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Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man (1976)

Goofs

Marathon Man

Edit

Continuity

As Doc approaches LeClerc's shop, he passes a girl in a green sweater. When he leaves the shop a few minutes later, the same girl passes him, still going in the same direction.
When Professor Biesenthal asks the students the question about the Tennyson quote, Babe is seen writing the answer on his desk table. In the close-up, he is writing the answer on the back of his notebook.
When Babe and Elsa are outside Szell's brother's house, the sky changes back and forth from cloudy/hazy to sunny and blue a number of times.
During the car chase between Rosenblum and Szell's brother, the cars pass through Park Avenue twice.
When Doc and Babe first meet, Babe is asleep. After he wakes up, he asks Doc what time it is, and Doc says it is about midnight. The two room windows in the background show bright sunlight.

Factual errors

Szell's brother and Rosenbaum crash their cars into a fuel oil tanker truck, which explodes and then covers the street with a flaming oil spill. Although flammable, especially when sprayed or vaporized, home heating oil is not explosive in the manner depicted.
In the diamond shop, the Auschwitz victim that Szell eventually slashes had his Auschwitz tattoo on the outside of his wrist. Auschwitz tattoos for Jewish inmates were generally on the forearm.
When the father's body is shown after his suicide with the pistol, the hammer on the pistol is down. When one shoots a pistol, the hammer remains in the cocked position until the last round when the slide remains retracted.
The Colt .45 Commander that was used was supposedly a souvenir from World War II. It's distinguished by the shorter barrel and slide and the hammer is in the shape of a ring and not a hook as is on the military M1911A1. The Commander wasn't introduced until 1949 and it was almost strictly produced for the civilian market.
In the flashback scene of their father's suicide, the Colt .45 Commander used had its hammer closed after he shot himself. The hammer would have been in the fully cocked position after firing and can only be closed manually.

Incorrectly regarded as goofs

At Central Park Zoo, Elsa incorrectly spells the French word "phoque" ("seal") as "foc". However, this actually makes sense considering the later reveal that she is actually German and therefore likely not as familiar with French as someone from Switzerland.
When Elsa and Babe are at the zoo, she says the French word for "penguin" is "pengwan" (approximating French pronunciation; it is actually closer to "manchot"), "penguin" being more along the lines of a puffin. However, this actually makes sense considering the later reveal that she is actually German and therefore likely not as familiar with French as someone from Switzerland.

Revealing mistakes

At the film's beginning, the radio announcer notes "unusually" high temperatures, and the owner of the Impala is angry that his a/c does not work. However, he is wearing a sweater, which would suggest a cooler day. Also, the man who is guiding the fuel oil truck into the street before the crash is wearing heavy jacket, which would also suggest a much cooler day. It is later reported that this was Yom Kippur, which occurs at the beginning of fall, when a hot day is still very possible in New York City.
After Szell stabs himself to his grave, he slowly removes the knife, but there is no blood on the knife blade.
The man helping the fuel oil truck driver back up into the street exhales condensation, indicating that the weather is cold. This is despite the fact that a radio announcer has previously stated that the weather is unseasonably warm.
When Doc "breaks" into Babe's apartment, Babe grabs a flashlight and shines it around the room. It is clearly on a fixed mount for the camera as the beam is way too steady as it's shown being moved around the room.

Miscellaneous

When Babe meets up with Elsa after narrowing escaping Janeway and Szell's men, as he runs up to her car you can see in the distance on the movie marquee the movie that was playing was JAWS. Roy Scheider who stared in the film also was playing as Babe's brother, Doc in this film.
If Szell's brother was such an important link for his diamond retrieval, he should have invested in a better car for him. Then the beginning would have been moot.

Audio/visual unsynchronised

The jewelry salesman who recognizes Szell shouts angrily "I know who you are, you murderer! I know who you are!" before Szell kills him with his retractable knife. Though we can still hear him speaking when the scene cuts to Szell slicing his throat, his lips aren't moving.
During Janeway's interview of Babe after Doc's murder, he asks him what Doc did for a living. With his back to the camera, Babe answers "He was in the oil business," but he is taking a drink of wine.

Crew or equipment visible

During the master shot of the first dental torture scene, you can clearly see the "marks" - a T-shape of tape on the floor - where one of the thugs is to stand in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
Cameraman is reflected in the window of a passing car when Chen is standing at the pinball machine.
After Doc flees the Opera, when we see him in the Grecian temple, dolly tracks are clearly visible on the floor. As the camera dollies in, we lose sight of them but Doc obviously high-steps over the tracks.
When Chen is attempting to garrote Doc in his Paris hotel room, the blood pack attached to the back of Doc's hand is clearly visible.

Errors in geography

Dr. Szell is supposed to be living in Uruguay before going to New York. We see shots of what is supposed to be Uruguay which show people traveling in canoes through the jungle, but in Uruguay there is no jungle.

Boom mic visible

Shadow of boom mic on Babe's torso as he's running on the bridge after his escape.

Character error

As Chen approaches Doc in his Parisian hotel room, Doc puts his right hand reflexively up to his face, as if anticipating Chen's garrote. However, he actually does not know Chen is behind him.

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Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man (1976)
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