Goofs

When Peppy bumps into George Valentin, she had dropped her small black bag and picked it up. The bag is not in her hands in the next scene but then reappears.

Early on when Peppy dances through her quickie audition, she places her purse on the ground to her right. In the next cut, with the surrounding ground space in full view, the purse is nowhere to be seen. Then, with the dance done, the purse reappears.

The mic disappears during Peppy's interview and then reappears.

In the restaurant where Peppy is giving an interview, there is a shot from behind where the person wearing the headset has just one ear covered by the headset. In the next shot from the front, both his ears are covered.

When Peppy and George meet again on the stairs in the studio office, after she gives him her phone number, George walks down the stairs. When he's almost at the bottom step, Peppy whistles at him and does a little dance routine and throws him a kiss. In the next wide shot, George is standing almost on the top step again, where he was standing while they were having their conversation.

A fire due to burning cellulose nitrate film would have produced a lot of toxic gas. George likely would have died from smoke inhalation long before the dog could have gotten the policeman to come to his rescue.

On the back page of Variety is full-page ad for Coca-Cola; ads in this trade paper were always for show biz-related concerns (studios, stars, agencies, upcoming productions) but never for traditional consumer products like soft drinks, cigarettes, cars, etc.

Both Peppy's and Valentin's new films are set to open on Oct. 25, 1929. Before Opening Night, Valentin gets the newspaper regarding the Stock Market Crash of 1929 in which he states that he will be fine financially as long as his film is a hit. The stock market crash of 1929 didn't occur until October 29, 1929, four days after the scheduled openings of both films. Valentin would have known by then if his new film was a hit.

The pair of white porcelain Art Deco figurines, often seen behind Doris and used as a metaphor for Doris and George's relationship, aren't actually Art Deco or French, but made in Devon in the late 1970s by master ceramist Rod Hill.

She tells her director that she is blackmailing him, but she is actually bribing him.

During the montage of films starring Peppy Miller, the spelling of her name on the movie posters changes from Pepi to Peppy. This may be deliberate; it is not uncommon for those with small parts to have their names misspelled.

In the hospital (1930 or 1931), Calvin Coolidge is pictured in a photo-portrait on a wall. Coolidge left the presidency in 1929. However, that fact does not imply that his photo-portrait would never be seen on walls.

It is correct that the SMPTE leader shown did not come into use until television, but the writer says it should be Academy leader (Start..11..10..etc). This was not put into use until after 1930. The earliest sound films had a "Start" frame, but then just 12 feet of black film until the picture began.

In the movie-within-the-movie shown at the beginning, Valentin's character is being tortured by the application of electrical shocks. While the "Russian" labels on the gauge and rheostat do refer to voltage and current (in what appears to be grammatically incorrect Russian), the the panel to the left of the gauge refers (in English) to "Washwater Pressure," and the gauge itself is marked (in English), showing pressure in pounds per square inch.

However, the audience should remember that this film is an homage to silent movies and that revealing mistakes and other inaccuracies can be intentional.

(at around 4 mins) When George watches the film in the theater, the on-screen car has the driver on the left-hand side. As he is standing behind the screen, the image should be reversed with the driver on the right side. It also can be made out that the license plate numbers are not reversed.

When George sees the large marquee for Peppy Miller's movie Beauty Spot, the beauty spot on her image is on the wrong side of her face.

During the electrocution scene in the movie-within-a-movie ("A Russian Affair"), closeups of the control panel show an odd mixture of Russian and English labels. For example, the label for the push-buttons reads "Washwater Flow."

When George meets Peppy for the first time, he is surrounded by reporters and photographers. One reporter has the typical "PRESS" card stuck in his hat brim, but the typeface is Helvetica, which was not introduced until 1958.

In the film within a film at the beginning, the characters escape in an airplane called a Ryan ST. This plane was not built until 1934, well after the film is set.

In all of the films screened, the THE END title dissolves onto the screen, either over the action or as a separate card. This practice did not begin until the early 1940s; prior to that, all films simply faded to black, then faded in on the end title (the only exceptions being gags, such as a character walking onscreen holding a sign reading THE END).

Women's fashions changed a great deal from 1927 to 1932; however, Peppy's wardrobe appears to remain in 1927. By 1932, hems were mid-calf and waistlines were at the natural waist.

When a poster is shown of new talents of the sound era in 1929, actress Lucille Ricksen is among those listed. Ricksen was, in fact, a silent screen actress who died in 1925.