Goofs for
The Godfather (1972) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: A glass of wine in the wedding scene.
  
  
• Continuity: When Don Coreleone is talking to the pastry shop owner during the wedding scene, the man is holding a small shot glass. As he is getting up to grab Don Coreleone's hands, the glass is still in his hand but in the next shot it is gone.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In several scenes wine bottles are shown with the DOC Italian wine classification designation shown on the bottle. DOC designations did not come in effect until 1963.
  
  

• Continuity: The waiter fills Tom Hagen's glass twice within seconds during his dinner with Woltz.
  
  
• Continuity: Kay's hands when she asks Michael when she will see him again.
  
  
• Anachronisms: A building reflected in the window of the police car during the assassination of Barzini would not be built until more than ten years after the supposed time frame of the assassination.
  
  
• Continuity: Level of wine in the glasses while Michael and Kay are having dinner following the attempted assassination of Vito Corleone.
  
  
• Continuity: The windshield of Sonny's car is shattered by machine-gun fire, but is whole again by the time his bodyguards arrive.
  
  
• Anachronisms: 50 star U.S. flag in 1947 (on the building where the "peace conference" is held).
  
  
• Anachronisms: At the airport at night, a swept tail Cessna 182 is shown. Production of this airplane didn't start until approximately the mid-1960s.
  
  
• Continuity: A shot of Michael in the hospital walking past the camera is obviously reused a couple of minutes later.
  
  
• Continuity: The placement of Moe Green's drink during his meeting with Michael.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the scene of the meeting between Moe Green and Michael, The boom mic can be seen clearly, as Moe sits down for the first time. A shadow also reflects a hurried movement behind the camera.
  
  
• Continuity: Fredo removes his sunglasses twice during Michael's meeting with Moe Green.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During Vito's funeral, when Michael stands up to talk to Tessio, the face of Mama can be briefly seen under his arm, tinted orange-red and chewing gum. After Roger Ebert reported this in his "Movie Answer Man" column in 2001, Francis Ford Coppola and Kim Aubry investigated: they confirmed that Morgana King was not supposed to be in the shot, but had gotten into it by an accidental reflection in the optics, probably off a filter (hence the tint) in the matte box.
  
  
• Continuity: The level of wine in Vito Corleone's glass when he is discussing Barzini's move to kill Michael.
  
  
• Continuity: When the dons meet, one of them sits back twice: once before and once after an edit.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sonny is machine-gunned on the causeway, bullet holes appear at the roof line of his car, then disappear, then appear again.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Michael Corleone calls home after his father is shot, the dial on the pay phone is clearly out of alignment.
  
  
• Continuity: The death of Barzini: During the string of shootings during the baptism, Don Barzini (Richard Conte) is shot on the courthouse steps. In the medium close shot, the squib bullet-hits are clearly visible. In the long shot, however, Conte's stunt double tumbles down the stairs without any bullet holes on the back of his jacket.
  
  
• Continuity: During the string of shootings during the baptism, the guy in the bed with the woman falls down twice. Just before and after the cut from far to close.
  
  
• Continuity: When McCluskey is harassing Michael at the hospital, Michael's jacket changes. Michael's jacket is open a few inches near his tie as McCluskey is puling back his arm to hit Michael. After the cut his jacket is closed and straight when he gets punched.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The exterior set-up shot for the summit meeting of all families is of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. While this seems like an unlikely place for a "family" meeting, it's an indication of how high their influence reaches.
  
  
• Continuity: While Michael is talking to Apollonia's father after he has given her the necklace. The same two people pass by twice - once in a close-up of Apollonia and the other in a wider shot.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The blood on the bed in the "horse head" scene. First it's there, then it disappears.
  
  
• Continuity: When Woltz first sees Khartoum's head lying on his bed, the blanket is covering part of the neck stump. In the next shot, the blanket has been completely removed from the stump.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The punch to Michael's face broke his cheek bone which gave him a permanent black eye (and caused his sinuses to continually run - hence the use of a handkerchief all the time) until he got back to America and had surgery to fix it (Freddie says, "that doctor did a good job.")
  
