the girl Cora and received the answer no which led to Joseph.

There is nothing to suggest that the room was Cora's. The only thing we know is that her book was left there. She could have discovered the room while carrying the book and then got spooked and ran off in terror, out of the house and into the street, getting hit by the coal cart.

Corrected entry: Just before John Russell hears the pounding noise for the first time, the kitchen clock says 6 a.m. We can see the kitchen is bright and well lit. However, since the movie takes place between March and April, the sun is nowhere near that bright at 6 am.

Correction: It is fully light out here at 6 AM, it's exactly that time of year, and I live just north of the US border. We're also on Daylight Savings Time, which has started earlier in the year for the past two years, and without DST, we'd be even brighter at 6 AM. Finally, it depends on where he lives in the time zone. People living on the eastern edge of the time zone will be lighter in the morning, and darker sooner in the evening than people on the western edge of the time zone.

Continuity mistake: When John is pushing his car through the snow (with his wife and daughter) you can see the snow on the road is thick and solid. When John enters the phone box the snow suddenly becomes very slushy and muddy. (00:01:30)

Jack Vaughan

More mistakes in The Changeling

John Russell: It's my understanding... that there are, uh... twenty-three students registered... for this series of lectures on advanced musical form. Now, we all know it's not raining outside, and unless there's a fire in some other part of the building that we don't know about, there's an awful lot of people here with nothing better to do.

More quotes from The Changeling
More trivia for The Changeling

Question: Carmichael died at his home. Was it his ghost or something else that John saw in the house as it was burning?

Answer: It was implied to be his "spirit" or "soul" that John saw.

TedStixon

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