Visual Goofs On The Big & Small Screen (1 Viewer)

[OLDTIMER]

I had no idea about that.

And neither did many directors it appears. In my youth I serviced telephones in country areas. That's why it irks me when actors and directors get it wrong.

 

[greenscreened]

One continuing goof that annoys me in many, many films is of someone making a phone call from a wall-mounted magneto telephone – the type used mainly in country areas pre 1950 or so.

The actor lifts the receiver off the hook before turning the ring handle. Country people know that this effectively short circuits the outgoing ring. With those phones you had to ring first, then lift the receiver.

Speaking of phones, in Die Hard 2 Willis is using a Pacific Bell pay telephone, but he's in Washington, DC wherein the phones are owned by Bell Atlantic.

Here's another 'phone pas'....
How many movies and television shows have a scene wherein actor 'A' is on the phone with actor 'B'.

Actor 'A' is asking actor 'B' several questions, with not much time between each question.

Yet, when he relays 'B''s conversation immediately after the call to someone in the same room as 'A', there is no way 'B' could have had enough time to give the lengthy answer(s) that 'A's scripted lines claims he did!


I also watch to see how accurately people dial rotary phones or push buttons, just to see if all the numbers they are (lazily) entering are in the same area on the phone, or spread out like normal numbers are, and also, if they are entering or spinning enough numbers.

Color me...'BORED'!

 

[greenscreened]

Interesting... I worked in TV for 21 years. We *never* built a flat like that - ever. Lots less wood to make them lighter and a much lower grade on the back. Even on "permanent" sets...

That's pretty much industry standard here.

Some of the old-timers used to lay the inside studs and blocking flat, as opposed to vertical, which also helped in having more nailing area for the adjoining lauan seams.

But to address my original post on this matter.
I now think the wall which I originally thought was an unintentional exposed backing wall from another set was more than likely, intentional.

Though the unit in question was definitely the dressed-up back side of a backing wall, with some sort of molding treatment on it's left side (and right side, which I recently noticed on a different episode) to either conceal that fact that it was the back side of a set, OR, it was merely a strategically-placed (and dressed) single wall held upright by Stage Braces, so as not to expose the rest of the open stage.

Either way, it wasn't a goof.

 

[greenscreened]

I've seen Lucy Wants To Move To The Country more than two dozen times, and could have probably seen it dozens of more times without ever noticing the leaning lamp post behind Lucy when she's standing at the front door of what will become their new home, as it's leaning quite a bit.
Thankfully, the bonus material on the ILL DVD pointed that out.

 

[greenscreened]

Ironic that the tile's grout lines in one of my favorite episodes of Mad About You - Love Among The Tiles, er...uhh...aren't exactly on the same plane, so to speak.

 

[Jeffrey D]

A huge goof in the extended cut of Bad Santa- the luminaries that are lining the sidewalk before Willy leaves Thurman’s house to go to the department store are not there when he returns to the house- the showdown with the cops. I’m going to assume the scenes with the luminaries were shot at the end of production, and they didn’t have the time or money to shoot a corrected scene with the cops.
Director Terry Zwigoff left out the stuff about the luminaries in the director’s cut
(along with all the scenes that involved the advent calendar), so he probably didn’t like the luminaries scenes anyway.

 

[greenscreened]

Columbo - Identity Crisis

@ 26:46, Columbo and Sgt. Kramer exit the building and their reflection can almost immediately be seen in the window.
Soon after a woman with bright yellow pants and powder blue hat then exits the door happily and proudly passes by, same time passes to reveal her reflection.
Then a woman with a long sleeve brown sweater exits the door and her reflection is revealed in actual time, but it suddenly vanishes and she doesn't walk behind the cops when she should have (perhaps she exited too early and they motioned for her to stop?). A couple of seconds later, she is then seen walking behind the pair.

While this is happening, there are several non-actor employees conspicuously standing, smiling and gawking out the window watching the filming, as well as an employee sitting down and looking out the window at the pair.

Then as Columbo and Kramer start to walk away, both ladies are seen walking behind C&K headed in the opposite direction that they were originally going.

Columbo is then behind his car and the lady in the yellow pants is again seen walking along side the building in the same original direction, and two seconds later, she is briefly seen strolling on the opposite side of the street.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Becker- season 4- the Let’s Talk About Sex episode. Becker reluctantly agrees to give a talk to a classroom of 3rd graders about nutrition, then the kids turn the conversation into sex ed. The drawing Becker makes on the blackboard of a car changes from shot to shot.

 

[Bob Gu]

In spy shows, an agent cracks a safe to photograph secret papers. The idea is that no one is supposed to know that the spy was there.

So, after the spy takes his pictures, he puts everything he moved back in place. In this example he even takes the body of the guard he killed to another room.

Rudi Solari in a "Garrison's Gorillas" episode.

The goof is when he is taking the pictures. He has a stack of papers, presumedly in a certain order. He places the first page face up on the desk and photographs it. He places the next page on top of the first and photographs it and so on until he finishes the stack, He returns the stack back into the original folder or envelope they were in. So now they are in reverse order of how he found them! A clue that someone has seen the secret information! (Spy Tip: As you photograph each page you place it face down and flip the stack over before replacing it, in the envelope/folder.)

A similar goof is when a private eye, secretly, searches someone's room and moves things around, and does not put them back.

 

[Jeffrey D]

An obvious goof that everybody points out is in the Spielberg film 1941- the scene on the Ferris wheel- Eddie Deezen, Murray Hamilton and the dummy change positions.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Frasier season 9 episode Bla z Boy- Martin’s favorite chair gets destroyed. Martin accidentally puts lube grease on Frasier’s carpet while oiling the squeaks out of his recliner. The stain changes between shots.

 

[Jeffrey D]

The film Used Cars- there are 2 goofs during the very first shot of the film. The first thing you see is an Edsel suspended in the air over the car lot by a crane. If you look at the grille, you can tell that there’s no radiator or engine under the hood (the car runs later on in the film). The camera pans down and over towards another car, where Rudy is working on rolling back the odometer. As the camera is going in tight on the instrument cluster, you can see the camera apparatus in the driver’s door side view mirror (that goof was pointed out in the commentary track- a fun listen).

 

[Thomas T]

Two visual goofs and an audio goof come immediately to mind.

1. Walk The Proud Land (1956). Anne Bancroft and Pat Crowley (playing Audie Murphy's wife) are on a porch having a conversation. When they enter the house, Crowley has an entirely different hairstyle!

2. The King And I (1956). Yul Brynner wears only one earring but during the A Puzzlement number the earring keeps switching from his left ear to his right ear and back again during the song.

3. Summer Lovers (1982). Barbara Rush and Carole Cook play best friends who visit Rush's daughter (Daryl Hannah) in Greece. In one scene, Cook calls Rush by her real name of Barbara rather than her character's name which is Jean.

 

[Jack P]

In the final scene of "Operation Petticoat", Cary Grant as Commander (now Admiral) Matt Sherman, goes up to a car and out comes Dina Merrill and the two kids of her marriage to Tony Curtis's character. One of the kids clearly says, "Hi, Mr. Grant."

And of course let's not forget the scene in "North By Northwest" where the kid in the Mount Rushmore cafeteria sticks his fingers in his ears before Eva Marie Saint fires her gun at Grant because he was clearly tired of all the retakes!

 

[LeoA]

Caught a funny mistake in a season 3 episode of Emergency! the other night.

I don't recall which episode, but a call comes in for Station 51 and Mike Stoker runs over to the county map that they have on the wall in the station's garage. He locates the address on the map and is already walking away to the firetruck when the dispatcher tells them the address.

lol