  
• Anachronisms: The movie's chronology indicates the time frame of the movie when Sonny is gunned down is late 1948 or 1949; however, he was listening to the 3 October 1951 radio broadcast of Russ Hodges calling the Dodgers-Giants playoff, a half-inning before Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World," specifically identifying the date of the murder as two years later than the movie's timeline indicates it should be.
  
  
• Continuity: The amount of blood on Sonny after he is murdered on the causeway.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Just before he is shot, Don Corleone shops for fruit at a shop. Cardboard boxes of Sunkist oranges in that shot feature graphics that weren't introduced until the Seventies. And in 1945 most oranges were still shipped in wooden crates.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Vito Corleone shows Johnny Fontane out of his office, we see an extra walk onto the frame from the left, but as soon as she sees Vito, she quickly lets out a little smile and backs away, as if she was in the wrong place.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Michael is arriving in Las Vegas, supposedly set in the very early 1950s, when he, Fredo, Tom and others are getting out of the car in the hotel driveway, two long-haired, bearded "hippie types" from the early '70s can be seen through the window in the lobby. (In the DVD commentary, Coppola admits that he is embarrassed by this oversight, but that the shot was done on the cheap by the second unit)
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Michael gets out of the car in front of the hotel in Las Vegas, he is with his brother, Fredo. However, it is clearly not John Cazale (Fredo) getting out of the car, but someone else (notice the hairstyle in the scene).
  
  
• Continuity: In the wedding scene, immediately after Kay Adams meets Tom Hagen, the cigarette in her hand disappears and then reappears.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Clemenza goes for a pee, crew reflected in side window of car in which Rocco has just shot Paulie.
  
  
• Continuity: The gun that Sonny gets from the drawer in the dining room when Clemenza comes to the house following the attempt on the Don's life, is in his belt, disappears when he throws Clemenza against the counters and reappears as he turns around after talking to his wife.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The stop sign in New England when Michael returns from Sicily is red and white. Stop signs were yellow and black at that time and did not change to red and white until the 1960s.
  
  
• Continuity: While Michael is telling Kay the story of Luca Brasi, the gun and the contract, Michael is leaning back in his chair, but we cut to Kay on the other side of the table and Michael is leaning forward.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In late 1945, the Empire State Building is shown with the 222-foot television antenna mast that it did not acquire until 1950.
  
  
• Continuity: When the package of dead fish is placed in Sonny's lap, the position of his hands changes in close-up.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During Sonny and Carlo's fight, one of Sonny's "movie" punches is shot from the wrong angle and clearly misses, but still produces the sound of an impact.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Michael moves his father's bed from the hospital room into the hallway, there is a sign on the wall over Michael's shoulder which lists Robert O'Lowery as the Fire Commissioner. He was Commissioner during the time the movie was filmed, not during the 1940s (it should have been Patrick Walsh).
  
  
• Anachronisms: Sonny is killed on Captree State Parkway, so named until 1963 when it was renamed the Robt. Moses Causeway.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sonny talks to Paulie in the meeting room and tells him to get some brandy for his cold, his right hand is between his legs. In the next shot, Sonny's right hand is on top of the couch.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Vito is gunned down by the fruit stand, one of the hitmen's pistols emits a muzzle flash, visible just after a cut to the overhead shot of them running away, but there is no accompanying sound effect for this last gunshot.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Tom Hagen flies to California to see the movie producer in a Lockheed Constellation. The first production model of the Lockheed Constellation was not produced until 1947, and did not enter commercial service until even later. Tom's flight was apparently in 1945 ("almost 1946" according to movie dialog).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Cuneo is killed in the revolving door of the hotel the first shot breaks the glass in front of him but no blood squib appears on his shirt. It is not until the second shot goes off does blood appear.
  
  
• Continuity: In the first scene of the film, Bonasera approaches Don Corleone to whisper to him. He keeps his left arm by his side. In the next shot he takes his left hand from Don Corleone's chair back.
  
  
• Continuity: When Tom addresses Woltz studio, he is carrying the suitcase in his left hand. But indoors he appears with the suitcase in his right hand.
  
