After Pvt. Hook breaks into the doctor's cabinet and steals the brandy, he smashes the top off. When he takes a drink, the bottle's shape has changed.
When Chard fights the two Zulus who break through the line, a soldier near him is shot and slumps over the sandbag wall. In the next shot, Chard picks up the soldier's rifle, which has a bayonet attached, and uses it to fight the Zulus. When the stricken soldier fell, his rifle didn't have a bayonet, and was slung over the soldier's right shoulder.
Chard breaks open his revolver twice within a few seconds.
When Cpl. Allen is shot while helping Hitch, he grasps the right side of his chest. In all other scenes the wound is on the left side.
During the battle in the hospital, when Hook bayonets a Zulu up against the wall, the bayonet clearly goes under his armpit, not through, as the mark left on the wall would suggest.
The Zulu chief Cetewayo did not send his impi to attack Rorke's Drift; he ordered that the installation be left alone. One of his half-brothers ordered and led the attack, figuring he would get a quick victory and impress the king.
The soldiers wear parade dress uniforms, including white helmets displaying the regimental crest. On active duty they would've worn a more basic uniform with plain cork helmets.
The final salute by the Zulus did not take place. Some warriors appeared on the hill the following morning, but they observed the British in silence for a while before leaving again.
In real life, most of the rounds fired by the British either wounded the Zulus or missed them completely. About 2/3 of the Zulus killed in the battle were bayoneted in the head.
In real life, both Bromhead and Chard wore blue tunics. They also had mustaches.
At one point, a bright flash of sunshine reflects briefly off something on the hill behind Rorke's Drift. Some argue that the object is a car windshield. However, Stanley Baker's widow and others who have visited the site confirm that it was impossible to get any sort of vehicle onto the ridge, so it must be a different object, possibly a spear.
Incorrectly regard as a goof. With regard to the same shield seen by the departing Zulu and being stuck into the ground by Chard, (Stanley Baker), each of the Zulu regiments were given shields made from the hides of cattle of similar markings, (just as British regimental red coats had different collars, cuffs and badges to distinguish them). It would have been possible for more than one warrior to have shields mad from hides that were alike.
To simulate 4,000 Zulu warriors lining up on a ridge, with only 500 Zulu extras, long wooden frames were used with twelve Zulu shields attached to the front with ostrich feathers at the tops and one Zulu at each end. As the Zulus line up for the final "Fellow Braves" chant, the shield frames are obvious in one shot.
When Rev. Otto Witt flees Cetewayo's kraal after the report of the massacre at Isandlwana, the driver in the wagon has a beard, while Jack Hawkins does not.
In the hospital, the holes in the walls to be used as loopholes and to escape from one room to the next are clearly visible, and plastered over.
As the soldiers move into the redoubt before the dawn raid toward the end of the film, the shadows clearly show that the sun is high in the sky, meaning it was shot day-for-night.
In the opening scene showing the aftermath of the battle of Isandlwana, there is no blood visible on the corpses of the dead British soldiers or on the ground beneath them and no visible wounds although most of them were killed by Zulu spears. Nor are there any Zulu casualties although over 1000 of them were killed in this battle.
The commander in general of Rorkes Drift and Helpmekaar (ten miles away) was Henry Spalding, 104th Foot, who was a member of the staff of Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford, who was in charge of the British military presence in the region. Before news of the defeat at Isandlwana, Spalding rode to Helpmekaar to look for a regiment that was overdue. Spalding did not learn of the siege at Rorke's Drift until it was over.
Several Zulu warriors wear wrist watches.
The young women dancing in the open mass wedding wear black panties. At the time of the battle, they would have danced nude.
The 24th is identified as the "South Wales Borderers". In 1879 the regiment was the 2nd Warwickshire. It became a Welsh regiment in 1881.
When a Zulu warrior in the hospital is shot and falls backwards, he is wearing a pair of red flip-flops.
In the movie, "Men of Harlech" is the unit's regimental song. At the time of the battle, the regimental song was "The Warwickshire Lad."
A camera shadow falls on Bromhead's right shoulder after he tells Chard he did it.
A camera shadow is on the shield as the Zulu sneak up for the first engagement.
A camera shadow is on the ground between the two rows of Zulus prior to attack.
A camera shadow is on Chard's helmet as he walks along the bag wall.
A camera shadow falls on a bandaged soldier after the company roll call.
When Lt. Bromhead returns from his hunt, the bearers are carrying a dead cheetah and a springbok. The springbok is an antelope that lives in arid areas in the northwest of South Africa, and has never lived in Natal.
The area surrounding the actual Rorke's Drift is nowhere near as mountainous as in this movie.
An early scene with soldiers working on a dam at the base shows the Drakensberg Amphitheatre in the background. The scene was shot in the upper Tugela river valley, miles from the actual site of Rorke's Drift.
Many scenes show the highly recognisable Table Moutain in the background, which is over 1,500 miles to the south-west of Rorke's Drift.
Bromhead refers to "a lesson the General, my grandfather, taught me". Lt. Gen. Sir Gonville Bromhead died in 1822, 23 years before the Lt. Bromhead of this film was born. However, Bromhead's father was at Waterloo, and his great-grandfather was at Quebec with Wolfe.
When the Witt missionaries leave the Zulu camp they get into the cart, but as the cart rides out of the camp suddenly there is another man in it, not Mr Witt. The other man has facial hair.
On one of the DVD extras, Stanley Baker's widow, Ellen Martin, says she remembers so well how on the set they played Tom Jones' hit record "It's Not Unusual" to the Zulu extras, and they were all dancing The Twist to it. The movie was made in 1963, "It's Not Unusual" was released in 1965.
The Witts, who are Swedes, speak English to each other instead of Swedish.