Inglourious Basterds (2009)

◄ Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Anachronisms

After Sgt. Donowitz ("The Bear Jew") kills the German soldier with the bat, he struts about shouting a "play-by-play" account of his action. During this, he uses the phrase "Donowitz goes yard!", meaning hitting a home run. The term "goes yard" was not used for a home run until the 1990s.
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As the German soldiers in the bar play the card game one of them is "Winnetou", a fictional Apache created by Karl May and a very popular book series. When he guesses his character he stands up and imitates a gesture with his arm - moving it away from his heart saying "I am Winnetou!" This gesture was used first by actor Pierre Brice playing Winnetou in Treasure of Silver Lake.
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Lt. Archie Hicox uses the phrase "Paris, when it sizzles," which was a lyric from Cole Porter's play "Can-Can" ("I Love Paris"), not written until the 1950s. Porter coined the phrase, he didn't just adopt it from general usage.
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Shoshanna's red dress worn has "invisible" plastic coil zippers inserted in the sleeve ends and center back, a technology that did not exist during WW2. Invisible zippers are a clean solution but no doubt, the designer didn't anticipate a close up of the inside sleeve, nor the evidential zipper pull at the dress center back.
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When Mélanie Laurent is updating the sign outside the cinema, the red characters are see-through, and she throws them at a stack from the top of the ladder. This implicates they are made from a see-through, hard to break material like poly-carbonate. These characters would not have been available during WWII.
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At various times during the movie the distinctive enamel decorated Perrier-Jouet cuvée Belle Epoque champagne bottle is shown. Although this bottle design was created in 1902 by Emile Galle it was quickly forgotten. In 1964, Pierre Ernst discovered four of these bottles and the design was re-released two years later to celebrate the seventieth birthday of Duke Ellington.
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In the opening scenes at the farmhouse, it can be clearly seen that the fields have been farmed using mechanized farm equipment - the crop marks from spraying from tractors, for instance. Rural France before the 1960s in general and during the war in particular, was not mechanized in any meaningful way until an influx of wealth from Great Britain and Germany via the Common Agricultural Policy of the Common Market/European Community/European Union. It would all have been horse drawn or manual.
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During close-ups of Lt. Aldo Raine as he's addressing the eight Jewish-American soldiers, an ear piercing hole is clearly seen in his left earlobe. Men, especially soldiers, did not pierce their ears in the 1940s.
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The movie theater is lit entirely by fluorescent lighting; such technology was unavailable during World War II except for the war effort (i.e. lighting factories).
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Shosanna is introduced working on her marquee in Paris, "4 years later". Yet this occurs in 1944 and the previous scene in 1941. That's 3 years, not 4.
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In the opening scene the small convoy winds up the road to the farm house, all the fields can be seen to be modern crops - not pasture as suggested in the plot - with 'tramlines' where modern sprayers have driven through the wheat, clearly visible.
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The scene of the killing of Shoshanna's family, in the opening sequence of this film, is set in May, 1941 - one year into the German occupation of France. In reality, however, the rounding-up of French Jews in the German occupation zone of France only commenced in mid-1942, and the rounding-up of French Jews in the Vichy controlled zone of France commenced in 1943. Thus, the Dreyfus's execution in this film happens more than a year earlier than what it would have in reality, depending on what zone of France the family was hiding in.
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In the opening sequence of the film, which is set in the year 1941, The SS Colonel refers posthumously to Reinhard Heydrich, "The Hangman," in his conversation with the French farmer and mentions that he had been assassinated; however, Heydrich was attacked and mortally wounded on the 27th of May, 1942, and died a week later on the 4th of June, 1942 - a year later than the time in which this scene of the film is set.
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Character error

