Goofs for
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) More at IMDbPro »

• Crew or equipment visible: During the rape scene, crew members can be seen through the legs of a bandit.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The river flows in the wrong direction in the ferry scene. After crossing the river while traveling generally northeast to southwest, toward the Indian Nations, the river should flow from left to right.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The use of metallic cartridge conversion revolvers that did not exist until well after the war. The pistol that Wales retrieved from the ruins of his house was not offered until 1871. Other conversion guns also pop up throughout the film.
  
  

• Continuity: During his showdown with the Comancheros, the sun is behind everyone, no matter which way they're facing.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Towards the end of the film, Josey and Laura Lee exchange jokes about their respective home states. Laura Lee tells a gag about Missouri being the "show-me" state, a nickname which most people agree only dates back to the 1890s, whereas this film is set in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, in the 1860s.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Laura Lee plays the concertina, the sound doesn't match what she's playing.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The hymn "In the Sweet By and By" wasn't published until 1867.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Near the end of the film when Wales is fighting the posse outside the house, you can see the legs of a C-stand when a man from Terrill's gang falls off a horse.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: The cart has a square hole that the crew uses to drive the cart instead of Granny and the girl. It is obviously driving the cart not the women. It also disappears and reappears.
  
  
• Factual errors: A Gatling gun holds either 20 or 50 rounds, but Josey fires way more, not to mention the soldiers before him.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Redleg leader is shooting at the Gatling gun, he fires 4 shots. When he runs over to the Gatling gun tent and points his gun in it, you can see all six lead balls sticking out of the front of the cylinder.
  
  
• Continuity: After the bounty hunters are killed by Josey and Terrill, he spits on the forehead on one of the dead men who's eyes are closed, then it shows him again as they ride away and the dead man's eyes are open.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Camera shadow on Ten Bear's horse as he rides out of the camp to meet Josey.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Near the end, after the old lady comments about freeloaders from Kansas, a camera shadow is seen when a guy falls off his horse in the last shoot out.
  
  
• Continuity: When Josey frees Laura Lee and Granny from Commancheros he cuts the ropes binding their hands and you can see Laura Lee's wrists have rope burns from being pulled along. A short time later at Blood Butte, Laura Lee tells Josey dreams are like clouds across a sky-blue mind, and her wrists show no burns at all.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the scene where the two men with rifles have Jose they are using trapdoor Springfield rifles that weren't even made till 1866 a year after the civil war ended. It is unlikely at that time that anyone but the army had them.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Josey and an injured Jamie are confronted by a pair of hunters who happen upon them, a gunfight ensues, leaving their would-be captors dead on the ground. To demonstrate his contempt for them, Josey spits chewing tobacco onto the forehead of one of the now dead men. The now thoroughly dead gunman flinches slightly as the tobacco hits him.
  
  
• Errors in geography: When Josie goes to the cabin of Lone Watie there are black tail deer antlers on the wall. These deer live on the West Coast, not in the area of Missouri or surrounding area.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The fiddle that provided the music for dancing at the ranch was fitted with a chin-piece, which was not used until the twentieth century.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The Gatling guns shown during the massacre of the surrendering confederates are not Civil War period versions of that weapon. The Model 1861 Gatling was a .58 caliber weapon firing from individually loaded brass or steel chambers which were fed into the receiver via a hopper or chute attached to the side of the gun's housing. As a result, the gun's rate of fire was significantly slower than is shown in in the film. The guns shown in the movie were models of 1867 or later, which were chambered for fixed ammunition, usually 45/70 and fed through a stick magazine on the top of the weapon's receiver.
  
  
• Anachronisms: At one point in the movie there is a soldier playing a 5 string open-back banjo claw-hammer style in the back-ground. Shadows through the leather head of the banjo can be seen. Even though the banjo started to evolve in the late 1840s, the open-back banjo was invented by Arthur Windsor in England after 1887 and "frailing" (claw-hammer style picking) did not become popular until the late 1800s'.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Josie has bought supplies, he is recognized and a gunfight ensues. Josie and Lone Watie kill several Union soldiers. However, a few moments later, as Josie escapes on horseback, the same Union soldiers he just killed are seen rushing into the street to stare after him.
  
  

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