The Godfather goofs

As Michael arrives in Las Vegas — ostensibly set in the early 1950s — he, Fredo, Tom and others alight from the car on the hotel forecourt, and through the lobby window two long-haired, bearded "hippy types" from the early '70s can be seen. (On the DVD commentary, Francis Ford Coppola admits he finds the error embarrassing, saying the shot was filmed cheaply by the second unit.)

When Michael moves his father's bed from the hospital ward into the corridor, there is a sign on the wall above Michael's shoulder that lists Robert O. Lowery as the Fire Commissioner. He served as Commissioner in the 1970s, not the 1940s — the sign should have read Patrick Walsh.

When Michael discovers his father left unprotected in hospital, he picks up the bedside telephone to alert the family. The handset is attached to a coiled cord that didn't become available until the mid to late 1950s.

When Apollonia drops her nightdress, faint tan lines from a bikini top are visible. Given her family's values, she would not have been permitted to wear a bikini.

In several scenes, wine bottles appear bearing the Italian DOC wine classification label, yet the DOC system did not come into effect until 1963.

When Capt. Mark McCluskey confronts Michael Corleone outside the hospital, a conversational female voice can be heard emanating from the police vehicles' radios. However, at that time the New York Police Department's primary radio system was limited to one-way transmissions from headquarters, with male police officers at the microphones.

In late 1945, the Empire State Building is depicted with the 222-foot television aerial, which it did not receive until 1950.

A newspaper is shown carrying an article about Don Corleone's discharge from the hospital. In the lower-right corner there is a Table Of Contents, the first item of which is "TV-Radio Listings." If TV listings existed at all in 1946, they would not have been placed ahead of radio listings.

Michael reads a New York Mirror account of his father's near-fatal brush. The page is a forgery, though it was inserted into a genuine newspaper that appears to be the NY Daily News. On the facing page there is a report about a Catholic Mass celebrated at St. Patrick's Cathedral, credited to a reporter bearing a Hispanic surname — a byline from a member of a minority community that would not have appeared in the News at that period; minorities did not attain reporter status at that paper until the late 1960s or early 1970s. Furthermore, the barely legible text in the article states the Mass was said by Terence Cardinal Cooke, who at the time was serving as a parish priest and was not made a cardinal until 1969.

While Carmela 'Mama' Corleone sings at Connie's wedding, the pianist positioned above and to our right is wearing plastic-framed spectacles characteristic of the 1970s.

As Vito is brought home in the ambulance, the kerb at the side of the road is painted yellow to indicate "no parking". However, this practice was not adopted until the 1960s.

Tom Hagen flies to California to see a film producer aboard a Lockheed Constellation. The earliest production example of the Lockheed Constellation was not produced until 1947 and only entered commercial service afterwards. Tom's flight apparently took place in 1945 ("almost 1946" according to the film's dialogue).

Woltz International Pictures' principal gate displays the rear of a car that is either a 1952 or a 1953 Chrysler.

During the scene in which Vito is brought home by ambulance, a pale yellow 1947 Lincoln Convertible is also visible. Per Hagan, however, it is meant to be a 1945 model — "almost 1946".

The accordion played in the wedding scene was an 'Excelsior' model that was not produced until the 1950s. The same applies to the 'prop' accordion seen during the shoot-out, which is shown on a chair with its bellows open. Earlier accordions did not have those features.

When Vito Corleone returns home from hospital, a newspaper headline is shown reading "Syndicate Big Shot Corleone Goes Home" and the paper's contents page displays "TV / Radio". It seems unlikely that newspapers would have carried TV listings in the 1940s.

The hairdressing, make-up, costumes, props and many elements of the set dressing generally do not match the period in which the action is meant to take place (1942) and instead look more characteristic of the early 1970's — for example, Al Pacino's long sideburns as Michael Corleone and Diane Keaton's hairstyles.

When Moe Greene utters the line "I talked to Barzini", it is clearly dubbed.

(at approximately 1 hr 29 mins) Blood can be seen on the forehead before the gunshot is fired.

When Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozzo frees the kidnapped Tom Hagen, he tells him "... and bad luck for you if you don't strike that deal!". Yet his lip movements reveal he only mouthed "... and bad luck for you!"

During the meeting, when Don Corleone is heard off-screen introducing the heads of the other families and saying where they come from, his voice is noticeably different from how it sounds in the scenes immediately before and after.

In the scene where Moe Green meets Michael, the boom microphone is plainly visible as Moe first takes his seat. A shadow also betrays a hurried movement behind the camera.

When Tom Hagen tries to dissuade Sonny from declaring war after the attempt on Vito Corleone's life, he says the Corleone family will be ostracised and that all five families will turn on them. Yet, since the Corleones are one of the five families, he should have said that the other four families would come after the Corleone family.

(at around 2h 30 mins) During the Don's funeral one of the mourners performs the sign of the cross incorrectly: he makes it Top, Right, Bottom, Left, whereas the proper sequence is Top, Bottom, Left, Right.

During a kitchen scene, gunshots ring out. Sonny's wife rushes to his side but cries out 'Jimmy' — the nickname of the actor who portrays Sonny Corleone, James Caan.

While Sonny is beating Carlo, the actor Frank Sivero can be seen watching the altercation. Sivero portrayed the young Genco Abbandando in the flashback sequences of The Godfather Part II.

As Michael Corleone departs the safe house in Sicily by car to go and meet Apollonia, the driver grazes the gate on the way out, causing a hanging ornament to come away.

As Michael walks out of the restaurant after killing Sollozzo and McCluskey, the frame gives a brief jolt as he passes, revealing that he momentarily brushes past the camera.

Tom Hagen tells his Sicilian wife about the custom whereby a father is obliged to fulfil requests on his daughter's wedding day. Teresa should already be familiar with it.

When Tom informs Vito that Sonny has died, Vito calls him "Consigliere of mine," and articulates the word phonetically — pronouncing both the g and the l. In Italian, however, with a g‑l consonant cluster the g is silent, a fact a native Sicilian would be aware of; indeed, all the other characters use the correct pronunciation.

When Clemenza steps out of the car briefly to relieve himself at the side of the road, he unwittingly stands in the line of fire aimed at Paulie, who is about to be murdered. When he returns to the car, there are two bullet holes in the windscreen on his side.

The waiter tops up Tom Hagen's glass twice within moments while he dines with Woltz.

Enzo, the baker, visits Don Corleone in hospital after he was critically wounded. He arrives carrying a large bouquet of pink carnations and baby's breath. Later, when he is standing outside the hospital with Michael, the bouquet has been replaced by a much smaller one containing orange carnations.

During Michael's meeting with Moe Green, Fredo takes off his sunglasses on two separate occasions.

During the wedding scene, shortly after Kay Adams is introduced to Tom Hagen, the cigarette in her hand vanishes and later reappears.

When Luca Brasi is killed in the pub scene, the knife is clearly driven through his left hand. However, in the next shot showing him sinking down as he is strangled, the blade appears through his right hand.

After Vito Corleone's near-fatal attack, Fredo is seated on the pavement by the front of the car and beside Vito's head. However, moments later, when passers-by move towards Vito, Fredo is missing, only to reappear in the same spot in the following shot.

While Michael tells Kay the story of Luca Brasi — the gun and the contract — he is leaning back in his chair; but when the camera cuts to Kay seated on the opposite side of the table, Michael is leaning forwards.

When Michael reads the article about his father's brush with death, he crumples it up and then dashes across the road. The paper stays crumpled in his hand as a car drives past him. After the vehicle has gone by, Michael drops the paper, and when it falls it is entirely smooth and neatly folded.

While Luca Brasi is seated outside Don Corleone's office, murmuring to himself and practising his little tribute, he is clearly wearing a rectangular-faced watch with a 'solid' strap on his left wrist. A short while later, as he offers his thanks to Don Corleone, the watch has become round-faced with a chain-link strap.

When Sonny speaks to Paulie in the meeting room and asks him to fetch some brandy for his cold, his right hand is positioned between his legs. In the next shot, Sonny's right hand is resting on top of the sofa.

