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Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, and Helen Walker in Nightmare Alley (1947)

Goofs

Nightmare Alley

Edit

Continuity

During Stan's cab ride away from Lilith's apartment, the Chicago Theater is visible in the rear projection behind the car. After several more minutes of driving, the cab turns around in front of the same theater.
There's a closeup of Zeena spreading out 6 Tarot cards on a table; Stan's left hand is on the edge of the table next to the 6th card. The next shot shows Zeena in a seated position, and Stan is leaning over the table with his left hand on the edge of the table behind Zeena, nowhere near the Tarot cards.

Factual errors

When Stan looks up Lilith Ritter's number in the huge thick Chicago phone book, the last names run from Ris to Sar in just two columns of a single page.

Crew or equipment visible

(at around 6 mins) A shadow of what appears to be the camera can be seen as it pans over the back of the crowd.

Character error

The recording machine that creates a major plot point is a Wilcox-Gay disc cutter that could record at 78 or 33 rpm on a maximum disk size of ten inches. It cut at a fixed 96 lines per inch. Unfortunatly those specs limited recording time to about 3 minutes at 78 rpm and only a bit more at 33. A real professional would have used something like a Presto which cut 12-inch discs or a broadcasting machine like a Scully that could cut 16-inch disks. Even the FBI used disk cutters in pairs so one could begin recording when the others had used up all their blank disk surface. A much more likely device would have been a wire recorder which despite its limited fidelity could record speech for an hour. These units were not cheap but Dr. Ritter was obviously wealthy. Her Wilcox-Gay recorder had a retail price at that time of about $100.00 and was among the lowest-priced recorders sold.
Zeena pronounces "tarot" as "tah-rut" and not "tah-row".

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Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, and Helen Walker in Nightmare Alley (1947)
Top Gap
By what name was Nightmare Alley (1947) officially released in Japan in Japanese?
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