Goofs

When Rosie and Ben meet on the train, the train passes the same water tower and countryside twice.

After the parade that greets Shaw coming back from Korea, and as Shaw takes off for Washington, the narrator says Shaw saved 9 of his fellow soldiers and Captain Marco. That would mean there were a total of 11 men in the combat patrol.

However, there were only 10 men in the patrol shown in Yen Lo's briefing to the Communist Party members, including Marco and Shaw themselves. Of those 10, Shaw killed two during the briefing, Ed Mavole and Bobby Lembeck, reducing the number from 10 to 8. Therefore the most that Shaw could have saved would have been 6 plus Marco and himself, not the 9 claimed for Shaw's Medal of Honor.

When Marco spots Shaw's Congressional Medal of Honor among the papers and debris on the floor. He reaches down and retrieves the medal from within the pile with his right hand but when the camera comes in for a close-up, the medal has suddenly switched to Marco's left hand.

Rosie lights a cigarette and gives it to Marco on the train. He smokes it, then stamps it out, then is seen smoking it again, then finishes grinding it out. The long shots don't match the closeups.

When Marco and Rosie are talking on the train, the camera occasionally switches to close ups and we only see one head. Both are lit so a strong shadow is on one side of the head and a weaker one is on the other. In Marco's case the strong shadow is on the left as we look; which means Rosie's strong shadow should be on the right as we look, for she stands opposite Marco. However, the shadows are the same for both people, as if they stood on the same spot in relation to the lights' positions.

The narration states that only 77 men were awarded the Medal of Honor in the Korean war while in fact there were 145 recipients.

When told to "lend Raymond his pistol", Marco reaches into his holster and produces a Walther P38. The standard pistol for the US Army in Korea was the Colt Model 1911 A1.

Marco's dress uniform coat has two discrepancies: he wears no ribbon for the National Defense Service Medal, to which every Korean War veteran was entitled; and even though he has been assigned to Washington, D.C., for some time, he continues to wear his previous 24th Infantry Division patch on his left shoulder instead of the Military District of Washington patch.

Marco, in a hotel room in uniform but with the jacket unfastened and not wearing a hat, salutes a senior office who is leaving. Not only shouldn't he have given a salute, being improperly dressed, but the officer shouldn't have returned it.

When Major Marco reads two Medal of Honor citations at the end of the movie from the book The Compact History of the United States Army, they seem to match two World War I recipients (Daniel R. Edwards and Nelson M. Holderman) but are not the real medal citations.

As in just about every other movie ever filmed, the Medal of Honor is incorrectly referred to as the Congressional Medal of Honor. There is no such thing as the Congressional Medal of Honor. Even though the Medal of Honor is awarded by an act of congress, referring to it as the Congressional Medal of Honor is entirely incorrect. This mistake has become so prevalent that there is even a Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

Although it is officially and technically called the "Medal of Honor", it is often colloquially referred to as the "Congressional Medal of Honor", and the very existence of the Congressional Medal of Honor society bears this out.

When Marco visits Raymond Shaw in the hotel room and brings the forced deck of cards, he says to Shaw "How about passing the time by playing a little solitaire?" However Marco had never heard this line being used before and therefore had no way of knowing that it triggers Shaw's programming.

Marco is part of the team that has been studying brainwashing techniques and has figured out that the Queen of Diamonds is the trigger; it's not inconceivable they also discovered some of the typical phraseologies used in order to begin the process.

When Raymond goes to Thomas Jordan's home to kill him, Jordan asks Raymond what he has in his hand and Raymond replies "A pistol, sir". However, Raymond is holding a revolver, which is distinct from a pistol.

While this may be technically true, revolvers and any handguns are often referred to as pistols in everyday language.

In the cab, Rosie tells Marco that she gave her fiance his ring back. But previously on the train, when she lights Marco's cigarette, she's not wearing any rings.

