Goofs for
The American President (1995) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: The President's hairstyle changes as he visits his daughter for the first time.
  
  
• Continuity: When Lucy takes the book it is rotated 180 degrees from the position it was when the president hands it to her.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sydney is nervously tapping her pencil on the table before her big first date with the President, the position of her fingers on the pencil changes between shots.
  
  

• Continuity: The phone cord is under/over the President's arm.
  
  
• Continuity: At the Christmas party, Syndey's purse cord is across her chest when she walks in but when she walks over to the president it is over her arm.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: While the US President can't introduce a bill in Congress, it's common practice for him to get a sympathetic legislator to do it for him; this could be colloquially referred to as the President introducing the bill. In any case, he says, accurately, that he's "sending a bill to Congress for its consideration" which is perfectly proper as part of the State of the Union message.
  
  
• Continuity: Standing clock in the Oval Office shows randomly varying times. When the President asks for the time and someone answers "3:30", the clock reads something completely different.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the limousine (when the President stops at the flower shop), the Washington DC visible through the car windows moves by frame by frame, instead of scrolling smoothly.
  
  
• Continuity: When the President and AJ are playing pool, the cue ball seems to behave erratically.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the State Dinner with the French President, when people are shown entering the White House and passing through the metal detector, the detector is clearly not switched on. They are also moving at a reasonably fast pace, sometimes passing through at least two at a time.
  
  
• Continuity: In a scene at Sydney's office, she goes from one jacketed arm to both arms being in the jacket between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: During the Virginia Ham scene, the clock behind Sydney's boss changes times between shots
  
  
• Continuity: When Lewis is chewing out the congressman, the hand holding the telephone changes between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sydney first spends the night in the residence at the White House, the President, (Michael Douglas), is awakened by Lewis stating that the press is camped out at all entrances. When Lewis comes up to the Presidents bedroom and then is followed by A.J and Robin, the President puts on his robe. In one shot shortly after putting on the robe the t-shirt he is wearing is scrunched up at the neck under his robe - the shot continues from a different angle and the t-shirt is perfectly straight.
  
  
• Continuity: When President Shepherd is going to Lucy's room after making the deal with the Motown Three, he unbuttons his suit jacket in the hallway. When he enters the room and she informs him that Sydney is upset, his jacket is buttoned.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sydney is in the residence having dinner for the first time, she is wearing make-up. When he gives her the tour, her make-up has disappeared.
  
  
• Continuity: Near the end of the movie, when President Shepherd is speaking with A.J. and putting on his coat, at one point in the scene (while the camera is focused on A.J.) he is holding his scarf in his hand. The very next camera shot, the scarf is neatly arranged around his neck and tucked into the front of his coat.
  
  
• Continuity: Sydney tells the guard, "This is my first time at the White House." But later, when Shepherd asks if she's ever been in the Oval Office, she replies, "I've just been on the regular tour."
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): It is established at several points during the film that, it is 72 days from the beginning of the film until the state of union. As the state of the union approaches, two separate characters mention that seven weeks have passed making it 49 days.
  
  
• Errors in geography: During a White House Christmas party, Sydney recounts an incident on Dupont Circle, prompting AJ to ask "What were you doing up on the Hill". But Dupont Circle is northwest of the White House and Capitol Hill is to the southeast. She was away from the Hill.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the end of the movie, when The President is getting ready to leave and drive to Sydney's house to beg for her back, she walks in and declares that the traffic is awful. This doesn't make sense; she wouldn't have been able to hear his conversation through the wall because the Oval Office is soundproof.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene where Sydney and AJ meet to discuss the legislation regarding the reduction in fossil fuels, behind AJ is hung the famous Trumbull painting of the Committee of Five presenting the completed Declaration of Independence to John Hancock and the Second Continental Congress (the subject is sometimes erroneously believed to be the document's signing). Throughout the scene, it appears that the painting has been hung backwards - John Hancock is seated to the left of the viewer instead of the right. Given the general ubiquity and fame of the painting, it is unlikely that it was hung incorrectly, indicating, instead, that the entire scene had been flipped.
  
  
• Continuity: At the State Dinner , the French President is talking face to the camera, while the audience can watch Sydney's turning her ring around the finger - a second later, the camera shows Sydney in front , still listening to the President's story, but keeps her hands straight now .
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the scene where the President first calls Sydney (at her sister's apartment) to ask her out, the whole time of the phone call you can see the crew on the window reflection
  
  
• Continuity: When Sydney leaves the residence at the White House after her first night with the President, she wears earrings that she didn't have the evening before (when she came promptly to tell him why she couldn't see him anymore). I can assure you no woman exhibits earrings like that at 5 AM if she hadn't worn them before (hiding in her pockets?!?). During the same scene, it's amazing to observe A.J. with his hands in his back, in his pockets and in his back again through the movements of cameras.
  
  
• Plot holes: Sidney gets votes for the Greenhouse emissions bill by promising "full White House support", even as the President is losing votes on his crime bill because the President's popularity is plummeting. She should be losing votes the same way the President is.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the limousine with Robin and Louis, the president is clearly reading from a cue card when he speaks of Sydney's involvement in the anti-Apartheid demonstration ten years earlier.
  
  
• Factual errors: The President finally gives Sydney roses at the end of the movie as he's about to deliver the State of the Union address to Congress. He says that he was finally able to give her roses "it turns out I've got a rose garden." However, roses would not be blooming in Washington in January.
  
  
• Factual errors: While discussing their nervousness about their budding relationship, the President (Michael Douglas) tells the lobbyist (Annette Benning) that all the other first ladies were married to their husbands before they came to the White House. However Grover Cleveland was a bachelor when he was first elected in 1884. He did marry Frances Folsom in the White House in 1886.
  
  

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