Continuity mistake: When Dollarhyde is shot near the end of the film, he falls on the floor of the kitchen and a pool of blood spreads out from underneath him. In the next shot of his body on the floor, the pool of blood has disappeared.
Manhunter (1986)
Plot summary
Directed by: Michael Mann
Starring: Brian Cox, Joan Allen, Dennis Farina, William Petersen, Tom Noonan
The first installment of Hannibal Lecter films. This move takes place before Silence of the Lambs as we are first introduced to Dr. Lecter. Will Graham, a retired FBI crime scene investigator comes out of retirement to help track down a serial killer.
More mistakes in Manhunter
Will Graham: I thought you might be curious to see if you're smarter than the person I'm looking for.
Hannibal Lecktor: Then, by implication, you think you're smarter than me, since it was you who caught me.
Will Graham: No. I know that I'm not smarter than you.
Hannibal Lecktor: Then how did you catch me?
Will Graham: You had disadvantages.
Hannibal Lecktor: What disadvantages?
Will Graham: You're insane.
Trivia: Michael Mann originally wanted Francis Dollarhyde to have William Blake's "The Great Red Dragon" tattooed on his back, but discarded the idea after deciding said tattoo trivialized Dollarhyde's personal struggles. When Ralph Fiennes played Dolarhyde in Red Dragon, director Brett Ratner decided to include the tattoo.
Question: How did Graham know that Dollarhyde was the man committing murders, and that he drove a van just because the home videos were processed at the lab where the latter worked?
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Chosen answer: He figured out earlier that the Tooth Fairy drives a van. Graham noticed that at one of the houses, the Tooth Fairy knew everything he had to do and bring with him and at the other house, he didn't know about the new lock on the door. He concludes that this is because the Tooth Fairy got his information from the same home movies that Graham was watching. Once the films were traced to the lab where Dolarhyde worked, it was easy to link them back to him as the only person who'd had access to both families' videos and also drove a van.
Captain Defenestrator