When Liam Neeson sees Jessica Lange at the club before the big shoot out it is sunny and daylight, but when he is about to enter the club it is suddenly dark outside and after he emerges from the shoot out about 30 minutes laters it is bright and sunny again.
After Liam Neeson's Marlowe is knocked unconscious by the thugs, he tells Ian Hart's police detective that the thugs took his .38 caliber pistol when it was clear that Marlowe was wielding a .45 automatic in the previous scene. Hart hands Marlowe what he calls "another .38," which is clearly a .32 caliber revolver.
Amanda wears a prosthetic over her eye that looks like a bloody socket. That type of graphic make-up would never have been permitted under the Production Code.
When Marlowe is following Clare Cavendish in the car, looking through the back windows, you can see that his car is turning several times, but he is not moving the steering wheel at all.
The opening mentions Czechoslovakia. The date is October 1939, and Hitler had in March 1939 split it into Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Slovak Republic. Though this was reversed after the war, a US radio broadcast would not have used the old name.
While Marlowe and Hendricks are riding together in the car you can see the neon signs reflected in the windshield. However, they are readable and not reversed.
Also, they drove past the "Excelsior" at least twice.
Also, they drove past the "Excelsior" at least twice.
Readers of Chandler's original stories and listeners of the original Philip Marlowe radio shows will be surprised to hear a character use racist slurs. This is a 21st century assumption about racism in the late 1930s. While blatant racism was common in the early 20th century, Chandler was actually quite progressive and would never have allowed even a minor character to use such slurs. (This is not to say that Chandler was perfect; he held gender and sexuality stereotypes, just not racist ones.)
After Marlowe loses his weapon, he tells his friend in the police, "I lost my .38". In the following scene before he clearly drew a .45 Cal 1911. Not a .38 revolver.
The record Marlowe puts on to dance with Clare Cavendish, Billie Holiday's version of "I'll Be Seeing You", was recorded in 1944; the film is set in 1939.
Marlowe's and most of the male characters' hairstyles are anachronistic to the late 1930s.
The film opens in 1939. the movie poster in the opening sequence is from 'Mexican Spitfire' a film which did not come out until the following year.
The movie is set in 1939 yet a recording of Billie Holliday singing "I'll be seeing you" playing.
The earliest recording of the song was by Dick Todd in 1940 on the Bluebird label. J. Lawrence Cook recorded a piano roll of the song, QRS 7945.