At the end of the 'This Is Me' musical dance number the cape worn by Prince Constantine (The Tattooed Man) briefly disappears and then reappears in the next shot.
When Phineas makes Charity laugh at the beginning of the film, Charity spits her tea and it stains the front of her dress. When her father calls her over, the dress is dry and the stain is gone.
The actor who plays Tom Thumb is 4' 2" in real life so he's made to look shorter in the film by having the actor stand or walk on his knees with fake shoes attached. In the 'This Is Me' number, Tom Thumb appears and disappears at different points. He's in the group of oddities as they enter the hall of concert goers since he reaches up for the Bearded Lady's hand and he sings his line. He's missing from the overhead group shot as the oddities march out of the concert hall towards the circus, since the actor would have been unable to keep up with the group shuffling along on his knees. He's still missing as the group approaches the monument outside the circus. Then he suddenly reappears when the group is stationary singing at the monument.
During Carlyle and Barnum's "the Other Side", the peanut shells on the bar keep appearing and disappearing.
At the last bar scene when all the circus crew are dancing, you can see in the back how P.T grabs his hat and starts running for the door to reunite with his wife but then it cuts back to the same scene close up.
In the movie Swedish singer Jenny Lind makes sexual advances towards Barnum while they are touring together. When Barnum rejects her advances, she quits the tour out of frustration and starts a rumor that the two are romantically involved by forcibly kissing Barnum on stage after a performance. Barnum and Lind never had an affair. While it is true Lind quit the tour, she did so because she did not like Barnum's relentless marketing of her and decided to tour with new management. The two actually parted on friendly terms.
Barnum is shown drinking alcohol on numerous occasions. In real life, he was a teetotaler who gave many temperance lectures.
General Tom Thumb, real name Charles Sherwood Stratton, was only four years old when Barnum hired him. Not twenty-two as the movie claims. Also the movie fails to point out that Stratton and Barnum were actually related (They were distant cousins.).
PT Barnum and his wife Charity have two daughters in this film: daughters Caroline (born in 1833) and Helen (born in 1840). No mention is made of their younger daughters Frances (born in 1842) and Pauline (born in 1846).
Jenny Lind reads the opinion piece written by Gordon Bennett, from the New York Herald, where she is flattered by his supposedly printed praise of her: that she "deserves our highest esteem, and most lavish ovations". In reality, Bennett was so lazy, he only changed the headline for this new opinion piece about P.T. Barnum. He actually submitted the exact same article, as before, where he had already criticized Barnum as a "purveyor of the offensive and indecent", and only the changed headline makes any mention of Jenny Lind's success, but not by using the words she reads from it.
This is a fantasy number; the laws of physics and continuity reflect the meaning of the song (that they are trying to make things work in ways they do not), not literal reality.
During "Rewrite the Stars" the trapeze ropes and weights defy the laws of physics. Anne can pull a rope, have it freely coil up beside her then be able to lift her effortlessly.
During "Rewrite the Stars" the trapeze ropes and weights defy the laws of physics. Anne can pull a rope, have it freely coil up beside her then be able to lift her effortlessly.
When P.T. Barnum is meeting one man he whispers his weight in Barnum's ear and it is clear that he said 500 pounds but Barnum says 750 pounds. He is clearly exaggerating, to make it more extreme.
In "The Greatest Show" finale when Phillip runs onstage, he is wearing a different outfit than in the previous shot.
Costume switch actually is shown on screen when he is running past Lettie ( Keala Settle ). Before he reaches her he is in the same outfit as Barnum; then when he passes he is in the new one, demonstrating his whole-hearted embrace of the "impossible" world of the show.
Costume switch actually is shown on screen when he is running past Lettie ( Keala Settle ). Before he reaches her he is in the same outfit as Barnum; then when he passes he is in the new one, demonstrating his whole-hearted embrace of the "impossible" world of the show.
The movie apparently covers several years from P. T. Barnum's beginnings to his final success. Yet, his two daughters never seem to actually age.
At one point during the song "The Other Side", Phillip Carlyle jumps down from the bar, onto a barstool, and then onto the tile floor. You can briefly see a raised square underneath the barstool, covered in the same tile as the floor. This is obviously a platform that the barstool is attached to so that it is stable enough for Carlyle to jump onto without it tipping over.
Around 2/3 of the movie in we see Barnum leaving with Lind to start her US tour. The film shows a horse drawn carriage waiting outside the door, with Lind already seated inside, it collects Barnum, and then leaves down a gravel drive from the house leaving tracks as it goes down the drive. However there is only one set of tracks that is being created as the carriage leaves, there should have been at least one more set as the carriage came to the house to collect Barnum, as well as other marks from use, such as foot/horse prints.
During the bar scene with Barnum, the first shot taken by Philip is actually an empty shot glass with color added to the bottom. He also doesn't swallow before saying his next line.
When Tom Thumb is being put on the horse by Barnum you can clearly see a hearing aid in his left ear.
The movie has Barnum start his circus at a rather young age. Actually he did not start his famous circus until he was 60. Also the circus did not start until five years after his museum burned down in 1865.
Barnum and Charity dance on the rooftops early in the film, depicting the start of their lives together in New York. This would haven been in the 1830s, yet the Brooklyn Bridge is seen under construction in the background. Construction on the Brooklyn Bridge did not start until 1869.
When Barnum is still working at the shipping company (1841, before the museum purchase), he mentions the German, Lilienthal, and his gliding experiments. Otto Lilienthal wasn't born until 1848 and didn't start flying until 1891, the year P.T. Barnum died.
The front elevation of Buckingham Palace shows the 1913 remodeled exterior, whereas during the period of Barnum's visit, a different facade was seen on the Palace, which did not include the now famous balcony.
When the thug throws the lantern, it hits a poster that promotes a wax figure of "President Lincoln". Barnum was returning from his tour with Jenny Lind when this scene happened. The tour took place in 1850, ten years before Lincoln was elected President of the U.S.
Near the end of the This Is Me number you can see someone carry Tom Thumb in his Napoleon costume in the back for the end of the song.
At the start of the movie we see young PT and Charity at the sea shore. P.T. Barnum was born and raised in Bethel, CT which is a good 22 miles from the Long Island Sound beach in Bridgeport. Also, Long Island is easily visible from the Bridgeport beach but is nowhere to be seen in this movie.
Even in the extremely unlikely event the Company Barnum originally works for doesn't have insurance on their ships to cover a total loss, a bank would not accept uninsured ships as collateral against such a large loan (for the time) without performing "due diligence" first.
When young Phineas is writing letters to Charity, you can see he's right-handed. As an adult, Barnum is working for the trading company, he is down writing left-handed when his pencil breaks.
During "The Other Side", when Barnum and Carlyle are singing at the piano, Carlyle reaches for his shot glass without looking and misses. He then looks up and corrects himself.
Barnum and Carlyle each down 7 shots over 4 minutes during "the Other Side" and can still dance their way back to the circus and up a set of stairs to the trapeze level. Even if they are both experienced drinkers they should be showing some physical impairment.