Goofs

Several times in the movie one of the characters makes a humorous comment and you hear the courtroom audience burst out laughing; however, when the camera immediately turns to the audience, they are shown completely still and without emotion.

Eve Arden picks up the bottle of milk from the doorstep and sets it on the table missing about 1 cup of milk. When she returns to put milk in Paul Biegler's coffee the milk bottle is totally full.

Near the beginning, when Biegler intends to clean the fish he's caught, he lays out newspaper, then places some waxed paper over it. He makes a phone call and when he returns to the kitchen, the newspapers are on top of the foil.

When McCarthy is driving back at night, his car is shown approaching a fork in the road, with a large white sign in the area where the road divides, and taking the left-side (from the driver's viewpoint) fork. The shot immediately shifts to McCarthy in the car, driving, squinting ahead, passing other cars whose horns are heard and headlights seen. The scene then shifts again, back to the very same shot of the car approaching the same fork in the road, even though by then the car would have been well beyond this area, having already passed it several moments earlier.

The position of Paul's hat changes on the antler rack while he was in talking to Laura.

When Biegler is first interviewing Manion at the jail, he asks what gun he used to kill the victim, Manion answers back that he used a "War Souvenir, a Luger". This seems strange as Manion had only been in the military since 1950 and saw action in Korea. A Luger would come from WWII, not Korea.

James Stewart goes to negotiate with the DA at the courthouse. Sign over the DA's door is misspelled "Proseguting attorney". Actually this is not true. It's possible to compare the c with the g at the end of the word, and you can see the g has a descending stroke. It's just a foible of the font.

The Lieutenant is a combat veteran of the Korean War. His ribbons show The Silver and Bronze Star Medals and more. It would seem logical that a veteran with those medals would also have The Combat Infantryman's Badge, which the Lieutenant does not have.

When Paul Biegler looks at the photos of Barney Quill on the tavern wall, you can clearly see that some of the photos are repeated.

In the opening shot, the camera car's shadow is visible on Biegler's car.

When Lt. Manion returns from psychological examination, he chats with his attorney, Paul Biegler, at the train station. The shadow of a crew member falls on Biegler.

As Paul Biegler walks behind the bar at the tavern, crew pops up twice, just in front of the bar.

It is incorrectly regarded as a goof that it would take 2 days to travel from Detroit to Marquette by train. A trip via Chicago, on the New York Central and connecting to the Chicago and Northwestern (which only goes to Ishpeming, not Marquette) would have taken about 1-1/2 days. A short cut could be made taking a Lake Michigan car ferry from Muskegon, Ludington or Frankfort in Michigan to Milwaukee, Manitowoc or Kewaunee in Wisconsin, but connections are a problem; a handy taxi or limo service would be necessary. Going directly from Detroit to Marquette could be done by train in a little over 1 day, via Mackinaw City, but the Chicago & Northwestern would not be used. Many passenger trains on all these routes operated in the 1950's.

Lt. Manion and later Dr. Smith are shown arriving from Detroit on the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. Such a trip would have meant traveling via Chicago and changing trains (and stations). According to the Official Railway Guide during the period in which the movie is set, the C&NW had one train a day to Marquette. The trip would mean leaving Detroit at 12:50pm (ET) and arriving in Marquette at 7:30am (CT) the next morning (at total travel time of 19:40 including time to change stations in Chicago). By comparison a connection taking the New York Central and Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic with a ferry connection at Mackinac would mean leaving Detroit at 11:00pm and arriving in Marquette at 2:30pm the next day for a travel time of 15:30 including the ferry crossing.

When Biegler returns to his house at the start of the film, McCarthy points to the United States Supreme Court reports and asks if they should read "a little Chief Justice Holmes", and Biegler also refers to "Chief Justice Holmes". Oliver Wendell Holmes was an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, never Chief Justice. (He was, however, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts before being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.)

When the jury returns to court following the first session an extra trips up the stairs behind Paul Biegler.

When Eve Arden is ascending the courthouse steps (indoors) a female extra is staring adoringly at her. It obvious from the look on the extra's face that she was in awe of the actress even though Arden was playing a secretary.