Just because she's not wearing any rings does not mean he hadn't given her one, and considering the theories surrounding this character, there may not even have been a fiance in the first place.

When instructing Zilkov on how to use Raymond, he stated that whenever he's used Raymond is to be instructed to forget the murders he commits. However, after killing Senator and Jocelyn Jordan, Raymond is crying from remorse as he walks into the street.

It's possible that this part of the instructions were forgotten when issued by Raymond's mother, or that this is a sign that the brainwashing was not as effective as originally thought.

In Shaw's flashback of the summer with Josie Jordan, he is seen eating a meal with Josie and Senator Jordan. Halfway through the shot, it is simply reversed. You then see Shaw removing a piece of meat from his mouth with a fork and attaching it back to the meat on his plate with a knife.

The marquee over Madison Square Garden shows that the hockey and basketball seasons have begun. These do not take place until October, far too late for any party's convention.

Long shots of the convention floor use stock footage from different conventions, with delegates' placards sometimes white, sometimes black.

When Captain Marco is shown a photo of the Communist official Gomel at the birthday party, the first two views of the photo shows the little boy to Gomel's left and the girl to his right. As they cut away and come back for our third view, the boy is to the right and the little girl is on the left. The image has been reversed.

You can see the countryside passing by outside the train window. It's obvious that the actors are not really being filmed on a moving train, but the footage of the moving landscape was shot at an angle. So the camera that's aimed directly towards the window depicts a landscape that's bizarrely moving away from the train on an angle.

In the opening sequence, set in 1952, the bar in Korea has a US flag with 50 stars. In 1952, the US included only 48 states, and the flag had only 48 stars. There are also some 50-star flags alongside period correct 48-star flags during the convention scenes.

The live TV cameras in the senate hearing and press conference carry the NBC logo used at the time the film was made, not the logo used at the time the story takes place.

When Dr. Yen Lo makes his little "yak dung" joke he parodies the famous Winston cigarettes advertising jingle that it "tastes good like a cigarette should". This product and slogan weren't introduced until 1954, a year after the war ended. The novel had the same error.

After the fight between Marco and Chunjin in 1954, one title on the movie marquee shows Pirates of Tortuga (1961), which was not released until 1961.

When Raymond and Marco exit Jilly's Bar, the marquee for LEONARD SILLMAN presents NEW FACES at the Alvin Theatre is visible. The only NEW FACES production at the Alvin Theatre was NEW FACES OF 1962.

When Rosie picks up Ben at the police station, you can clearly see an actor in the background with no pants on trying to sneak out of the scene.

As Raymond Shaw descends the stairs to enter Jilly's Bar, the camera and crew can be seen reflected in the plate glass door.

The camera's shadow is visible on the bust of Abraham Lincoln.

Shaw's and Marco's journeys through Central Park do not accurately reflect the real layout of the famous park.

When Gaines's secretary gives him the news from the teletype, the boom mic shadow moves in the upper left corner.

Senator Jordan tells Mrs. Iselin that he will begin "impeachment proceedings on the floor of the Senate" against Johnny Iselin if he tries for the vice-presidential nomination. Iselin similarly threatens to have Jordan impeached. First, impeachment proceedings begin in the House of Representatives. Second, Senators can be expelled, but not impeached.

While speaking on the Senate floor, Iselin addresses the chair as "Mr. Speaker"; the presiding officer of the US Senate is the "President" (a post officially held by the Vice President), not the "speaker", thus the form of address is "Mr. President".

Rosie tells Marco "I live on 54th Street, a few doors from The Modern Museum of Art". She should have said "The Museum of Modern Art".

Shaw's character wears the stripes of a Sergeant First Class on both his fatigue uniform in Korea and his dress uniform coat when returning to the U.S., although he is referred to in the film as "Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw," which is actually one rank lower than the stripes he wears.

When the colonel comes to put Ben on sick leave Ben first calls him "Mickey" and then in the next breath he calls him "Milt" He seems to be unsure of his name.