Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Visible crew/equipment: When Steve Martin and Kevin Bacon start racing towards the cab, as Bacon starts running, watch carefully as he passes the second window. You can see the camera man sitting on some moving trolley reflected in the window. (00:03:10)

Mortug

Planes, Trains & Automobiles mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Del is trying to negotiate for a room at the El Rancho motel, part of the boom mic pole enters in the upper right corner of the frame (matted widescreen version of the film, not just the open matte 4:3 version). (01:09:05)

Floyd1977

Visible crew/equipment: When Neil is looking for the car he hired in the car park, there is a tracking shot from Neil's POV moving along the backs of the cars. On the car in space V-2 you see the reflection of the camera on the dolly and some crew members moving.

Jack Vaughan

Planes, Trains & Automobiles mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Neil exits from the airport just after the employer told him "You are f***ed", some onlookers and a crew member moving the camera on the dolly track can be seen reflected on the glass of the entrance from which Neil comes out.

Continuity mistake: When John Candy and Steve Martin are travelling from Jefferson City, Missouri to St. Louis they are crossing the Mississippi River to enter downtown St. Louis. This would not have been possible unless the bus driver overshot the entire city and ended up across the river in Illinois.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: I agree with the original post. However, there could be several possibilities for this scenario: 1. Road closures, 2. Road construction, 3. Accidents, 4. Detours, and 5. Heavy "holiday traffic" could have contributed to the bus having to enter St. Louis from the east despite coming from Kansas in the west.

More mistakes in Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Del: You could kill a man like that, hitting him in the stomach. That's how Houdini died you know.

More quotes from Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Trivia: When Neal's wife is watching TV in bed, she is impossibly viewing the John Hughes film "She's Having a Baby," which didn't even premier in theaters until February of 1988, three months after "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" premiered in November 1987. John Hughes (who directed both films) used his own unreleased "She's Having A Baby" footage/soundtrack and a cameo by Kevin Bacon as teasers for the upcoming 1988 film. There's still some speculation that the plots of the two films actually intersect, and that Kevin Bacon (who is credited as the Taxi-Racer in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles") was playing his character, Jake, from "She's Having a Baby."

Charles Austin Miller

More trivia for Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Question: This question is about the scene where John Candy is the driver, and Steve Martin is the passenger in the rented car. Steve is unaware at one point, that they are going the wrong way on the highway. He becomes aware, after looking out the window and down onto the shoulder of the road with the wet snow splashing up. As soon as he looks at that, he knows they are going the wrong way. What was it about the road that made him realize it?

Answer: The reason was that the snowbank was on his side (the passenger side) when it should have been on the driver's side if they were driving in the right direction. Also and I'm not sure if you could see this in the film but the deflecters on the road which separate the lanes if you are going in the right direction shine yellow and if you are going the wrong way shine red.

Tobin OReilly

More questions & answers from Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.