When Captain Mark McCluskey intimidates Michael Corleone in the hospital, Michael's jacket appears altered between shots. As McCluskey draws his arm back to strike, Michael's jacket is open by a few inches around his tie; after the cut the jacket is fastened and lies straight when he is struck.

After his brush with death, Don Corleone lies on his back with his right arm folded across his chest. He is subsequently shown rolled onto his left side, his right arm extended along the right side of his body.

The amount of wine left in Vito Corleone's glass as he discusses Barzini's plot to have Michael killed.

The gun that Sonny Corleone takes from the dining-room drawer when Peter Clemenza arrives at the house after the attempt on the Don's life is tucked in his belt, vanishes when he throws Clemenza against the worktops, and reappears as he turns round after speaking with his wife.

When Michael visits Moe Green in Las Vegas to negotiate a buy‑out, he produces a packet of cigarettes; the shot then changes to a different angle and he repeats the motion.

Moments before Vito is shot, he peers down the street and notices two gunmen round a corner. They turn to their left to face him, suggesting they were on the same side of the street as Vito. Yet when they break into a run towards him they step to their left to move onto the street, a manoeuvre that would place them on the opposite side of the street.

Whilst descending a hill just after the wedding ceremony in Sicily, Fabrizio loosens his tie. The camera briefly cuts away and, on returning, shows him loosening the tie once more despite it already being loosened.

After Fredo shouts at Michael for attempting to negotiate with Moe Greene, we see Michael smoking in a shot. As he breathes out, a puff of smoke vanishes almost immediately from his mouth when the camera cuts to a different take of the same shot.

When the packet of dead fish is placed on Sonny's lap, the positioning of his hands changes in the close-up.

As Sonny Corleone is handed the fish, the cushion on his lap shifts position between shots.

When Tom Hagen speaks to Jack Woltz about casting Johnny Fontane in Woltz's new film, as they stand in the doorway the right-hand side of Woltz's face and the left-hand side of Hagen's are lit, yet in a close-up those same sides appear completely in shadow.

In the wedding scene, a glass of wine can be seen.

When Tom Hagen is filmed walking along the Woltz Studios backlot, he is carrying a suitcase — or perhaps a large holdall — in his left hand. However, as he turns into the soundstage to meet Mr Woltz, he is suddenly holding a standard briefcase in his right hand and the suitcase has vanished.

The way Kay's hands are held as she asks Michael when she will next see him.

After Sonny Corleone tells 'Mama' Corleone that 'Pop' is hurt, he tears off a piece of bread, pulls it apart and stuffs it with some peppers and onions. While Sonny is eating in his father's study, he rings Salvatore 'Sal' Tessio for backup and opens his father's safe. The sandwich is shown finished as Sonny dials, and it reappears while he says "Come on, Luca".

Sollozzo is perturbed to hear that Don Vito supposedly survived being shot "five times", yet in the attempted assassination Vito is actually hit nine times by two hoods standing scarcely eight feet away.

When Barzini is shot while running up the stairs, a medium close-up shows him turning around before toppling forwards, yet in the following long shot he is seen falling from behind.

When Michael is dining with Solozzo and McCluskey at the Louis Restaurant, the manager is seen leaving their table smoking a pipe. When the camera cuts to a different angle, the pipe has disappeared.

Whilst waiting outside, Luca Brasi's wristwatch is a small, square silver one; by the time he meets Don Corleone, it's a large gold wristwatch.

When Tom and Woltz go to see Khartum in the stable, the horse has two prominent white markings on his nose. When the horse's head is later uncovered in Woltz's bed, those markings have disappeared.

The assassination of the don takes place around Christmas. Paulie's execution is instructed to be "the first thing on the list". Yet the scenes of Clemenza and Paulie driving about unmistakably look like summer/autumn footage.

When Fredo gets into the car to drive, just before the attempt on Don Corleone's life, a male crew member's face is plainly visible in the driver's side mirror whilst he opens or shuts the door.

During Carlo's fight with Connie in their dining room, his hearing aid is visible in his left ear.

