Rear Window (1954)

◄ Rear Window (1954)

Audio/visual unsynchronised

While Lisa and Stella are digging up the flowers (about 92 minute mark) the pianist is shown playing with other musicians. When the harmonica players starts to play, a saxophone is heard although none is visible. The harmonica is subsequently heard also.
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At 00.52.52: When Jefferies' nurse goes to the door saying she's going to find out the name of the freight carrier that is taking off with the trunk, someone who sounds nothing like James Stewart has dubbed him with the peculiar sounding line "I'll keep an eye on the alley". Jimmy Stewart is holding the binoculars over his mouth but we can see that he's not moving his lips! Prior to that, when he says "don't do anything foolish" his lips are still moving after the audio is heard.
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When Miss Lonelyhearts and the songwriter are talking about his record in his apartment, the dubbed-in dialogue doesn't sync with the picture, even to the extent of Miss Lonelyhearts being heard to say "I can't tell you what this music has meant to me," while her mouth isn't moving.
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Character error

(At 1:18:00) When Lisa and Jeff are discussing "rear window ethics", Grace Kelly noticeably stumbles her line "Jeff, you know if someone came in here they wouldn't believe what they'd s...see"
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Continuity

When Lisa places her slippers into her overnight case (while sitting on Jeff's lap), they are tossed in, more to the side of the case. Later, when the detective views the suitcase, the slippers are neatly placed and sitting upright.
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When Jeff is getting back into the wheelchair after Stella has given him a massage, his pajama top jumps from being unbuttoned to buttoned between shots.
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When Jeff grabs the box of flashbulbs, all four can be seen in the box. But when he backs up more, there are only two left.
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Lisa takes the binoculars away from Jeff and wraps the neck cord around them before putting them on a small cupboard. When Jeff picks up the binoculars later, the neck cord is no longer wrapped around them.
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The amount of brandy in the detective's glass increases between shots.
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When Lisa goes to Jeff's house to celebrate his last week with his cast, she places two candles onto the table next to him, the candles are not lit. A little later in the same scene, Lisa walks into the kitchen, and when she returns, the candles are lit.
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The location and angle of the shadows of the "sun" are in the same place in the morning and at night.
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At the end of Jeff's first massage, Stella places the bottle with the green liquid on the side table without replacing the cap. As Stella is packing to leave, the bottle is capped as she places it in her bag.
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When Thorwald returns home from one of his trips out in the rain lugging his suitcase, the camera (from Jeff's point of view) pans from a glimpse of Thorwald in the street, across Miss Torso's apartment where she is preparing to go to bed, to the second floor hallway where Thorwald is walking toward his apartment. This observed action takes only a few seconds - an impossibly short time frame for Thorwald to have entered his building through its front door, walked over to the stairwell, climbed the stairs to the second floor and then be seen walking along the second floor hallway.
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The detective accidentally throws his brandy over himself, soaking his shirt and jacket. In the next scene, seconds later, as he is about to leave the apartment, his clothes all appear bone dry.
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When Lisa is talking to Jeff about his photography work, at one point, both hands are holding her wine glass, but in the next shot, only her right hand is holding the glass.
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When Lisa closes the shades she doesn't close the shade for the side window on the left. When the camera pans left to show Jeff the far-left shade is down.
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Crew or equipment visible

After Lisa sees Thorwald tie up the trunk, and the camera dollies forward to a close up, there are creaks from the floorboards and footsteps heard from the camera crew.
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Factual errors

The Exakta camera used in this movie is usually held in a way that would suggest that the shutter is triggered on the right-side upward surface, as is normal for most cameras. 35mm Exakta cameras actually have the shutter release on the front of the camera, just left of the lens.
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Lt Doyle remarks that, during the war, he piloted a P-38 while Jefferies operated his camera. The P-38 was a single-seat aircraft and in the photo reconnaissance variant, known as the F-4 and later the F-5, the photography equipment was fixed to the aircraft and operated by the pilot, not a separate crewmember. An occasional two-person photo flight in a P-38 "Droop-Snoot" would have been possible, but would not have been common or authorized.
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Incorrectly regarded as goofs

Early on, Jeff wheels himself over to the window and bumps his leg (the one in the cast) against the wall below the window, yet he doesn't grimace at all. Once a broken leg in a cast begins healing, it's no more sensitive to such bumps than an uninjured leg.
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Spoilers

The goofs below may give away important plot points.

Continuity

When Thorwald has Jeff hanging out of his window, the inspector with the fedora hands another officer a gun and heads towards the apartment. But in the next shot he is pulling Thorwald back from Jeff. How did he get there so fast?
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Factual errors

The image retention effect depicted in Jeff's apartment, when he fires the flashbulbs to temporarily blind Thorwald, is based upon the color of the light source. The type of flashbulbs used were a Clear type, appearing bluish to the eye, not red as the POV shots indicate.
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Miscellaneous

When the camera is panning across the courtyard at the end, Miss Torso is shown dancing in her apartment when she abruptly stops and goes to answer her door, opening it to reveal her boyfriend Stanley. But we never hear Stanley knock on the door in the first place.
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