  
• Continuity: After he gets shot, Don Corleone lays on his back with his right arm folded on his chest. Thereafter he appears turned to his left side, with his right arm stretched-out on his right side.
  
  
• Continuity: When Tessio brings the package of dead fish to the meeting in Don Vito's study, the paper is disarranged and a little open. But when Sonny takes it, it is tidy.
  
  
• Continuity: While he instructs Michael how to behave after to kill Sollozzo and McCluskey, Clemenza has a cigarette in the mouth. From one shot to another, when Michael passes in front of him, the cigarette jumps to his left hand.
  
  
• Continuity: When Michael gets in the car in which Sollozzo and McCluskey are, we see that there is a long distance between the two men on the back seat and Michael on the front seat. However, in the next shot, with Michael in close-up, the two others appear just behind him.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Vito is taken home in the ambulance, the curbing on the side of the road is painted yellow to indicate "no parking". However, this practice was not incorporated until the 1960s.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Michael shoots Sollozzo and McCluskey, he bumps into the camera as he passes it exiting the restaurant
  
  
• Continuity: When Michael is telling Kay about Luca Brasi, she has a cigarette in her left hand which disappears and reappears between shots. A few seconds later, the cigarette is gone and Kay has a fork in her left hand which then jumps to her right hand.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Connie is yelling at Michael because he had Carlo killed, she says, "That's your husband, that's your husband." Her lips do not match what she is saying.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the fight between Sonny and Carlo, when Carlo is pinned against the wall one of Sonny's punches doesn't come close to hitting him, but Carlo acts like it did.
  
  
• Continuity: When the car that Appolonia is driving explodes, Michael is knocked backwards into the bushes and immediately disappears.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Sollozzo releases the abducted Tom Hagen, he says to him "...and bad luck for you if you don't make that deal!" His lip movements, however, show that he only says "...and bad luck for you!"
  
  
• Factual errors: The main gate of Woltz International Pictures shows the rear of a car which is either a 1952 or 1953 Chrysler. The scene supposedly takes place in the late 1940s
  
  
• Continuity: Enzo (the baker) visits Don Corleone in the hospital after he is critically wounded. Enzo is holding a large bouquet of pink carnations and baby's breath. Later, when he is standing outside the hospital with Michael, the bouquet has been changed to a much smaller one with orange carnations.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: After Fredo yells at Michael for trying to negotiate with Moe Greene, we see a shot of Michael smoking. As Michael exhales, we see a cloud of smoke quickly disappear from his mouth as the camera splices to another take of the shot.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: After Sonny is gunned down, when his bodyguards arrive you can see shallow breathing from his chest.
  
  
• Factual errors: Michael was awarded the Navy Cross for heroism while in the Marines but he does not have the ribbon for this decoration on his uniform during the wedding scene. The highest ribbon that he is wearing is for the Silver Star, which is the next lowest in order of precedence for US bravery awards. In Godfather Part II, during his testimony to the Congressional hearing he states that he was awarded the Navy Cross in the war.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When the hit men tried to kill Vito Corleone, they fired - at close range - at least ten times. But Solozzo says he was hit five times.
  
  
• Continuity: When Michael reads the paper about his father being shot, he crumples it and then starts to run across the street. The paper is crumpled in his hand as a car passes in front of him on the street. After the car passes, Michael throws the paper down. When he does this, the paper is very smooth and neatly folded.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When the funeral procession drives into the graveyard, modern 18-wheelers and vehicles can be seen on the freeway at the top left and top right of the scene. The freeway with these vehicles is visible throughout the scene during various shots.
  
  
• Anachronisms: As Mama Corleone is singing at Connie's wedding - which takes place in 1945 - the pianist above and to our right is wearing glasses with 1970s plastic frames.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Outside the hospital, as McCluskey prepares to punch Michael, as the shot changes showing McCluskey (Sterling Hayden) punching Michael, it is clearly not Sterling Hayden throwing the punch as evidenced by the longer, brown hair of the man doing the punching (vs. Hayden's short, gray hair).
  