The use of the title 'Don' is incorrect, as the proper convention attaches this honourific to a person’s given name rather than their surname. Marlon Brando’s character ought to have been called Don Vito, not Don Corleone. The same convention applies to the other 'Dons', such as Barzini and Fanucci.

If Captain McCluskey had broken Michael Corleone's jaw, Michael wouldn't have been able to speak so soon afterwards, when he was discussing the hit on Captain Mark McCluskey and Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozzo in the restaurant. His jaw would have been wired shut.

The typefaces used for the headlines in the various New York City newspapers shown are, in most instances, not the ones actually used by those papers.

McCluskey remains standing and gives a slight facial twitch after Michael shoots him through the forehead. An impalement of the brain would halt the 'motor' activity, so he ought to collapse immediately.

When Don Corleone pauses to buy fruit, a mound of oranges is visible. In 1945 oranges were not obtainable in New York City in December.

From a New York City hospital room Michael ( Al Pacino ) gives the operator a number to reach Sonny in Long Beach (at ~1:03). In roughly nine seconds he hears Sonny answer. For a station-to-station call from NYC to Long Beach to be completed within ten seconds would have been virtually impossible in 1945, even with a private line (bypassing the hospital switchboard) and Sonny standing by the phone. The socket-plugging required of operators, together with the customary verbal protocols, across at least two busy NYC-area switchboards (station-to-station dialling in New York was still years away) during evening tariffs, would have taken the best part of a minute, and probably longer.

During the funeral at the cemetery, Vito's gravestone shows his date of birth as 28 April 1887, yet in Part II his birthday is celebrated on 7 December 1941.

The punch to Michael's face fractured his cheekbone, leaving him with a permanent black eye and causing his sinuses to run continuously (hence his constant use of a handkerchief) until he returned to the United States and underwent surgery to correct it (Freddie says, "that doctor did a good job.")

The exterior establishing shot for the summit meeting of all the families is of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Although it seems an unlikely venue for a "family" gathering, it underlines how far their influence extends.

Michael and Apollonia’s car is right-hand drive, even though Italy drives on the right-hand side and one would normally expect vehicles there to be left-hand drive. Nevertheless, Italian manufacturers Alfa Romeo and Lancia continued to produce right-hand-drive models for the Italian market until the 1950s.

There is an air‑conditioning unit protruding from the window of Peter Clemenza's house. Window air‑conditioners were first marketed in the mid‑1930s, and although they were expensive, Clemenza could have afforded one.

While Michael, assisted by a nurse, moves Vito to another ward in the hospital, you can see that Marlon Brando reflexively shifts his hand when it hits the doorframe. He is conscious — which explains his crying as Michael holds his hand — but heavily sedated because of the pain from his gunshot wounds.

When Vito Corleone discovers that Santino 'Sonny' Corleone has been killed, he instructs Tom Hagen to get in touch with the undertaker, Amerigo Bonasera, remarking "He'll need his services." At that point Tom Hagen has merely informed him that Sonny has been shot; he has not mentioned that Sonny's body is riddled with bullets from head to toe and might require substantial work to prepare for an open-coffin funeral. Irrespective of the extent of the injuries, the statement "They shot Sonny on the causeway. He's dead." is sufficient for Vito Corleone to call upon Bonasera's services as an undertaker.

When Sonny roughs up Carlo, James Caan is clearly visible in profile, pretending to throw a punch so badly that he misses Gianni Russo by roughly a foot and a half, his fist passing about eight inches from his own chest.

When Michael attends his father's funeral, he declares he will meet with the heads of the five families. However, since he himself is the head of one of those families, he should have said he would meet with the other four heads. Also, Moe Greene was not one of the family heads.

Kay's hairstyle while she and Mike are dining, just before he goes to hospital to see his father, looks more characteristic of later decades. However, it does resemble some of Doris Day's hairstyles from the early 1950s.

Michael Corleone is said to have been awarded the Navy Cross during the Second World War; however, the ribbon for that decoration is not visible on his Marine uniform in the wedding scene of The Godfather.

