Goofs for
The English Patient (1996) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: Amount of water in the glass handed to Count Laszlo upon arriving at the army poster after walking out of the desert.
  
  
• Continuity: As Hana reads the note Almasy has written on the Christmas cracker paper - "the heart is an organ of fire" - we see that it is dated only "December 22". However, when we see Almasy originally writing the note in flashback, we see him date it "December 22nd 1938".
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of the film after Katherine dies the Count rubs saffron over her face from the thimble around her neck. When we see her afterwards, her face is clean.
  
  

• Anachronisms: A British sergeant wears a Sunderland Football Club scarf with a logo not designed until the 1970s.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: After Hana washes her hair she places a lamp on a table behind her, but her shadow is projected onto the wall behind the lamp.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the Tobruk interrogation center, the German officer wears the shoulder boards of a major and the SS collar insignia of a full colonel.
  
  
• Factual errors: German paratroops did not land via parachute in North Africa until late 1942. The fall of Tobruk was in summer 1942. Also, the German paratroopers are shown descending with a kit bag attached by a line to one leg. This was a British and American technique, not used by the Germans.
  
  
• Factual errors: Major Muller is wearing the rank insignia of SS-Standartenfuehrer, which is equivalent to full colonel.
  
  
• Factual errors: Extras in the Cairo market are wearing burnooses (hooded robes). These are worn in Tunisia (where the Egyptian scenes in the film were shot), but not in Egypt.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When an Egyptian worker hits his head on the overhanging wall of the cave, the rock flexes.
  
  
• Continuity: The headset Kip wears as he sweeps the road for mines disappears and reappears between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: The fuse on the bomb physically changes between shots while Kip works on it. And, in the extreme close-up of the wires being cut, just one connected wire is seen.
  
  
• Continuity: Hana sweeps her wet hair off her forehead as she talks to Caravaggio; in the next shot, the hair is back on her forehead.
  
  
• Continuity: Hana lays on a cot, an IV in her arm, donating blood. But when she rises off the cot just as the shelling begins in the next shot, the IV is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: The hair Katharine twirls and pins to her head at the campfire shifts position between shots, as does her shawl.
  
  
• Continuity: Hana reads to Almasy the letter a dying Katharine wrote to him, which he keeps in his book. Yet, when we actually see her reading from it, the letter is not in the book.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The music that Hanna plays on the bomb-rigged piano does not correspond with the keys that she is actually playing.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Almasy and Madox are walking through the market discussing the impending war, the camera's shadow can be seen clearly on two extras crossing in the close foreground.
  
  
• Factual errors: The flash and the sound of the explosion that kills Hardy reach the monastery at the same time, despite the distance.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The intervals of lightening seen as Kip, Caravaggio and Hardy carry Almásy around the well are too quick for a thunderstorm.
  
  
• Continuity: Kip is buttoning his shirt from the top down as he darts past Hana while leaving the barn. When he turns to face her a moment later, the buttons he buttoned are unbuttoned and two lower buttons are buttoned.
  
  
• Anachronisms: American flags with 50 stars being waved by those on tanks instead of 48 in 1945.
  
  
• Continuity: Just after Katherine pretends to faint at the Christmas party, we see Almasy remove his red paper crown. In the next shot, as Katherine is leaving the party, Almasy removes his crown again.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Katherine's husband has taken off to take pictures for the British Army because, "They want maps of all North Africa, That's why he is in Ethiopia." Ethiopia is located in Eastern Africa, not in North Africa.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Almasy is examining maps, looking for a back way into Cairo and refers to "Bell's maps." He speaks of not trusting "his" maps. Gertrude Bell was a woman.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The registration plates on the cars in Egypt are of a layout that was not used till the 1980s. Also in 1930s a Cairo car plate would not carry more than 4 digits, not 6 as seen in the movie.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the first scene with the plane flying over sand dunes: the shadow of the wing on the plane, the shadow of the plane on the dunes, and the shadows cast by the dunes themselves suggest three different positions for the sun. The shadows of the dunes also change length and direction when the camera angle changes to behind the plane in the next shot.
  
  

• Plot holes: SPOILERS: Katharine and Almásy had begun their affair by December 1938. Germany invaded Egypt in February 1941, but were driven out of North Africa by November 1943. Almásy gave the maps to the Germans in exchange for gas so that he could fly his plane to the Cave of the Swimmmers. He is shot down after he retrieves Katharine at the Cave of the Swimmmers, and discovered by the Nomads, who care for him until they hand him over to the Canadians in 1945. Needless to say, the time line is convoluted: it is highly unlikely that Katharine and Almásy managed to keep the affair a secret for over two years or that Katharine spent two years in the cave or that the Nomads cared for Almásy for two years.
  
  
• Plot holes: SPOILERS: The British could not possibly have mistaken "Almásy" as being a German surname because Hungarian and German do not share a common ancestor. Ironically, English is a Germanic language.
  
  

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