Badmovies.org Forum

There are many movies in which the camera accidentally picks up things that shouldn't be in the shot. For instance, a scene in a western might have an airplane flying in the distance, or someone in a Biblical epic might be wearing a wristwatch.

Can anyone list movies that have some of these "mistakes" that were captured by the camera?

I think "Peral Harbor" is notorious for having a lot of such anachornisms

I didn't see it, but supposedly there's a car in the background of the chariot race in Ben Hur.

And of course the wires for the flying saucers show up in various b-movies (Plan 9 e.g.)

R2-D2 and C-3P0 show up in the hieroglyphs in the Well Of Souls in "Raiders Of the Lost Ark"; an intentional anachronism

The boom mike is seen in a LOT of scenes in Dolemite.  It has more screen time than most of the actors.

In The Great Outdoors, you can see the animal trainer's stick that is prodding the bear in a few scenes.

In Terminator 2, you can see the power cable for the minigun while Arnie is shooting the police cars.

The textbooks in Dead Poets Society were current editions, not the books that would have been used in the 1950s.

Kirk

In the opening scene of Roger Corman's The Gunslinger, the camera pans too early and too far, exposing two stunt men sitting idly on horses; suddenly they spring into action & race around the corner into the center of the shot as if they'd been riding for hours!  A moment immortalized in the MST3K presentation of the film with Joel's line "Cue the horses!"

In Governor Arnold's first movie, Hercules in New York, you can hear car sounds (including very audible horn honks!) in the scenes that supposedly take place on Mt. Olympus.

kirk wrote:

> The boom mike is seen in a LOT of scenes in Dolemite.  It has
> more screen time than most of the actors.

> Kirk

One thing that so many people over the years have forgotten when reviewing a movie and saying things like "the microphone is visible at the top of the screen" is that such a thing was never MEANT to be seen. Such reviews and comments are usually based on a television viewing or a full-frame video viewing. Bear in mind that for many films shot in 1.85:1 MATTED widescreen, the top and bottom of the image would be masked theatrically in the projector, and the mike would NEVER, nor was it MEANT to, be seen.

A trampoline is briefly visible during on the shots in DAWN OF THE DEAD, as is some traffic on one of the streets near the mall.  But it's something you probably won't see unless you know about it beforehand.....

There's supposed to be a moving car in the background of the "deserted London" shots at the start of 28 Days Later; I've looked closely but can't say I've seen it.

In the beginning of The Shipping News, it's supposed to be taking place about a decade ago but if you look in the background when Quyole pulls into the gas station there is a brand new shiny Ford Focus across the road.

Glaringly obvious.

In the movie THE VALACHI PAPERS, there is a scene with Charles Bronson driving a car. I believe the scene takes place in the 1930s or 1940s. I'm pretty sure that you can see a car in the background that looks like a sporty car from the 1960s or 70s . . . a Ford Mustang or a Dodge Challenger or something.

isn't gladiator infamous for stuff like this?  i'm sure there's a site out there devoted to all the crap that goes on in that movie [like i think jet trails, wristwatches and tire tracks etc]

In Eegah! there are an awful lot of tire tracks in the remote desert.

In Three Men and a Baby you can see some cardbord cut outs of the actors in one of the rooms.This is were the myth about you being able to see the ghost of a little boy in the movie came from.And what is the truth about Wizard of Oz.Is it true that someone killed them selves in the apple orchard and you can see him hanging from a tree or is it just another myth.Ive heard that in the first Star Wars movies you can see things like flying shoes and golfballs when they are going through areas with asteroids.

don't know about the golfballs or shoes, but when the stormtroopers enter the control room where c3po and r2d2 are hiding one of them runs into the hanging door.

>>Can anyone list movies that have some of these "mistakes" that were captured by the camera?<<

Pauly shore?

You can look up goofs for many movies on the Internet Movie DataBase.

>R2-D2 and C-3P0 show up in the hieroglyphs in the Well Of Souls in "Raiders Of
>the Lost Ark";

And when Ford is face to face with the cobra, you can see the snake reflected in the glass partition between them.

>Is it true that someone killed them selves in the apple orchard and you can see
>him hanging from a tree or is it just another myth.

