# Movie screw ups that made you chuckle **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 19, 2015, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245 "2015-01-19T02:11:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/81 "2015-01-22T11:49:50Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > In one movie, can’t remember for sure which, the camera follows people getting in an elevator in a NYC high rise, and they get out in the second class pool of the Queen Mary (in Long Beach)! Turbolifts! Are you sure it was a movie and not an advertisement? Because there’s a series of ads on at the moment which does this sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/82 "2015-01-22T14:01:47Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > 1. When Scofield’s character orders the art train underway, no one even attempts to get clearance to enter the main line, which, being Paris, would be occupied by commuter and long-distance trains running on headways of a few minutes. Well, of course! He is the Kommandant, and all bloody French trains must yield to him! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/83 "2015-01-22T14:07:00Z")
I remember episodes of _ **The Untouchables** _ where Frank Nitti or someone would be firing a Tommy gun, they’d cut away for a shot of the victim, and when they showed Frank again he’d be holding a different model of the Thompson. (Yes, this must seem like a somewhat arcane field of knowledge, but the differences were plain enough for even the biggest Joe Sixpack among us to notice.) ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/84 "2015-01-22T15:04:30Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > With all that said, the authenticity of the actors playing railroaders, including Lancaster, and the general look and feel of the various operations, are spot on. Most of the scenes where the railroaders try to stop or impede the art train are at least plausible, although I doubt the whole notion of faking out the Germans on board as to which way they were going would ever have really worked. For the specific scene you mention, however, yes, if I wanted to derail a relatively slow-moving train in occupied France in 1945, that’s just the way I would have done it. Thanks for the detailed reply. I also thought the wrong direction ploy was probably a little implausible, but it was still damned awesome. I love how Scofield implodes when the train derails. “Put the train back on the tracks!!” And his second in command coolly replying, “If we had ten times as many men, it couldn’t be done.” I also love the bit with Papa Boule and the franc coins. “Four francs is four francs”. I love that movie. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/85 "2015-01-22T15:08:47Z")
In the 1976 miniseries Nick Nolte beats up bad guy William Smith, with lots of bleeding around one eye. When the bad guy reappears later, he has an eyepatch over the other eye. ``` In "High Noon" Gary Cooper goes to a church to ask for help against the gunmen. The minister sends the children out before he and congregation discuss it. During the discussion, there are crowd shots with the children sitting besides their parents. ``` Another Cooper whopper. In “Pride of the Yankees”, Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game streak ends when he comes out during the game. Sorry, that’s not how consecutive game streaks work. ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/86 "2015-01-22T15:31:50Z")
Not really a “screw up” and I know I’ve mentioned this in other threads but it still makes me laugh. In “The Long Kiss Goodnight” Geena Davis is supposed to be walking around New Jersey but all you can see in the background is the big ole lit up Honest Ed’s sign in Toronto. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/87 "2015-01-22T15:54:13Z")
I love the movie Ocean’s 11 (George Clooney version), but I cringe when he states the MGM, Bellagio and Mirage are all on the same block. They are not, the Mirage is over a mile away from the MGM. Actually, any movie showing people driving down the Vegas strip get the geography wrong to show the landmark buildings in the background. Sometimes mixing downtown and strip properties in the same car ride. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/88 "2015-01-22T16:01:55Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > In **Pearl Harbor** , Ben Affleck is training on Long Island. With visible brown Southern California mountains in the background. In _Roots_, Virginia’s hills look remarkably like Southern California, and Africa looks a lot like Georgia. In the 1969 version of _True Grit_,[Ft. Smith, Arkansas,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Grit_(1969_film)#mediaviewer/File:Ouray_County_CO_Court_House_1881_2006_01_13.jpg) and Oklahoma have acquired mountains that look very similar to the Colorado Rockies and the Sierra Nevada. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/89 "2015-01-22T16:16:48Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Are you sure it was a movie and not an advertisement? Because there’s a series of ads on at the moment which does this sort of thing. After posting I did some checking. I think it was\* Someone to Watch Over Me\*. Imdb lists filming locations in NYC and RMS Queen Mary. