Whenever the topic of movie continuity errors arises, two questions invariably come up. The first: ”How do these things happen?” The second:
”Whose job is it to catch them?”
There`s no one single answer to the first question. Historical errors and slips of logic happen because no one noticed (sloppy research, perhaps), usually in the script stage but sometimes on the set. Mismatches happen because the movement of a prop or a minute change in an actor`s costume went unnoticed, but more often they are an unfortunate result of the editing process.
As to the second question, there`s really no one person at whom a finger can be pointed. It`s the job of each craft involved with a film to maintain, if you will, the purity of its work as it appears on screen. The prop builders must make sure that hand props are authentic and operate properly; the on-set prop people are responsible for the props being in the right place through each day`s filming. Likewise the costumers must be certain their work is true to period. Dressers make sure that such things as a collar remain buttoned (or unbuttoned), but actors open the buttons between takes for comfort, and sometimes no one notices the difference until the scene is frozen in time on film.
On the set, responsibility for keeping things straight falls on the script supervisor. Some things slip by, others can`t be changed and still more happen in the post-production process, when it`s pretty much out of the script supervisor`s hands.
For example, we took a look at the blockbuster hit ”Pretty Woman” and, noting five or six continuity errors, selected it for the Flubbie Award for Flubbed-Up Movie of the Year:
– When Julia Roberts is undressing Richard Gere, she takes off his tie, then unbuttons his shirt. There`s a reaction shot from Gere, and he`s wearing the tie.
– When they`re having breakfast, Roberts picks up a croissant, but takes a bite from a pancake. And the bite that was taken from the pancake is restored in the next shot.
– In one sequence, Gere is playing the piano in a near-empty ballroom. In one shot, a chair behind him is empty; in the next, there`s a man sitting in it.
– When they`re having a picnic in the park, Roberts takes off Gere`s shoes and socks. In the next shot, they`re inexplicably back on.
– When the two are having dinner at a fancy restaurant with Ralph Bellamy, Gere`s sorbet dish vanishes before your eyes, then reappears.
Some other noteworthy recent releases:
`Dances` missteps
”Dances With Wolves” (1990) is a fine movie. That`s why it troubles us so much to have to point out a few of its flubs.
Perhaps the most notable glitch happens when wagon driver Timmons (Robert Pastorelli) takes John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) to the cavalry outpost. It`s one of those instances where the old saying about getting egg on one`s face becomes cinematic reality. The driver takes a bite of a pickled egg, then when Costner tells him to leave him at the abandoned fort, he spews it out, getting some on his mustache. Then he looks over to Costner, and the egg is gone. In the next shot, it`s back.
We wondered about Mary McDonnell`s hair. In the first place, it changes length in the scene when Dunbar first finds her mourning the death of her husband. But more important, if, as the story says, she has lived with the Indians since she was a child, how come she`s the only one with a shag hairdo? Why isn`t her hair styled like the rest of the Indian women?
Miseries in `Misery`
If you want to learn just about everything you need to know about acting, watch Kathy Bates` bravura, Oscar-winning performance in ”Misery” (1990). Her portrait of the mood swings and madness of an obsessed fan jumps right from the screen and rivets you to your seat. You`ll leave the theater absolutely stunned.
But if you have just a moment to direct your attention elsewhere, take a look at the ”sticky notes” on the sheriff`s bulletin board. They move around all over the place, from shot to shot. Likewise, notice that when the sheriff and his wife are coming down the mountain, the road is covered with snow. But when he spots something and goes to investigate, Bates drives by on a road where the snow is melted away.
One person noticed that even though James Caan`s car is referred to as a 1965 Mustang, it`s actually a 1966 model. Sharp eyes.
There`s also a glitch during one of the instances when Bates leaves Caan alone in the house. She drives away, but a shot shows that her car`s in the driveway after she`s gone; it`s not there when she`s back.
Bad stuff in `Goodfellas`
Martin Scorsese`s ”GoodFellas” (1990) is a lesson in all that is good in filmmaking: strong story, fine acting, seamless directing, great cinematography.
But once again, we have our work to do. We have to tell you that at the beginning of the movie it`s 1963, but the boys are sitting on the back of a 1965 Chevy Impala at the airport waiting to steal a truck. At the same airport, look for a Boeing 747 taking off in the background. The airplane wasn`t in use in 1963.
