Goofs

Two characters are sitting in an office. Items on a bookcase (behind a chair) keep appearing and disappearing.

This movie is set in late 1944. Italy had surrendered over a year earlier, so Italian prisoners were by then accorded considerable privileges. There would have been no need to confine them to a locked ward.

Captain Newman states that in the psychiatric ward, no knives are permitted. Yet Corporals Leibowitz and Gavoni, both orderlies in the ward, had quite a large knife amongst the patients to cut up the salami.

Since low-level personnel or employees often "bend the rules", this is not a "Character error" but more like a "Character reality".

When Capt. Newman opens the champagne bottle in the Officers' Club, there is a "pop" when the cork is removed. However, when pouring the champagne into Lieut. Corum's and his glass, there are no bubbles then or when they drink from the glasses. The liquid has no "fizz" and is thus not a carbonated drink like champagne.

The telephone cord on Capt. Newman's phone is a spiral cord not invented until after WW II.

Even though the story is taking place in 1944, hairstyles, uniforms and clothes are from 1963.

When Ward 7 is searching for Gavoni's salami, Leibowitz makes a reference to the Ray Milland film The Lost Weekend. Captain Newman, M.D. (1963) was set in 1944 and The Lost Weekend (1945) was not released until November 1945, months after the end of WWII.

Because the US Armed Services were segregated in 1944, it seems highly unlikely that black soldiers would be in the same hospital wards as whites. Also, it would seem unlikely that black officers would be seated with white officers at the Christmas program at the end of the film.

Aircraft are seen that bear the national insignia that was used after 1948.

At about the 37-minute mark, as the Red Cross plane is bringing in more patients to the Colfax Army Air Field, in the background you can briefly but clearly see the nose cone of a 4-engine Boeing C-97 type aircraft (either a C-97 cargo plane or KC-97 refueling plane). This type of Boeing aircraft did not enter service with the U.S. military (Air Force) until the late 1940s - in other words, well after WWII was over, and not during the time period this movie takes place (1944).