Goofs for
The French Connection (1971) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: The car/train chase passes the same school four times, twice in each direction.
  
  
• Continuity: The subway train used in the chase sequence consists of R-42 units. During the automobile collision, the train directly above Popeye's car consists of older R-32 units.
  
  
• Continuity: The train is operating on one of the outer, or local tracks during scenes filmed from above. During scenes filmed from the front of the train itself, it is operating on the center, or express track.
  
  

• Factual errors: On the New York City subway, a two-buzz highball is normally given only when a train departs from a terminus, makes an unscheduled stop, or has to add or drop cars along its route. It is not given during normal stops along a route such as Bay-50th St.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Russo is undercover as a customer inside Sal's diner, he flirts with Sal's wife from across the counter. Their words do not come close to matching their moving lips.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Early on in the movie, a Frenchman is shot. The "blood" is coming from a clearly visible hose at the bottom of the screen, which squirts red paint at the actor's face.
  
  
• Continuity: When Popeye Doyle is on the roof looking for the sniper, he sees him on the street below running full speed away from the building. Popeye has to run down about five flights of stairs, yet when he gets out of the building the sniper has made almost no distance whatsoever.
  
  
• Continuity: In the beginning of the film, the hit man shoots a man, causing "blood" to splash all over the victim's face. As the victim falls backwards, the blood has disappeared.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the cars turn a corner during one of the car chases, we see a tape in the background closing off the street, and a policeman who is watching the shoot.
  
  
• Continuity: When Popeye Doyle creeps alongside the building below the sniper his gun can be seen jumping hands between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When Popeye and Cloudy are beginning to stake out the Lincoln, there is a shot of Cloudy looking back through the back window of their car. In the next shot, he is in the same place, but he now has a cigarette in his mouth.
  
  
• Continuity: Doyle is following Charnier into the subway. When they stop at the stand, Doyle orders a grape drink. Then, Charnier boards the next train, and so Doyle follows, not with a beverage, but with a candy apple.
  
  
• Continuity: During the chase scene, several shots of Popeye's feet are shown, stepping on brake, accelerator, and clutch, but shots of him through the windshield show him driving an automatic (he never shifts gears except after he runs into a wall, and then only into and out of reverse).
  
  
• Continuity: In one of the chases on foot, Popeye removes his coat and hat. The next shot shows him coming down some stairs with his coat and hat on.
  
  
• Continuity: When Popeye first follows Charnier down the subway steps, Charnier tricks Popeye by quickly leaving through the exit. Popeye rips his coat and hat off in an attempt to disguise himself, and races back up the subway steps to the street. We cut to a shot of Charnier walking with his cane, and then cut back to Popeye with his coat, gloves, scarf, and hat back on and buttoned up.
  
  
• Continuity: When Doyle and Charnier are at the Grand Central Shuttle, a subway train departs, then returns on the same track with completely different car numbers on it. On the Grand Central Shuttle, each train only runs on one track, making it impossible under normal operation for trains to switch tracks.
  
  
• Continuity: When Doyle and Russo arrive at the scene of an accident with their Supervisor and Federal Agent, they attempt to persuade their supervisor to keep them on the case. A shot of a deceased woman is shown when she is taken out of the wreckage prior to Doyle's and Russo's arrival and the exact same shot is re-played after they arrive on scene.
  
  
• Continuity: When Howard the chemist is done testing the purity of the heroin, he blows out the flame of the oil candle under the thermometer. A few shots later, when the distribution is being discussed, the candle is still lit.
  
  
• Continuity: Doyle's hat comes and goes while tearing apart the car.
  
  
• Continuity: At the very beginning before Popeye and Cloudy go into the bar, it is dusk. When they leave the bar to chase the drug dealer a few minutes later, it's mid-day.
  
  
• Factual errors: When the subway motorman is shot and slumps in the motorman's cab, "the dead man's feature" should have taken effect, applying the train's brakes automatically when his hand came off the controller. Instead, the train continued moving at its excessive speed.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Popeye is entering the building with the sniper on the roof, the same audio of people talking can be heard twice in a row. "Oh yeah, there must be a sniper on the roof"....."There is one."
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The end of the subway chase is sometimes thought to be due to a collision; in fact, the train hits a trip arm which is designed to apply the brakes when one train comes too close to the track circuit of the train ahead. The result would be an emergency braking, nowhere near the severity of a collision and would not lead to a derailment.
  
  
• Continuity: Gene and Roy search the bar for drugs, turning up lots of items that they throw onto the bar, yet when they leave (at 30:44), the bar is clean.
  
  
• Continuity: During the car\train chase the Pontiac gets beat up but when it drives through a wall or something similar the cars fixed up but just for that shot.
  
  

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