Strangers on a TrainGoofs

When Bruno arrives at the Metcalf train station with the cigarette lighter in hand, a background sign for "Ray's Danbury Diner - Low Prices" can be glimpsed in the background. (The scene was filmed at the Danbury train station.) A minute later, the sign reads "Ray's Metcalf Diner".

During the initial conversation on the train, Bruno's cigarette vanishes from his mouth mid-sentence.

Tennis match played before the end of the movie is clearly put together from 2 different games - there are different tennis courts and also stadiums.

Toward the end, at the merry-go-round, Guy tells Bruno that the man with him is the Chief of Police, but Guy addresses the man as Captain Turley. A Chief of Police is never addressed by a different rank or title, even in a smaller police department. A Chief is always addressed as "Chief" - in this case, "Chief Turley".

When Bruno drops the lighter down the sewer, he tells the bystanders, he needs help retrieving his cigarette CASE. Perhaps Bruno thought it would sound more important if he said he'd dropped a case rather than a mere lighter.

Except for the first few rows of real humans up front, the rest of the tennis fans in the stands are fake; they are painted on a mural of some kind.

Bruno strains to the limit to reach the lighter at the bottom of the drain, but when he grasps it, he does it with ease with no sign of strain at all.

When Hennessey and Hammond follow Guy to the station, they see him at the ticket booth. As they carry on to follow him, several people in the background walking through the station and going up the escalator can be seen looking and pointing towards the camera and crew.

The map Bruno draws of his house does not quite match the set. The set has the hallway with the father's bedroom meeting the staircase at a 90 degree angle, while the map shows it being offset, so that a person would have to walk around a corner, passing another set of stairs leading further up.

Guy and Bruno are in the New Haven Railroad dining car, but the silver coffee pot on the table has the Santa Fe Railroad "Super Chief" emblem on top, and the china pattern is "California Poppy", also a Santa Fe exclusive pattern.

When Guy arrives in Metcalf to head off Bruno, he walks up to a taxi and tells the driver, "Amusement park - quick," but the line has clearly been dubbed by a different actor.

When Guy says "Oh, excuse me" after accidentally bumping Bruno's foot in the opening scene in the train's club car, his voice has plainly been dubbed by another actor.

Around 00:54:11, Bruno says "Tell me, Judge..." but his lips don't move.

A crew member is reflected in the car door when the two detectives get out of the car at the station they have chased Guy to.

After Guy has passed the dog on the stairs and proceeds, a shadow is seen moving out of the frame at the bottom of the next stairs.

When Bruno takes a taxi from the Anthony house in Arlington, Virginia, to travel to Union Station in Washington, the taxi crosses a bridge over the Potomac River, which separates Virginia and Washington, D.C. The taxi is crossing the bridge in the wrong direction, because the Abraham Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument (located in D.C.) are shown through the rear window of the taxi.

When Guy is walking past the Lincoln Memorial with the detective, he sees Bruno watching him from atop the memorial's steps. He immediately suggests they take a taxi because it is late. They walk across the street and get into a cab parked in front of the Jefferson Memorial. The Jefferson Memorial is over a mile from the Lincoln Memorial and in the opposite direction in which they were walking. Across the street from the Lincoln Memorial is the Reflecting Pool. The cab should have been there with the Washington Monument far in the background.

When Bruno rushes to the train station, his cab is going the wrong way on the Arlington Bridge, away from the monuments. Hitchcock possibly chose this because the correct direction would have shown the depressed Rosslyn.

The whole idea behind the perfect murder scheme of Bruno's is that he and Guy are perfect strangers and don't know each other. Bruno then starts showing up around Guy in Washington, including at parties and public places, to try to coerce him into fulfilling the plot and killing his dad. This occurs even while Guy is walking with his police escort. Bruno also phones Guy repeatedly. This totally contradicts them being strangers with no links and doing the perfect crisscross murders.

Guy arrives at the amusement park late because a long-running tennis match delayed him. It would have been a simple matter for him to lose the match quickly.