The two hitmen fire a total of nine shots at Vito from extremely close range, virtually point‑blank. Throughout all nine discharges both weapons remain perfectly aligned to strike him in the back, yet he sustains only five wounds.

Michael is shown with a bruised face that persists from before he leaves the United States all the way through to the car-bombing in Sicily. Yet whilst he is intermittently back in the United States, Sonny brutally assaults Carlo with repeated punches and kicks to the face; when Carlo next appears, his face bears not a single mark and is completely healed.

The scene in which Michael is wooing Apollonia features a Cinzano logo in the background; the logo’s colour scheme wasn’t introduced until 1957, despite the scene being set in the 1940's.

While Vito Corleone is playing with his grandson in the garden, the boy is holding a garden duster. Such applicators are normally used to distribute powder-based insecticides or fungicides onto plants, yet in the scene the duster appears to be dispensing liquid.

Although Rudy Bond is credited as playing Cuneo, the actor seen being shot in the revolving door is visibly not Bond.

To enable Michael to kill the Turk and McCloskey, the Corleone family devise a hazardous plan that involves stashing a firearm in a public lavatory and relying on Michael to locate it. The scheme also requires Michael to flee the country as a suspect in a homicide, and there is the danger that he could be convicted and handed a life sentence. Alternatively, once they discover where the meeting will take place, they could send in other hitmen to carry out the killings, thereby removing the risk of Michael failing to find the weapon and lowering the likelihood that he will be implicated in the murders.

The Corleones learn from an informant at the police station where the meeting is to be held. Yet Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozzo would almost certainly have known the police captain was required to be on call round the clock, and in any case Captain Mark McCluskey would have supplied a false location.

Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo would have seated a couple of his men at a different table in the restaurant.

How Salvatore 'Sal' Tessio realised the Sicilian message was meant to indicate that Luca Brasi had been killed, rather than refer to someone else. A bulletproof vest could have belonged to anyone.

Sollozzo agrees to meet Michael for dinner only a few days after making an attempt on his father's life.

Sollozzo and McCluskey are aware that Michael is a decorated Second World War veteran who has likely killed people in combat, yet they agree to meet him mere days after the attempt on Vito's life.

The assassination attempt on Vito Corleone's life is tactically unsound. If his connections within the political and judicial spheres are indispensable to shielding the drug trade, those connections would be lost should he die. As Hagen remarks, 'If the old man dies we lose half our political strength'.

SPOILER: Prior to Sonny being shot dead on the causeway there is a vehicle in front of him but conspicuously none behind. When the gunmen turn up and open fire, Sonny might have put his car into reverse and attempted to get away.

Sollozzo effectively brings about his own death by agreeing to meet Michael, immediately after twice attempting to kill Michael's father.

The make-up used for Michael’s broken jaw in the scenes shot in Sicily does not match the make-up applied in the New York sequences. This discrepancy resulted from Paramount Pictures refusing to cover the cost of sending make-up artist Dick Smith to Italy with the rest of the crew.

While Sonny is battering Carlo in the street, you can plainly see that one of the blows does not come anywhere near Carlo's face, yet Carlo still reacts to the "blow".

When Michael steps out of the car outside a hotel in Las Vegas, he is accompanied by his brother Fredo. However, the person alighting is plainly not John Cazale (Fredo) but another actor — note the hairstyle in the shot.

When Michael Corleone fires two shots at Capt. Mark McCluskey in the restaurant, the first strikes his neck and McCluskey clutches his throat, beginning to gasp. For a brief moment before the second shot a mark on his forehead is visible where the head shot will land, indicating where the fake blood will appear.

When Cuneo is killed in the revolving door, the bullet holes appear noticeably late after each shot. They also do not appear anywhere near the point at which the gun was aimed when it was fired.

During Sonny's assault on Carlo, the performer is briefly replaced by a stuntman who bears little resemblance to Gianni Russo.

During Michael's confrontation with Carlo about setting up Sonny, a stand-in for Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen can be seen in the background. He is kept in the background, out of shot, and is then obscured by Michael to conceal that he is not Robert Duvall.