Goofs

On the train journey, when Billy is getting on the train, 35'23", the engine number is revealed as 31874, when the train is required to go into blackout, 36'45", however, when the train is shown coming round the corner it is now engine number 75078.

When David, in the wheelchair, finds Henry's photos of the faux aircraft, he couldn't have seen what was on the film. Sutherland did not have time to develop the film.

In the scene where Lucy is getting away in the truck, we see it has normal peace-time headlights, not the black-out ones during the war.

Donald Sutherland is seen riding a motor bike registration LSP93 issue in Fife in 1954 but the film is set in 1944.

According to British intelligence, "in the '20s, The Needle was a cadet at the war school in Metz." Metz was a German city from 1871 to 1919, and had indeed a "Kriegsschule" but was returned to France in 1919. (The mistake was already in the novel by Ken Follett)

The opening credits roll over scenes of British soldiers at a train station and in the background is a truck with US Army markings. After the credits, there is a title card marked "London 1940". However, the US wouldn't enter the war for another year so there shouldn't be any US military vehicles present.

The US was sending materiel,under the Lend-Lease agreement, before entering the war.

The final aerial shot in the North American version must have been not-too-carefully reversed: the shot is flying away from the beach and up and around the lighthouse, and smoke is going *down* the chimney.

When Billy Parkins gets off the plane, the insignia on the side of the American C-47 aircraft is British, but it has a wrinkle in it and appears to be just a cloth overlay instead of being painted on.

Other then in Burma, and a bit of Coast Guard work, Helicopters were not around in Military use (or few others for that matter) in 1944. That model was not flown by the RAF until 1953.

When The Needle goes to the base where all the mock-ups are, the Jeep the MPs are riding is a Willys Model M-38, which was not manufactured until 1950.

The car which is driven by David Rose on the island is a German 4WD type DKW Munga, which was built after the war between 1956 and 1968.

Several of the trains shown in the film are in British Railways livery but British Railways was not formed until 1948.

Just before ditching the stolen motor cycle Faber crossed Connel Bridge near Oban. In the period of the film it was a railway and road bridge, and there were no signs of railway lines. (In the 1960s it was also a toll bridge.)

When Faber is trying to get into the house he says "I'm not going to hurt you Lucy, I promise, but I am coming in" we see him reaching up for the bolt as he finishes this line and his lips are not moving.

When David & Lucy's MG TA goes off the road an incendiary/smoke effect is already burning/smoking where the car is about to crash to the ground.