Sammo

Stupidity: Lombard has already figured out who the person on the beach is, and that therefore Vera is the only remaining suspect - yet not only he never tries to take his gun back, but he leads her to the beach keeping his back constantly turned to her. That's incoherent with what he knows and how he acts later. (01:28:00)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: On the beach, Vera and Lombard are quite literally pointing fingers at each other...except they are not; new shot, different pose. (01:29:10)

Sammo

Plot hole: Blore's death is fairly absurd, since the killer couldn't plan that he'd be standing, with all the possible room outside of the house, exactly in that spot at that distance from the window, with a ton of bricks that are precariously balanced on stone spheres that survived storms and heavy winds but somehow are loose enough to require a gentle push to fall down. (01:25:30)

Sammo

Character mistake: The killer in the original novel (and as reminded also in this adaptation) stages his homicides following the nursery rhyme; goes through great lengths to do that, including planting a bumblebee in the room, using a hatchet, etc. But Blore's death has nothing to do with a bear, since he gets crushed by bricks. Conveniently the rhyme is not mentiones by the characters at all for his death, while they were the first ones to recite the matching verse in all the other deaths. In the original novel, Blore gets killed by a heavy object shaped like a bear.

Sammo

3rd Jun 2020

Kaiser Knuckle

Other mistake: Kazuya's ending contains a couple mistakes; he mentions "Many opponents much stronger than they wait for me" (should be "Stronger than him", or "than that", or "Many much stronger opponents."), he says "Oh...I've I'd known this was going to happen" and there's even a pretty epic "COLL" instead of "Cool."

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Inside Vera's room, she retorts "What about me?" when Lombard tells her his theory about who Mr. Owen is. The shots have different lighting, with either an overwhelming shadow from Lombard on her, or barely any shadow at all. (01:20:05)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Lombard is protecting Vera's door, preventing the doctor from entering. Armstrong says "Oh but you will, you will." You can notice the double shadow projected by him, and Lombard's more marked but single one, mostly into the frame and not the actual door. Nobody moves candles of any kind in the next seconds, but when Armstrong after his explanation gets again in Lombard's face, Lombard is projecting a big shadow on the door and Armstrong none. (01:16:40)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When the doctor proclaims the Judge dead, Lombard and Bloor's position on the door changes - they are close together, then more distant, then shoulder to shoulder again. (01:14:30)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: The doctor is watching the others when Lombard says he heard a shot. The close-up on Walter Huston shows him with a totally different facial expression compared to the previous and following shots, and the shadow he casts on the wall is also different (it's also incongruous, since in theory the only light comes from either his candles or those from others in front of him, but he projects a shadow to his side/front). (01:13:35)

Sammo

Character mistake: Blore accuses Lombard saying "What about those 21 poor natives in South Africa?" The record played during the first evening mentioned indeed 21 men, but that were natives of a tribe in East Africa. (00:14:20 - 01:10:10)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When the Judge asks Blore to confess saying "We're listening, Mr. Blore", Blore is clutching the napkin. As he begins to speak in a new shot, the cloth is gone from his hand. (01:09:50)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Blore gets up irate after Quincannon and Armstrong's confessions; the Judge next to him had both hands on the table, but he has just the right one in the new shot. (01:09:30)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Dinner after Quincannon and Armstrong bonded at the pool table. The Judge says "Very well, I shall begin." Blore is still using the cutlery on his plate, but he has both hands off the table at the cut. (01:08:25)

Sammo

Revealing mistake: Dr. Armstrong uses his lighter, which, true to its name, lights the room. The whole room, with a disproportionate intensity. Even if you consider it as an acceptable exaggeration for practical purposes, especially in such old motion pictures, the set lights are turned on with half a second of delay, making the trick painfully obvious. (01:07:40)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When the Doctor and the Judge realise that they are on their own at the billiard table, the Judge holds his cue stick towards the left, right, left. (01:05:25)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When Lombard tells Vera "Don't you think it's strange that there's never a third person present when anything unpleasant occurs?" his cigarette is in the left hand, and switches instantly to the right in the next shot. (01:03:35)

Sammo

Revealing mistake: The 'bee' on the window - immobile in the first shot - is just a dummy with static wings. (01:00:45)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When Emily Brent is found in her room, the light of the area changes between shots - just look at the direction the legs of the first responder cast a shadow at. Also, the position of his feet is different; he already almost reached the door in the previous shot, and is 2 boards behind in the new one. (01:00:10)

Sammo

Stupidity: The trail of yarn supposedly unveiled by the cat - besides the 'small' detail that comes down with perfect timing that the murderer couldn't have planned - has also a pattern that is only meant to imitate what happens when a cat plays with a ball of yarn; in reality it couldn't have such a precise trail, and yet retaining loops that wide and neat. (01:00:00)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: In the scene preceding Emily Brent's death, Judge Francis J. Quincannon moves his glasses around, creating a couple of obvious discontinuities, first when his hands from distanced become joined at the very beginning, and then at the bottom of the stairs when he waves Blore to stay put. (00:58:50)

Sammo

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