When the Lieutenant meets the General and Sir Winston Churchill, the strings are hanging out of his beret which is the French style, not the American or British style (unless the Director was trying to show the character's lack of military bearing.)
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When Lt. Hicox says "And seeing as I might be rapping on the door momentarily", he uses "momentarily" in the sense of "in a moment". In the British English of the time, "momentarily" would have exclusively meant "for a moment", so he would not have used that word.
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When Eric (the bartender) hands a glass to Bridget, he calls her "Frau" instead of "Fräulein." "Frau" implies she is married and/or elderly, which Bridget isn't.
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When the British soldier Lt. Archie Hicox is introduced to his superiors, he is instructed to "stand at ease" which is still a formal position, but Hicox "stands easy", which allows him to relax arms and move the feet.
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Hugo Stiglitz is shown slowly sharpening his knife. At the end of each stroke there is an ominous "shhhlick" sound as he twists the blade with a flick. This would actually remove the edge he is attempting to sharpen, and dull the blade.
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When Lt. Raine is speaking to his general over the radio, the general ends the transmission by saying, "Over and out." This is incorrect radio protocol in the U.S. military. The proper procedure is for the person ending the transmission to simply say, "Out."
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During Adolf Hitler's first appearance we see a map of Europe and where Turkey is supposed to be, reads "Osmanien" (written in Fraktur, making the "s" look like a "t"). The Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1923 and Turkey was established in that region, approximately 20 years before when this movie is supposed to be taking place.
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Lt Aldo Raine is wearing the 1st Special Service Force unit insignia, yet later he is referred to as a "Secret Service" officer. Raine could be called a "Special Service" or a "Strategic Service" (OSS) officer, but not "Secret Service", which is the organization founded in 1865 and responsible for guarding the US President since 1894.
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Fenech salutes with no head dress on, which is incorrect British military custom.
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When Lt. Raine introduces himself, he claims he took part in the invasion of Sicily. However, the map shown behind Adolf Hitler shows an incorrect representation of Axis forces/control for the time (showing North Africa and Sicily as still under Axis control).
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In the opening credits for the film within the film Stolz der Nation, the name Josef Goebbels is misspelled "Goebbles".
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Lt. Aldo Raine says he is from the Smoky Mountains, and later from Maynardville, Tennessee. Maynardville is not actually in the Smoky Mountains, but in one of the East Tennessee valleys between the mountains (some distance north of the Smoky Mountains).
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When Landa arrives at Lapadite's farm, one of his subordinates refers to him as "Herr Oberst". As an SS officer, Landa would not be addressed using an Army rank. His correct title would be "Standartenführer".
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Landa says to Lapadite that Hitler fetched him from Austria. But Austria was a part of the German Reich at the time and was called "Ostmark".
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Continuity

The Brigitte Horney card on Archie Hilcox's forehead changes direction in between takes.
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After Mathilda has taken Bridget's place to join the quiz game with the soldiers, bartender Eric leaves the counter and walks over to assist her. He is shown standing left behind her. Then the camera cuts to the officers' table. In the background Eric is shown standing behind the counter again.
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When Lt Raine is speaking to the Basterds and says "We're into one thing", he is standing at the right side (Samm Levine's) of the formation. An instant later, when he says "Killin' Nazis", he is at the other end.
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The level of beer in the glass, shaped like a boot, of the Nazi-officer in the basement pub, changes between shots.
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When Shosanna is on the ladder for the second time, before the Germans come to take her, she is cleaning black letters. She cleans 2 different letters, one of them a 'u', another one, and the 'l' remains uncleaned. The next shot you can see only the 'l' has been cleaned.
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When Shosanna first meets Zoller, she is taking the red letters of the board at the cinema and throwing them down to a canvas sheet on the ground. The letters move around on the canvas throughout the scene when the camera angles shows Zoller from above.
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In the ditch scene, while Lt. Aldo Raine questions the first of his three German prisoners Sgt. Werner Rachtmann, the latter's Close Combat clasp (worn over his left breast pocket) appears and disappears between scenes.
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In the bar, when Dieter Hellstrom has successfully found out that King Kong was on his playing card, he takes the card off and puts it on the table. In the next shot, filming Cpl. Wicki over the shoulder of Hellstrom, the playing card is still on the forehead of Hellstrom.
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Near the beginning of the film, when Hans Landa is talking to Perrier LaPadite, there is a moth that visibly lands on Landa's glass and climbs to the top of it. When the camera angle changes, the moth is gone.
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La Padite starts his pipe and it should produce a decent billow of smoke to some of the air, but he soon puts it down and there is no trace of smoke anywhere in the small farmhouse.
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In the café scene in which Landa sits across from Raine and Utivich, one of the black studs on Raine's tuxedo shirt is missing but appears in the next shot.
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When Sgt. Donowitz (a.k.a. The Bear Jew) beats the captured Nazi to death under the bridge, we see blood on the ground near the corpse, but when it switches to an overhead shot, the blood has disappeared.
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When Landa orders the strudels, the server first puts the milk on the table, at which point the espresso is on the server's plate. In the next shot, the espresso is on the table already.
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In the first chapter, Col. Landa's peaked hat is missing the Silver Braid just above the brim. In later chapters, the braid is attached to the hat.
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In the first scene, when Perrier's daughter is spreading a sheet over a clothesline, a clothespin appears on the sheet between shots.
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During Col. Landa's conversation with M. LaPadite in the farmhouse, Col. Landa empties his glass of milk and places it on the table. But just as he switches from speaking French to English, the empty glass of milk is in distinctly different locations for the next few series of shots.
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When Colonel Landa approaches Bridget Von Hammersmark at the premiere the camera shows her with her hands on her hips as she says, "Colonel Landa, it's been years. Dashing as ever I see". In the very next shot she and Landa are holding hands when they kiss on the cheek.
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As the conversational confrontation between Hicox and Hellstrom gets more and more heated in the basement tavern, there is a scene where Hicox's right hand is in an arched position on the table, but the next scene it's flat and not visible. This happens a couple of times.
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The second time the waitress scoops up some of the cream, it falls off of the fork, but still ends up on Landa's dessert.
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In the final scene, Landa is handcuffed by Utivich, but when he is being "marked" by Raine, his hands are free and gripping the soil.
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When Hans Landa is talking to Shoshanna after ordering strudel for her he offers her a cigarette and lights one for himself. His cigarette doesn't appear to be lit when he removes his lighter but in the next shot there is half an inch of ash on it.
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Errors in geography

