Goofs for
Cape Fear (1991) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: When Laurie is in the bar with Cady, she unbuttons her top button on her blouse. In subsequent shots, the button goes from buttoned to unbuttoned without her ever touching it again.
  
  
• Continuity: The sweat on the private investigator's face when he talks to Cady.
  
  
• Continuity: The recorded threat was different to the actual threat made to Cady.
  
  

• Crew or equipment visible: Repeatedly reflected in Cady's sunglasses.
  
  
• Continuity: Wine glass that Leigh holds on the boat on Cape Fear river.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: At the parade, Danny talks to her father but her lips are not moving.
  
  
• Continuity: Dani removes her retainer while on the phone with Cady, but it reappears and disappears again between shots before she finally puts it back in when she hangs up.
  
  
• Continuity: When the private eye is waiting for Cady in the house, he finally sees Teddy Bear moving, and follows the wire to the windows which (looking from inside) have closed shades. In very next shot, from outside, he is walking up to this window to close it, but there are no shades on it at all.
  
  
• Continuity: When Danielle and Max are talking in the theater, she tells Max that part of her punishment for smoking grass is that she can't drive the Cherokee. Their model Jeep is a Wagoneer, although it was a package on the Cherokee model.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the end of the film, Sam Bowden says that he had to go to hearings before the American Bar Association as a result of his criminal actions toward Cady. But the ABA doesn't license lawyers, nor does it have the authority to disbar them. It is a lobbying group. Bowden would have had to go before the Georgia Bar Association, given that that the crime occurred in that state.
  
  
• Continuity: When the family goes down to the kitchen to find the maid and Kersek dead, Kersek's shirt has changed from the buttoned up long sleeve blue shirt, to an unbuttoned short sleeve striped shirt.
  
  
• Continuity: In the bedroom, Leigh Bowden's earring disappears and reappears.
  
  
• Continuity: The detective's blood pool changes shape on the kitchen floor.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Cady asks Bowden to recite Canon Seven of the ABA Model Code. The Model Code was abandoned in 1983 and replaced with the Modern Rules of Professional Conduct, which has no canons. As Cady had been in prison for 14 years, the earlier Model Code would still have been in place when Bowden represented him.
  
  
• Continuity: At the start of the scene where the hired goons attack Max in the parking lot, Max is wearing his watch when he turns to face them after one of them calls his name. About half way through the scene Max's watch inexplicably disappears from his wrist.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): While Kersek is waiting in the Bowden home for Cady to break in, his finger is on the trigger of his revolver. This violates basic gun safety rules, which require that, in order to prevent an accidental discharge, the finger must be kept OFF the trigger until the gun's sights are on the target. A real investigator would not be this careless.
  
  
• Continuity: Before retiring for the night, the Bowden family and investigator Kersek securely close and lock all the doors and windows in the Bowden home. Yet a short while later, the wind blows one of the doors open.
  
  
• Continuity: When Cady is kissing Danielle, he leans to the right. When the camera switches, showing the back of Danielle's head, now Cady is leaning to the left. This sequence happens again when the camera switches back to it's original angle.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Sam and his family are at the parade Sam and Leigh tell Danielle that she should have been in the parade because she can tap. Danielle explains that she wanted to but something. The point is when they are having this conversation their mouths aren't matching up at all.
  
  
• Continuity: In the bar scene, just prior to the scene when Max attacks Lori - as Max and Lori talk in the bar, Lori's blouse's top button goes from unbuttoned, to her buttoning it, then inexplicably is unbuttoned again.
  
  

Related Links