Goofs

The prisoner exchange takes place in snowy Berlin in February. When Donovan returns home to New York the same day the leaves by his front door are green.

Donovan's coat is stolen on his way to the embassy yet he is seen wearing the same dark coat in a later scene (before the replacement coat with the furry collar appears).

When Pryor is crossing the Berlin Wall he is first seen with a Zeiss folding camera around his neck. When arrested he has a Rolleiflex-type box camera around his neck.

Donovan is standing alone in the middle of the Glienicke bridge immediately after the prisoner exchange yet there are no footprints in the snow of the several people who participated in the event.

When Donovan is in Berlin for the prisoner exchange, it's obviously bitterly cold. When he comes home and greets his wife on the front porch of their home, the leaves are on the trees and it's obviously summer.

The end titles say that the Soviets never acknowledged Abel as a spy. On the contrary, Rudolf Ivanovich Abel was frequently used as an example of a very successful spy, being able to stay undetected for 8 years in the United States and maintain his silence after being captured. Western journalists were invited to attend Abel's funeral. His gravestone is marked with the KGB crest. Abel also frequently gave public speeches about the importance of intelligence work. Finally, Abel is portrayed on a series of Soviet stamps dedicated to "Soviet Intelligence officers" together with other well known agents such as Kim Philby and K.T. Molody.

Francis Gary Powers was not tortured while he was held by the Soviet Union and sent to one of the less brutal prisons. In fact he was treated very humanely and given preferential treatment as it was known he was a bargaining chip. During his time as a prisoner Powers was allowed to do various activities including knitting a rug and other handicrafts.

In the movie, Francis Gary Powers is portrayed as being an active duty U.S. Air Force lieutenant, but in reality he had left the military in 1956 at the rank of Captain. He then joined the CIA's U-2 program at the civilian grade of GS-12 and was working for them when he was shot down by the Soviets on May1, 1960.

The flight suit that Gary Powers is wearing is not correct. U-2 pilots wore a partial pressure suit. The U-2 could not handle enough pressure when flying at maximum altitude. The partial pressure suit is tight fitting to supply pressure to the body surface when the air pressure is too low. It has inflatable tubes along the limbs. Later, U-2 pilots wore a full pressure suit, like astronauts wear.

There was no wild scene in court by outraged spectators when Abel was sentenced. In fact, it was a fairly routine 15-minute proceeding. Nor was the 30-year sentence controversial, because the government did not ask for the death penalty but rather "a substantial sentence."

Donovan is meeting with Dulles in his office, and in the spoken script these words are spoken: ". . . you can't rely on any acknowledgment or help if things go south." According to a previous goof, the expression "go south" didn't occur in the English language until some time in the 21st Century. However, numerous online sources dedicated to etymology cite references to the phrase from the 1920s relating to the US stock market, and even prior citations connecting the phrase to negative outcomes, e.g. death.

While negotiations are taking place in 1962, Donovan and Hoffman walk past a Berlin cinema advertising "Die Verdammten". Luchino Visconti's The Damned (1969) had not yet been made, but English wording underneath the title makes clear that the film is Village of the Damned (1960).

At one point Col. Abel is described as pretending to come from northern England. In fact, he appears to speak English with a Scottish, not a northern English accent.

Col. Abel genuinely was born in born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (northern England) to Russian parents, and contemporary sources report him speaking with a Scots-Irish accent which he claimed (falsely) was due to being brought up in Boston, Massachusetts.

When Abel is painting his self-portrait, he is carefully studying the reflection of his left profile in the mirror (i.e. he is looking slightly right). However he has actually painted himself looking left. He is also wearing a different color shirt (but this could be explained by the fact that Abel would most likely have painted the portrait over several days).

When Abel is given a cigarette by James Donovan in the interrogation room, he is seen inhaling the cigarette but he never exhales it.

Near the end, Abel's portrait of Donovan, with the reflection of light off the portrait shows a perfectly smooth paper surface like that of a color laser printer printout and not the strokes\rough surface of a manual painting.