  
• Continuity: When Al Neary shoots Barzini's chauffeur, he is apparently shot in the chest. In the next shot, the chauffeur is lying on the ground with a small pool of blood coming from the back of his head.
  
  
• Continuity: Walking down a hill immediately following the wedding ceremony in Sicily, Fabrisio loosens his tie, the camera cuts away, then back, to show him loosening his already loosened tie.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The opening cemetery shot of Vito Corleone's funeral procession shows two towers side by side in the distance which are incorrectly thought to be the World Trade Center towers. They are in fact smokestacks, complete with smoke, and are in nearly the opposite direction as Lower Manhattan and WTC.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Michael is moving Vito to a different room in the hospital with the help of the nurse, we can see that Brando instinctively moves his hand when it hits the door post. However he is conscious, hence his crying while Michael is holding his hand, just heavily sedated due to the pain inflicted by his gunshot wounds.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The eyes in the severed horse's head have obvious cataracts (which are typically caused by old age and/or degenerative diseases such as diabetes). That is hardly what you'd expect to find in a champion stallion in the prime of his life.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the scene where Sonny is driving up to the toll booths where he subsequently gets shot, the camera shot has a microwave tower in the background. They didn't exist back then.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In a scene outside Clemenza's house, there is an A/C hanging out the window. There weren't window A/C available at that time.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Sonny is killed at the causeway, when the killers show themselves in the toll booth, the man on the left breaks the window with his gun before they shoot at Sonny.
  
  
• Continuity: Michael fires his gun twice at McCluskey in the scene. The camera is on Michael for the first gunshot. The cut to McCluskey after the first gunshot shows him to reaching for his throat and making gurgling noises , indicating he's been shot in the throat. In that same long shot, the bullet wound to the head appears after the throat reaction. For the second gunshot, the camera cuts back to Michael firing the gun, then cuts to McCluskey, where the forehead gunshot wound appears after and in response to the second gunshot.
  
  
• Continuity: when Michael is being driven with McCluskey to their meeting, Sollie's's driver makes a sudden u turn, but you can see the car on the inside lane slow down before he starts the turn as he knows its going to happen
  
  
• Anachronisms: 50-star flags are visibly seen down the street just before Michael and Kay finish they Christmas shopping.
  
  
• Continuity: Just before Luca Brasi is killed by Solozo, he is stabbed with a knife on his left hand, and when he is being garroted and falls into the floor, we can see the knife on his right hand.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Sonny starts punching Carlo Rizzi, in one of the punches you can see, that Sonny is obviously not hitting Carlo, but you can still hear the punching sound.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Shortly before the scene where Paulie is killed the car is shown driving past a run of guardrail with steel posts. Steel guardrail post were not used until the mid 1980s.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Moe Greene says his line "I talked to Barzini," it's clearly obvious the line was dubbed in.
  
  
• Anachronisms: (1:53:44) After Sonny is shot, When the shot is on the toll booth a yellow modern day car can be visibly seen driven past out the window.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: When Al Neri (dressed as a police officer) kills Barzini and his bodyguards, he clearly fires all six rounds from his pistol. However, only five shots are heard on the soundtrack.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: After Michael kills Virgil Sollozzo and the crooked Captain McCluskey, the camera slowly pulls away from the two bodies in the restaurant. During that time, the dead McCluskey blinks.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: When Don Corleone is shot at the fruit stand, Fredo stumbles out of the car, fumbling with a gun and lurching, nearly falling forward. The next shot, from overhead, shows Fredo walking steadily around the car toward the Don. The third shot, back at ground level, shows Fredo stumbling again.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: When Tom Hagen is abducted by Sollozzo after Christmas shopping, it is clearly nighttime. In the next scene Don Corleone is gunned down and it is clearly daytime. Later Sollozzo tells Hagen that they hit the Don about an hour after they abducted Hagen.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: After Vito Corleone is shot at the fruit stand and falls to the ground, it is clearly seen that Fredo sits next to the front of the car on the pavement and next to Vito Corleone's head. But in the scene following that, when pedestrians walk towards Vito Corleone, Fredo is not seen on the pavement he was sitting on or anywhere else on screen. Although he appears in the same place again in the next shot.
  
  

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