After the basement bar fight, Landa identifies one of the basterds as Cpl. Wicki, stating/implying that he was a German jew who emigrated to the US before the war. However, Wicki is neither a 'typical' jewish name, nor a German name but in fact a typical (and fairly common) name in Central Switzerland. If he was a Swiss Jew, Wicki would have most probably fled to Switzerland, but Landa doesn't mention anything in this direction concerning Wicki's family name and fate, which seems improbable since Wicki is a foreign sounding name to Germans and since Landa cares to show off his military intelligence.
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Factual errors

At the premier, Pvt. Zoller is in his full dress uniform with all his decorations. He wears the Knight's Cross with oak leaves, swords, and cut diamonds around his neck and the Iron Cross 2nd class on his chest. However, conspicuously absent is the Iron Cross 1st class, which he certainly would've worn to the occasion (see where Adolf Hitler wears his), and which is necessary to receive the Knight's Cross. Without the 1st class award, he could not have received a Knight's Cross let alone with oak leaves, swords, and cut diamonds.
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At the premiere, Pvt. Zoller wears his Knight's Cross around his neck but when in uniform in all other scenes, he is without it. The Knight's Cross was one of the highest orders the Third Reich bestowed upon soldiers and when in any uniform Zoller would have worn it around the neck.
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During the card game, Bridget's card reads "Genghis Khan". However, since the game was played entirely by Germans, they would have used the German spelling, "Dschingis Khan". (Also, when leaving the table, Bridget comments that she never would have guessed it and uses the English pronunciation, even though she's speaking German.)
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Miscellaneous

During the whole movie the character of Diane Kruger is referred as "fräulein" in the subtitles that translate the German language into English. The correct grammar would be "Fräulein", the first letter being a capital. It is a noun like Herr or Frau (Mister or Mistress).
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Incorrectly regarded as goofs

Col. Hans Landa claims the Bubonic Plague was caused by rats. However, the plague was caused by fleas on the rats, not the rats themselves. In the 1940s it was believed that rats were the cause so it is correct for Landa's character to be mistaken.
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Many of the subtitling "errors", such as "Merci" instead of "Thank You", are intentional, given that these phrases are interchangeable and can be understood without English translation.
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Archie refers to Aldo as "lootenant." Normally, a British officer would pronounce it "leftenant" among fellow British officers. Out of professional courtesy, however, British officers typically use the American pronunciation when dealing with American officers.
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The Scotch beverage is written as "whiskey". Scots write "whisky", but this is an American movie which uses American spellings.
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In the tavern scene there is a female Nazi sergeant. There were no female soldiers in the Third Reich, except of helpers for AA guns, medical orderlies, and aircraft mechanics in the Luftwaffe. However, this inaccuracy may be a subtle flourish of the wildly divergent "alternate history" which is much more obvious elsewhere in the film.
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Colonel Landa is seen in uniform and he is wearing a Nazi Party pin. The German military was specifically excluded from being party members.

Colonel Landa is an SS officer. Although members of the Wehrmacht were always expected to be apolitical the SS was the military arm of the Nazi Party, they were NOT members of the Wehrmacht.
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At the beginning of the film Perrier's daughter is hanging sheets on the line to dry; however, the sheet she is securing to the line is already dry (it isn't wet). In those days, however, people hang their sheets to air them so they didn't have to wash them so often. So dry sheets would be hung.
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Plot holes

Landa claims "you kill all four, (Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, Bormann) you win the war". He forgot someone who would have almost certainly taken over leadership of the Third Reich: Heinrich Himmler.
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Revealing mistakes

Shosanna and Zoller are talking outside the theatre. It is supposed to be June in Paris and you can see them breathing like it is winter time.
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When Aldo comes down the spiral staircase into the basement you can see the sole of one of his shoes. It is clean, smooth and unmarked. Such would not be the case for a Basterd who'd been roaming the German forests looking for Nazis.
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Stiglitz's eyelid moves several times when Landa examines him, hours after he's been killed.
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Revealing mistakes

When Col. Hans Landa's men shoot through the floor boards in LaPadite's house, the resultant bullet holes in the boards are funnel shaped, being larger in diameter at the top and smaller diameter at the bottom. In reality, the opposite would be true. The point of entry would be just a clean round hole with no funnel shape carved in the boards as seen from above the floor boards.
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Revealing mistakes

In the final theater scene, when the moviegoers are fleeing the fire and the Basterds are firing from above into the crowd, a woman extra gets shot in the back several times and when she falls forward (dead or dying, presumably), she grabs on to her hat to make sure it doesn't fall off.
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