Goofs for
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

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• Anachronisms: Federal income taxes were due on March 15th, not April 15th as they are today.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): On the newspaper front page announcing the "corruption" story, the word "indictment" is misspelled as "indictement".
  
  
• Anachronisms: As we see the bus carrying Red go up the hill, on the right side of the screen there is a "non-period" car sitting in a driveway.
  
  

• Anachronisms: When Tommy goes out into the yard to talk to Warden Norton, Warden Norton offers him a cigarette. The pack of Marlboros that he offers him has Marlboro Miles on them, which weren't around until the '90s.
  
  
• Continuity: The blood on Heywood's neck changes from shot to shot as Brooks holds a shank to his throat.
  
  
• Continuity: When the warden gets the pie, it's in a different style of pie plate than when Andy and Red are eating it, but is in the same box.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the warden's "Inside Out" speech, a CP-16R camera with new style magazine is visible. Additionally, a Pentax k1000 SLR still camera is visible, which was produced in 1975-1997.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The recording of "Le nozze di Figaro" is from 1968 (recorded by Deutsche Grammophon and directed by Karl Bohm).
  
  
• Anachronisms: The full-size photo poster of Rita Hayworth that Red procures for Andy in 1949 comes from a series of celebrity posters that went on sale in the early 1960s.
  
  
• Continuity: When they're tossing the cells, Hadley knocks over the small stone-works Andy has made. The bishop is alternately standing up/knocked over between shots.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The Hank Williams Collection that Heywood is listening to in 1963 was not issued until 1974.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Andy Dufresne is obviously a very intelligent man and fond of playing chess. However if you take a good look at the shot of the (nearly) completed chess board in his cell, you see that he put up the chess board the wrong way. The board should be turned 90 degrees in order to have the pieces stand right. The square on the lower left should be black, the one on the upper right too, which they are not, they are white. Anyone fond of playing chess would never make that mistake.
  
  
• Continuity: When Red and Andy meet for the first time, an extra is seen behind each of them. It is the same scene but as the lines were filmed at different times, the extra is wearing different shirts - one prisoner shirt the day that Red's lines were shot, and a different shirt behind Andy the day his lines were filmed.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Red states that Andy crawled 500 yards, and that distance is just under half a mile. It's actually between a quarter and a third of a mile.
  
  
• Continuity: When Red is on the bus, one shot shows all of the windows on the bus open. In fact, Red's arm is hanging outside the window. In the very next shot of the bus (a long shot from a distance), all of the windows are closed.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: There is a typo in the credits of the film. The title for "Additional ADR Recordists" is misspelled as "Aditional ADR Recordists."
  
  
• Factual errors: Andy crawls through 500 yards of an 18" sewage pipe to escape the prison. The ancient sewer pipe would have been filled with methane gas, carbon dioxide and ammonia fumes and too little oxygen to support the exertions of the escapee in the time required to crawl the distance. He should have passed out and suffocated shortly after beginning his escape. Additionally, when he first breaks the pipe it shoots up like water pipe under pressure. Once inside, the water is not moving. And when he gets to the stream that this supposed sewer pipe drains into, the water is pristine.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Towards the beginning of the film, during a beautiful aerial shot of the bus entering Shawshank Prison, the camera flies over the buildings, where we see the prisoners on their way to "greet" in the new inmates. As the camera circles around, at the top of the frame, in an area of green grass, near a building, the shadow of the camera's helicopter is clearly visible.
  
  
• Continuity: When Red is talking to Andy for the first time, he is throwing a baseball between himself and Haywood. Just as Andy stoops down, Red catches the ball and seconds later, catches the ball again without throwing it back.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The rifle with which Hadley shoots Tommy is a M14 rifle - in '68-69 this type of rifle wasn't issued to security guards, and a commercial equivalent did not yet exist.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: The bullet hole under the warden's chin is in a different location than where he placed the gun barrel a moment before he committed suicide. In the 10th Anniversary release, Frank Darabont admits that this was an error, it has bugged him for 10 years, and they had it fixed in the 2004 release.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: When Red's hat is blown off by the wind, it tumbles almost into the water, and Red walks quite close to the sea. But the next time we see Red, the hat is farther from the sea than Red originally walked.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: When Andy is in the bank withdrawing the warden's money, we can see a man standing at the counter talking to a teller. A moment later when Andy leaves, the same man is walking up to the teller's window.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: SPOILER: The driver of the truck that delivers Red to Buxton says, "Here it is," but his lips continue to move after he finishes talking.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: When Brooks hangs himself by kicking the table away, his feet barely lower at all, yet in the next shot we see that he should have fallen a considerably greater distance. Also as he is carving his name in the beam, his head is high enough that he would not have to stand on his toes to put the rope around his neck, as he is shown doing.
  
  

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