Goofs

When the posse traps the Duke Mantee gang in the diner, at one point they shoot up the entrance door and shatter the door windows. But on the following cut when the gang is exiting with the hostages through that same door, the door windows are now intact.

When Gabby exits her room, the door swings in one direction (with the hinge to her left). When the shot shifts, the hinge is on the opposite side of the door (to her right).

When Mantee and his gang are jacking the Chisholms' car, at one point Mantee can be seen slamming the rear door shut from outside. However, in the next shot, he is inside the car.

When Mrs. Chisholm is telling Gabby about missed opportunities, she gets a reaction from Mr. Chisholm. At the end of the interaction, Mr. Chisholm rests his face on his open hand. When the angle changes in the next shot, his face is resting on his balled-up fist and knuckles.

When the Chisholms and Joseph return to the gas station, a window suddenly blows open behind Mantee. Boze flinches, the sound of the window opening is heard, and that sound is repeated when the window actually opens, shown by Mantee turning around.

Behind the the Petrified Forrest BBQ/gas station's lunch counter are open boxes of cigars. In the extremely dry conditions in that part of the desert Southwest, any such cigars would be reduced to practically dust and useless.

The newspaper headline indicates six killed and two fatally injured. Typically, a news head would would simply express "Eight Dead", and the article would detail why the two fatalities were not murders.

Near the beginning of the film where Boze is flirting with Gabrielle while she reads poetry by the gas pumps, he tells her that he has never been married. He is clearly wearing a wedding ring on his left hand.

When the posse arrives at the service station, Duke smashes out a window and begins shooting at them. About his third shot, the rifle recoils and there is the sound of the shot, followed a moment later by the hammer falling; during this, Duke's trigger finger never moves. A moment later, Duke's shot hits the rear tire on the car, which goes flat.

The only obvious location shots are in what is now Red Rock Canyon State Park in California, which is in the Mojave Desert and the site where many movie scenes were shot. Joshua trees, which don't grow near the Petrified Forest in AZ, can be seen. So this is a a minor error. The park is fun place to visit, as it has guides to where dozens and dozens of scenes were filmed.

Numerous saguaro cacti are visible in background shots. The saguaro grows only in the Sonoran Desert; the Petrified Forest is well north of the Sonoran Desert.

The Petrified Forest is not in any desert. It sits north of then Highway 66, now Interstate 40, on the Albuquerque-Flagstaff-Los Angeles road. This is nowhere near a desert. You would not have saguaro cacti growing, nor would you have violent wind storms blowing dust like in this movie. It is doubtful that it is too hot since temperatures in the Petrified Forest rarely exceed 75 degrees in the summertime and snow sits on the ground all winter.

The Sonoran Desert sits 250 miles away and still does not have weather conditions like those portrayed in this movie.

Gabrielle Maple's pronunciation of the name of the French town Bourges is incorrect (something like "Bourggs" instead of "Bourj"). To her credit, she states "I was born in 'Bourggs'. Course I left there before I was hardly able to walk, so all I know about it is from the picture postcards my mother sends me." She clearly has no recollection of her mother speaking of it.

Whether her character is being held hostage, pleading for her life or that of her poet friend, Bette Davis is smirking at inappropriate times, betraying that she was very pleased with herself and her delivery of lines at those intense cinematic moments. Davis did this time and again, in every role she ever played.