The Sound of Music

Continuity mistake: After the boat overturns on the lake, and Maria is standing on the terrace arguing with the Captain, her wet hair style changes several times.

Continuity mistake: At the party Captain von Trapp puts on for the baroness, there is a scene where the guests are being greeted by Captain von Trapp and the Baroness inside the doorway of the house. When Herr Zeller is greeted and he looks ahead you can see a lady with brown hair in a pale blue dress being greeted in the background and then looking over her left shoulder. It then cuts to a scene where Herr Zeller has moved further into the house away from Captain von Trapp and the Baroness, and you can see she is greeted a second time and again looks over her left shoulder. (01:25:05)

Continuity mistake: When the Captain is asked to allow the children to sing in the festival by Max, he protests. He crosses to a table and says "Max." and picks up a glass. The shot changes, he says "My children do not sing in public", and there is now a bottle in his hand.

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Continuity mistake: Maria goes to see Mother Abbess after they sing the song, when Maria enters the room the chair is at the end of the desk, but when Mother Abbess tells her to sit, it is clearly in the middle.

Continuity mistake: Maria sits in front of Mother Abbess's table, but when the angle changes she is several meters away.

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Continuity mistake: When Liesl creeps through Maria's window there's a close-up on Maria where the lighting on the wall is totally different and all the previous shadows are gone. A frame later, from a different angle, they're back.

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Continuity mistake: When Maria leaves the Abbey to go to the Von Trapps, she walks for a ways, then takes what appears to be a rather long bus ride. This shows a fair amount of distance between the Von Trapps' house and the Abbey. Yet, when Maria snuck out to return to the Abbey during the party, it was night, and she had no ride waiting. Later, after the Captain tells the children he will marry the Baroness, they walk to and from the Abbey in an unsuccessful attempt to see Maria, and in an apparently short amount of time. From the initial bus ride, the Abbey was simply too far away for those walks to be believable.

Factual error: The story is set prior to the Anschluss, which was Austria's forced annexation with Germany in 1938. At this time Austrian vehicles still drove on the left (Hitler eventually changed that). When Von Trapp brings the Baroness to his home for the first time, he drives on the right.

Continuity mistake: When Mother Abbess tells Maria to leave the premises, the stuff on her desk changes positions.

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Factual error: The von Trapp family's eating habits do not match the time and place. eg. They cut up all of the meat on the plate into bitesize pieces, then put down the knife, take the fork in the right hand and continue eating with only the fork. This would not have happened in an Austrian family of their rank at that time in history.

Continuity mistake: During the storm, Gretel enters Maria's room and opens the door, which bounces back. A frame later the door is moving in the opposite direction.

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Continuity mistake: In the Do-Re-Mi scene, when the children and Maria are running back and forth on the steps at the very end of the scene, when it is about to end, Kurt doesn't reach the top step, and after the song has ended, you see him stepping up to join everyone else.

Continuity mistake: When the kids fall off the boat, the Baroness's hand rests by her hip. A frame later it rests against the Captain's back.

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Factual error: When the Von Trapp family is hiding in the Abbey to avoid the Nazis, they are hiding behind some headstones. In reality, these headstones are flush against the wall and no one would be able to fit behind them.

Other mistake: At the end of the Do-Re-Mi number, as Maria and the children are going up the stairs at the end of the song, Kurt still has his mouth open, even though the song has finished.

Revealing mistake: In the Do-Re-Mi scene, when the children and Maria are running up and down the steps, Charmian Carr (Liesl) is doing the correct choreography, but was unsure of herself. Heather Menzies (Louisa) got it wrong, but did so confidently. Carr then takes a false step in order to make her movements match Menzies'. Carr confirms this in the 40th anniversary special: she second guessed herself during the filming, and that's why she corrected herself, but upon watching the movie, she realized she'd been correct in the first place. Viewers can confirm that Carr was correct because she initially lined up (diagonally) with the other children on her side, while Menzies was out of line.

Continuity mistake: During "So Long, Farewell", the large area rug in front of the kids moves just after the "cuckoo" part of the song.

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Continuity mistake: After Liesel comes into Maria's room and Maria goes to look out the window, you can see the top of the ladder Liesel climbed up. In the next shot the ladder is gone.

Continuity mistake: During the "My favourite things" song the coat on the chair disappears.

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Continuity mistake: When the Capt. and Maria dance, right before he starts clapping she is five meters away, but a frame later he stands barely a meter away.

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Maria: I don't understand.
Captain von Trapp: Well, we called off our engagement, you see, and...
Maria: Oh, I'm sorry.
Captain von Trapp: Yes. You are?
Maria: Mm-hmm. You did?
Captain von Trapp: Yes. Well, you can't marry someone when you're in love with someone else... Can you?

More quotes from The Sound of Music

Trivia: The front and back of the von Trapp house are actually two different houses. Also, the gazebo (which belongs to the house used for the back shots) is across a river from the house. You can take the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg.

More trivia for The Sound of Music

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