Myth:  Wizard of Oz Suicide  (http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/ozsuicid.htm)

Dance of the Dwarves - When the arm reaches out and grabs Deborah Raffin at the end, the guy playing the creature reaches out too far and you see the end of the glove.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space - The guy working the toilet puppet reaches up too far and you can see the guy's arm.

Robocop III - When he gets blasted on the steps of the church, the bottom of one foot comes off revealing the actor's shoe.

It's a shame that the new editions correct mistakes like the stormtrooper hitting his head, Luke shouting "Carrie" and things like that.

As for the shoes and golfballs, I've heard similar stories, and would not be surprised if they're true. Those people apparently threw in lots of things where they wouldn't be noticeable. The blockade runner model from the opening scene of Star Wars has a tiny Playboy centrefold and a Star Wars poster hanging on the back wall of the cockpit. It doesn't show up on film, but somebody went to the trouble of doing it, just for laughs.

In the movie " jabberwocky" , when he fights the black knight, you see the back of a truck , taking up half the shot in the background.

Dance of the Dwarves - When the arm reaches out and grabs Deborah Raffin at the end, the guy playing the creature reaches out too far and you see the end of the glove.

Similar in "Carnasaur" where a character is being grabbed by a dinosaur and you can see the hand and arm of the off-stage hand pulling the actress' leg (Andrew has a shot of it in his review here)

As for the shoes and golfballs, I've heard similar stories, and would not be surprised if they're true.

In the re-working of "Star Wars", I saw a Klingon ship take off from Mos Eisley; also I'm fairly certain I saw some of Spielberg's "E.T"s in the Senate in "The Phantom Menace"

i have the special edition tapes in widescreen and the head bump wasn't cut out.  it happens on the side though so i'm pretty sure it would get cut based on changing to full screen aspect ratios.

I didn't follow that link, but if memory serves, the "hanging munchkin" in Oz is actually an ostrich that was loose on the set.
To be REALLY geeky for a minute, it's Crow that tells Corman to cue the horses.
And while I'm on MST3K, Cave Dwellers has 4-wheeler tracks in the ancient forest, a caveman is wearing a baby blue shirt and shades, and Ator sees a modern city from his hangglider.

Brother R

FearlessFreep wrote:

> In the re-working of "Star Wars", I saw a Klingon ship take off
> from Mos Eisley; also I'm fairly certain I saw some of
> Spielberg's "E.T"s in the Senate in "The Phantom Menace"

I got a kick out of seeing the pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey sitting in Watto's junkyard.

In the Lion King there is a scene where Simba colapses in the grass and kicks up all kinds of dust and pollen that clearly spells S-E-X. Which make you wonder if those really are penises on the Little Mermaid vidoe cover.

>In the Lion King there is a scene where Simba colapses in the grass and kicks
>up all kinds of dust and pollen that clearly spells S-E-X. Which make you wonder
>if those really are penises on the Little Mermaid vidoe cover.

Snopes has pages on both, as well as others. Their opinion is that the SEX in Lion King was actually supposed to spell SFX (special effects). The penis on the Little Mermaid cover was drawn by a tired artist who didn't notice what it looked like.

 Disney Myths  (http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/films.asp)

Ah yes snopes i believe also they have an audio clip of donald duck using the "N -word" from Who framed Roger Rabit and aparently on an older video copy a picture of a topless woman can be seen in a window in the background.

>Ah yes snopes i believe also they have an audio clip of donald duck using
>the "N -word" from Who framed Roger Rabit

I've listened to that clip and I can't tell exactly what he's saying, but it doesn't sound like what people claim. In fact, most of the time, I can't understand half of what Donald says.

>and aparently on an older video copy a picture of a topless woman can be seen
>in a window in the background.

Yes, a photo of a topless woman is visible in a background window in two frames of the film The Rescuers, on some prints.

Nitpickers.com is Chock Full O' Plenty of nothing but gripes from the obvious to the oh so anal, concerning almost every movie you can think of. Now with 75% more invective!!!

In the movie "Blacula" from the 1970s, there is a scene in first person perspective where some one is slowly approaching a door, behind which are no doubt scary vampires, and the music builds in tension as he gets closer and closer to the dreaded door, and then you suddenly see a shadow on the door of a guy holding a camera!