And finally, when Lorraine Bracco drives away in the scene where she`s sure Robert DeNiro is going to have her ”whacked,” the fake license plate on the car in front of her (one of the orange and blue ones formerly used in New York) falls off, revealing the current New York red, white and blue plate.
Raiders of the Lost `X`
The Indiana Jones movies-”Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), ”Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984), and ”Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989)-are action-adventure films, which means there`s much going on and many opportunities to slip up.
In the first movie, Indy and a Mexican man are in a cave. Indy says,
”Adios, Sapito.” The character is ”Saripo” in the credits and
”Satipo” in the novel.
A special effect goes awry when Indy faces a hooded cobra. There`s a brief flash of light that reflects on the glass partition that separates our hero from the deadly snake.
Early on in ”The Last Crusade,” young Indy (River Phoenix) is in a rail car and grabs a whip-soon to be his trademark-to fend off a lion. He cuts himself with the whip, which explains the scar he carries on his chin for the rest of his life. But the cut on his chin runs from right to left, and on Harrison Ford it slants left to right.
Indy arrives at the ransacked house of his father (Sean Connery) and finds that Dad is missing. He picks up his father`s mail, then puts it down. But when he opens Dad`s diary, he`s still holding the mail.
When Indy`s in the library talking to the wealthy backer, watch as the amount of champagne in the glass and the position of his arm jump around as the film editor cut from shot to shot.
Indy and his father ride in the German zeppelin Hindenberg. The scene takes place in 1938. The Hindenberg disaster was in 1937.
When Indy`s in the library and sees the giant ”X” on the floor, marking the burial site of the Knight of the Grail, notice how when he sees the ”X” from the balcony, the floor changes color as he gets down; more important, the ”X” fades and disappears as he begins breaking through the floor.
Finally, the powers of the Cup of Christ are revealed when Indy uses it to heal his father`s wound. He empties the cup onto the wound, turning it upside down, but when his father looks into it, there`s about an inch of water therein.
`Home` groans
We are bothered that a simple little movie called ”Home Alone” (1990)
has become one of the highest-grossing movies in history. It`s a pleasant time-passer with a cute kid and some funny bad guys-essentially a live-action version of a Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon. But up there in the stratosphere with ”E.T.,” ”Gone With the Wind” and the others?
So you can understand that we take particular delight in issuing a few jabs. When pint-size Macauley Culkin`s mom (Catherine O`Hara) is frantically trying to get back from Orly Airport in Paris, it`s obvious the scene was filmed in another airport (apparently O`Hare International in Chicago). You can see the tail of an Eastern Airlines DC-9 in the background. Eastern doesn`t fly to Paris (in fact, it doesn`t fly at all anymore), but if it did, it wouldn`t be in a DC-9, a short-range aircraft designed for domestic use.
And the wonderful Joe Pesci has a real problem with a hot doorknob. He grabs it with his right hand, then clutches his left hand with his right in pain, then plunges the right hand into the snow. When he looks at the burned hand, the initial burned into it is upside down in relation to the way he grabbed the knob.
Meandering mikes
When Anjelica Huston and John Cusack are talking in the living room of his apartment in ”The Grifters” (1990), the mike boom dips into the scene.
The shadow of the mike also falls across Scarlett O`Hara`s dress in a scene from Gone With the Wind (1939).
One reader reported that when he saw ”Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason Lives” (1986), the boom mike came into the picture so often that people in the theater were booing it.
The boom mike can be seen reflected in the shiny top of a jukebox when John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John meet at the malt shop in ”Grease”
(1978). And it cruises across the top of the screen as Warren Beatty comes down a staircase in ”Heaven Can Wait” (1978).
In the classic ”North by Northwest” (1959), watch for the microphone looming over Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint during a conversation in the Chicago train station.
And a dramatic shot in ”The Trip to Bountiful” (1985), when Geraldine Page is standing in the middle of a cornfield, is spoiled when the microphone pops into view.
A variation on the meandering mike theme occurs in ”The Big Chill”
(1983) when Kevin Kline is wearing a body microphone, which you can see when his sweatshirt clings to his body. He should be glad he didn`t share the experience of Leslie Nielsen, who wears his body mike to the john in ”Naked Gun” (1988), or that of the actor who shall go nameless (because the sound man wouldn`t tell us), who forgot that he was wearing a live, switched-on body mike when he went back to the trailer for a ”quickie” during a break. The crew was, of course, gloriously entertained.
