Goofs for
The Color Purple (1985) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: When Sofia first meets Harpo's father, she drinks an entire glass of lemonade. However, she is shown handing back the glass almost full.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Squeak hits Sofia in the nightclub, Sofia moves her head before she is hit.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: After Celie looks out of the door of her pants shop and sees Mister, a person walks by. When the person walks by, you can see the reflection of a camera and a crew member in the glass.
  
  

• Revealing mistakes: After Sofia is knocked unconscious by the sheriff, her right hand starts to reach out for her wind-blown skirt.
  
  
• Continuity: After Shug kisses Celie, she raises one hand to cover her smile. The next shot shows Celie with two hands raised.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Shug is opening the letter from Nettie to Celie, she runs her finger underneath the flap of the envelope, although the flap is shown to be already open.
  
  
• Continuity: The postmark on the envelope of the letter from Nettie is dated July 1934, however the letter inside is dated for April 18 (Easter). She opens the letter at Easter (Albert is decorating Easter eggs) so the letter did arrive in a timely manner, however the July postmark doesn't make sense.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the church scenes with the "God's Trying To Tell You Something" track, a Hammond organ is audible being played through a Leslie rotary speaker in the left channel. However, the Leslie (then known as Vibratone) rotary speaker wasn't introduced until the mid to late forties and it certainly was not marketed alongside a Hammond organ. The Hammond Organ Company and Electro Music, the company which manufactured Leslie speakers, were involved in a bitter dispute over the popularity of the Leslie versus Hammond's own line of stationary tone cabinets.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Celie holds Olivia immediately after giving birth, she is obviously holding a doll, as the hands are sticking straight up and not moving (although the baby is crying).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Mr.__ finds Celie out in a field reading one of Nettie's letters and strikes her, the letter, her glasses, and the book she was carrying (to hide the letter while she read) all scatter while falling to the ground. In the next shot, we see a close-up of the book, letter, and her glasses all neatly stacked on top of each other as they land on the ground.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the scene in which Celie has on Shug's dress in Shug's bedroom, Shug makes Celie look in the dresser mirror. There is another mirror on the dresser in which a crew members head is visible.
  
  
• Continuity: The shaving cream on Mister's face changes between shots as Celie is sharpening the razor and Shug is seen running to the house.
  
  
• Continuity: During the scene where Miss Millie brings Sophia home for Christmas, from a wide shot of the house, you can see smoke coming out of the chimney. When Sophia gets inside, there is no fire in the fireplace.
  
  
• Continuity: The letters of the word "Sky" on the wax paper change constantly throughout the movie.
  
  
• Continuity: In the confrontation between Squeak and Sofia, Shug Avery can be clearly seen behind Squeak (wearing a red sequin dress), but changes position, and even disappears in one shot, then reappears.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Sophia is in the field telling Celie "If you want a dead son in-law, Miss Celie, you keep on advising him like you're doing." Actually, Harpo is Celie's step-son, not her son in-law.
  
  
• Factual errors: When she is returning from Memphis on the train, Celie is sipping wine in the dining car. An African-American person could not eat in the dining car in the late 1930s, especially on a Southern run.
  
  

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