Donovan calls his wife from a West Berlin telephone booth, pays for the call with a few coins, and gets through immediately. In the 1960s, a 3-minute call from the US to Europe cost $10, and overseas calls meant waiting hours to get a line.

The subway entrance at the beginning has a green globe. These colored globes did not exist until 1982. Green means open 24 hours. Red means not. Prior to 1982 they were always white. Interestingly the exact same mistake was made in a previous Tom Hanks -Steven Spielberg movie, Catch Me If You Can (2002).

When Donovan was offered an alcoholic drink in East Germany, it comes out of a bottle with an aluminum screw top cap. This didn't exist in 1960. It should have a cork.

When the television set is turned off in this movie, picture disappears instantly. When TVs of the time were turned off, the picture shrank to a white dot which stayed on the screen for a few minutes.

During the courtroom scenes for the 1957 trial, the American flags flanking the judge were not introduced until 1960. At the time of the trial there were only 48 states. The flags have 50 stars.

When the U2 is plummeting down, the sound used is of a propeller driven plane about to crash. The U2 (TR-1) is jet aircraft.

As Donovan goes back into his house after the shooting, the shadow of the camera is visible on the left.

When Abel's case is taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, the exterior shown is actually that of New York County Supreme Courthouse located at 60 Centre Street in Lower Manhattan.

Donovan observes a failed escape attempt at the Berlin Wall, while riding an S-Bahn train back to West Berlin. The escapees are climbing the outer wall to reach a West Berlin street. At that time, the Stadtbahn was the only overground rapid transit service connecting East and West Berlin.The Stadtbahn-line crossed the border between the British and the Soviet zone at the bridge above the Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal. The Wall laid here alongside the Eastern bank of the Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal. So there wasn't any street on the Western side of the wall, but the shipping canal.

Pacific Bell telephone signs seen in scenes set on the East Coast of the United States.

When James Donovan is calling home from Berlin he is near Kino International, this film theater has been built in 1963 and it is actually in East Berlin (movie scene is placed in West Berlin instead)

The picture portrays (logically) the West (Donovan) at the left of the screen and the East (the Russians) at the right of the screen. This convention remains in the scenes at the bridge although Donovan is on the "east" side of the bridge (west Berlin) and the Russians are on the "west" side of the bridge (east Germany).

When Donovan's house has been attacked, a police officer gets mad at him and tells Donovan he fought on Omaha Beach against "these guys". During World War II, USA and Soviet Union were close allies, not enemies, and if the officer was referring to fighting against spies, he should not have mentioned fighting on Omaha Beach.

Before Donovan goes to Berlin he is warned that East Berlin is being walled off. In fact, the wall surrounded West Berlin. Berlin is located in the eastern half of Germany which was divided between Russia and the Allies after WW2. Berlin was also divided between the two sides meaning that West Berlin was located inside of East Germany.

Abel calls Donovan 'Stoykiy muzhik', which he translates as 'standing man'. This translation is a bit misleading, and, really, incorrect. Correct translation would be resilient man, or tough man. Using more familiar terms, it would mean a man who stands his ground.

In Abel's "Stoikiy Muzhik" story, he said he witnessed the incident with the "partisans" as a kid. Born in the UK in 1903, Rudolf Ivanovich Abel didn't move to Moscow with his family until 1921, a year or so before the end of the Civil War. While there may have been red or white partisans in other regions, I doubt he would have witnessed such a scene in Moscow at that time. Also, "partisans" in Russian usually refers to resistance fighters during WW II. Time and place don't fit. If it was a story attributed to Abel, he may have been stretching the truth or relating someone else's story; or the screenwriters heard it somewhere and decided to stick it in for effect.

During an early scene with the pilots, they were told to refer to the U-2 as "the article". Later, during the self-destruct lesson, the instructor refers to the U-2 as "the aircraft", going against his own orders.