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/90 "2015-01-22T16:23:41Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > …a derailing set of locomotives blowing up like a bomb, presumably from ignition of the diesel in the locos’ fuel tanks (to be fair, that just seems to be a rail version of the movie meme that cars blow up spectacularly every time they crash) I hated that one! I’m like “It’s diesel! I isn’t going to EXPOLODE!” > [@El\_Kabong](#): > > And a bit less egregious, in _White Christmas_, I always crack up at the scene where Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are traveling from Florida to Vermont…on Southern Pacific and Santa Fe trains in what is pretty clearly Southern California. I used to wonder whether NYC-based shows such as Kojak and McCloud actually filmed in NYC. McMillan and Wife is clearly shot in LA, but I used to think NYC shows were shot there. Then I watched an early McCloud. He is tracking a guy through the rail yards. In some shots, you can see east coast locos and cars (I think they were Penn Central) and you can see the WTC clearly behind McCloud. In the same scene, you can also see McCloud in front of Santa Fe locos and west-coast cars! So they obviously filmed that one scene on both coasts. You’d think that would get expensive. And why do it? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/91 "2015-01-22T16:27:29Z")
In _The Deer Hunter_, the characters all go hunting in the Appalachian mountains, yet the filming was clearly the Rockies. Why would a major, big budget movie make such a mistake as that? At worst, all they had to do (if they wanted the sweeping majesty of the Rockies) is SAY they went west. But the dialog says they are in PA. It’s not just wrong, it’s _needlessly_ wrong! ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/92 "2015-01-22T16:36:20Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > In “Pride of the Yankees”, Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game streak ends when he comes out during the game. Lou Gehrig was gay?!? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/93 "2015-01-22T16:37:59Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > In _Roots_, Virginia’s hills look remarkably like Southern California. Just like they do in every episode of _ **NCIS** _. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![cormac262](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@cormac262](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cormac262)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/94 "2015-01-22T16:45:10Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > In **Gladiator** , Maximus is wounded in battle in Germany. He hops on his horse and rides it to Spain to visit his family. When he gets to his villa in Spain, he’s still bleeding. I didn’t chuckle at the still bleeding aspect. It was that on his ride from Germany to Spain, he swung by the eastern Sierra’s (California) outside Lone Pine (Mt. Whitney in the background), before continuing on in europe 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Frazzled](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frazzled/32/3368_2.png) [@Frazzled](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frazzled)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/95 "2015-01-22T16:46:06Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I don’t see any evidence that’s a mannequin. And anyway, what would be the point? It’s not a stunt scene. It would be more expensive to make a mannequin than to have Goldblum sit there for two seconds. If nobody else sees it then I could very well be wrong - it’s not mentioned anywhere else on the internet either which adds to that evidence. But as for the why - that’s how I noticed it in the first place. On set the actors schedules will overlap but they won’t all necessarily be on set at the same time. I noticed it when I was deconstructing who was present during that scene. At that specific place with jeeps stopped notice that you only see Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, and Sam Neill talking to one another inside their jeep. Outside the jeep you see Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Richard Attenborough interacting - but Jeff Goldblum and the Lawyer are only featured in Close up and Reactionary shots inside their respective jeeps - they don’t share the scene together. From that you can deduce who was present on the set at different times when they’re filming the individual shots. It’s geeky I know but I have fun with that. So I was just playing around on when they got the closeups of Laura Dern and Sam Neill - since Jeff Goldblum is clearly not in the car when Sam Neill stands up I was guessing that that closeup was done closer to when Richard Attenborough was on set. Likewise I was guessing that Laura Dern’s closeup and reaction shot were done close to that same time. Even though it’s only a 2 second shot on screen - the emotional impact of that closeup, the wow factor, dictates that it has to be done right. That would mean many shots, reset, and retake. I’d bet that that scene took several hours with several takes from which they’d pick the best one. Since Jeff Goldblum isn’t important for any acting during the closeups it seems a waste to film that while he’s on set - especially if the time where all 3 of them are present together is limited and they’d spend time on the scenes where they’re actually interacting. ---
