Factual error: When they are on the houseboat and everything is calm, the sound comes from birds, and in particular, Kookaburras. These birds make a very distinctive sound, it sounds like someone is laughing, but the birds only live on the east side of Australia, nowhere else.
Factual error: Cape Fear the town, the river and the cape, are all in North Carolina. The civil-rights-type lawyer tells Bowden that a committee sitting in the state capital will see that he never tries another case in "this state." That committee turns out to be in Atlanta. The Atlanta trip is a vital part of the plot - the word "Atlanta" occurs about a dozen times in the script.