**Author:** ![zwede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ac91a4/32.png) [@zwede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwede)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/96 "2015-01-22T17:05:53Z")
The one that always baffled me was the final scene in “Vanishing point”. The entire movie is about the anti-hero driving cross country in his Dodge Challenger. I mean, the car is in almost every scene. Then at the end (spoiler alert) he crashes into a road block, and the car explodes like cars do (sarcasm). But right before it explodes the Dodge Challenger transforms into a Chevy Camaro! First time I saw the movie I didn’t realize what was supposed to have happened since it was a different car that crashed. The part that baffles me is that when the movie was made in the early 70’s a base-engine Challenger would have cost about $3K brand new. Or they should have been able to find a slightly used one for $2K to crash. Compared to the cost of shooting the explosion that’s trivial. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/97 "2015-01-22T17:07:52Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > In _The Deer Hunter_, the characters all go hunting in the Appalachian mountains, yet the filming was clearly the Rockies. Why would a major, big budget movie make such a mistake as that? At worst, all they had to do (if they wanted the sweeping majesty of the Rockies) is SAY they went west. But the dialog says they are in PA. It’s not just wrong, it’s _needlessly_ wrong! > [@](#): > > The defining elements of the western are first present in _The Deer Hunter_ in a timeless mythic configuration: the hero Michael lives on an edge between civilization, the Pennsylvania steel town named Clairton representing both European tradition and modern industrialization, and nature, the surrounding mountain forest embodying the original American Wilderness. Cimino had written that he explained to his director of photography “at the beginning my feelings about location, my feelings about the importance of size and presence of landscape in a film-and the statement that landscape makes, without anyone realizing it.” His symbolic intentions are asserted by his representation of an “ideal” Pennsylvania steel town with a composite of eight separate locations from Cleveland to Pittsburgh, of the Alleghenies with the more magnificent Cascade Mountains of Washington state, and of the deer with an impressive stag imported from a wildlife preserve in New Jersey. In each case Cimino sacrifices authentic setting to acheive a more powerful mythic landscape. > **[American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam](https://books.google.com/books?id=uPH86IxSwjsC&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=&source=bl&ots=006SWcOXU2&sig=Q7YIcWy73wohPeqyT3Yahp9pEsg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4CjBVPXHH8nGsQSihYG4Dw&ved=0CEgQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q&f=false)** > > American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/98 "2015-01-22T17:13:30Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Just like they do in every episode of _ **NCIS** _. ☹ In _The Office_, Scranton often also seems to be in Southern California. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/99 "2015-01-22T17:14:29Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Another Cooper whopper. In “Pride of the Yankees”, Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game streak ends when he comes out during the game. Sorry, that’s not how consecutive game streaks work. More irritating to me is that they completely rewrote Gehrig’s speech at the end of the film. Apart from the most famous line, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” everything else about it is different. I suspect the reason for that is that Gehrig actually spoke that sentence near the beginning of the speech, while _Pride of the Yankees_ puts it at the end. I imagine the screenwriters wanted the most famous part of the speech to be the climax. Still, I find it a bit galling to just rewrite the text of a well-known address given by the subject of your biopic. Particularly when Gehrig’s actual closing line, “I may have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for,” is almost as good. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245/100 "2015-01-22T17:17:04Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Then I watched an early McCloud. He is tracking a guy through the rail yards. In some shots, you can see east coast locos and cars (I think they were Penn Central) and you can see the WTC clearly behind McCloud. In the same scene, you can also see McCloud in front of Santa Fe locos and west-coast cars! So they obviously filmed that one scene on both coasts. You’d think that would get expensive. And why do it? Frequently TV shows shoot “pick-up” shots after major shooting has concluded. For whatever reason, they decide they need another scene or need to re-shoot an existing scene. So it may be much cheaper to do that near their main production facilities rather than go back to their original location. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-screw-ups-that-made-you-chuckle/710245.md?page=6)