The Ninth Gate

In the fight between Boris Balkan and Liana Telfer on the altar, as they are wrestling, right before they fall over you can clearly see a wire pulling the brazier down.

It runs from the bottom left corner of the screen to the top of the brazier.

When Dean and the woman are driving, and the sign that says St.

Martin is reflected on the windshield, it is obvious that a computer generated reflection was superimposed over the windshield, because when the car turns, the reflection is jerky and unsynchronized with the car movement.

Front license plates in Switzerland don't have flags on them.

The footsteps when Corso is walking up the stairs to meet the old woman are off by about 1/2 second.

It comes back in sync shortly after he presses the buzzer.

In the first quarter of the movie, when Corso is in the library, he turns to his left and you can see the mic cord beneath his shirt.

When Corso and the girl arrive at the castle where the convention takes place, night is falling.

As Corso leaves again, chasing Balkan, only a short time afterward, there is bright sunlight.

When Dean Corso meets Boris Balkin for the first time, a crewmember is reflected in the library window.

When Liana Telfer smashes up a bottle on Corso's head, the sound of glass breaking comes before the bottle actually makes contact.

Obvious stunt double when Balkas knocks Corso through the floorboards of the castle (near the end of the movie).

Obvious stunt double when Corso crosses Bleeker street en route to the rare bookstore in Manhattan.

As Corso asks the cab driver to wait while he goes to the bookstore, we see a motorcycle drive down Bleeker street.

The license plate on the motorcycle are French, but Corso is in New York.

In the film, the book "The Nine Gates" displays an inverted pentagram on its cover to represent its Satanic content.

However, the inverted pentagram only became associated with Satanism and evil in the late 19th century due largely to a work by the French occultist Eliphas Levi.

As the books were said to be in their original 17th century Venetian bindings, the appearance of the inverted pentagram is an anachronism.

When Corso and Balkan are talking in the castle, the pieces of paper continuously change position between shots after Balkan has laid out the engravings on the table.

When Corso is in the cab he asks the driver to stop at the payphone.

The cab driver says, "No problem, sir" but his mouth is visible in the mirror and is clearly not speaking.

When Fargas is comparing both books for Corso, he supposedly opens both books to the same page to point out an error in printing.

However, in the wide shot, it is clear the books are not both open to the same page.

The book on the left has a very evident gap in one of the lines that the book on the right does not.

When Corso and the Girl step into the lift at the hotel where Liana Telfer is staying, the Girl's hair is in a messy ponytail.

When they get off the lift it's much neater, in the next shot it's messy again.

When Corso goes to the New York City Library for research, he pulls a copy of Books in Print from the shelf.

All major libraries have used CDs of this reference guide for years.

Also, he finds an illustration from the book he is researching.

Books in Print never printed an illustration.

While showing off his collection to Corso, Fargas presents a "Dictionaire Infernal" by Jacques Collin de Plancy, which he says is a first edition from 1844.

The first edition of this influential encyclopedia on superstition appeared in 1818, but its sixth edition, published in 1863, is prized for its illustrations, including 72 drawings of demons.

The copy Fargas holds has a title page that is from the 1863 edition.

Inconsistency regarding the engravings that Corso claims to be genuine (signed LCF) and forged (signed AT).

In an early scene he discovers the LCF signatures on 1) an engraving of an old man holding keys in his right hand and 2) a maze that has no exit.

But in a later scene he says the genuine engravings show the keys in the left hand and that the maze has an open exit.

Any time The Girl floats down to save the day, the wires supporting her are very visible in the shots.

When Corso and The Girl drive off in their "borrowed" red sports car, they are stuck behind a truck for a moment, and the car's brake lights are lit; however, the sound of the car accelerating and upshifting can be heard throughout the shot.

When Balkin and Corso enter the collection area early on in the film we see a building outside the many windows in the collection room.

In the building outside the lights start going out one-by-one on one of the floors.

But a moment later in the next shot, we see the lights back on.

After Boris Balkan's death in the castle, Dean Corso returns to Balkan's Land Rover to leave.

As Corso opens the door of the Land Rover, a crew member is visible in the rear view mirror on the door.

The Sintra railway station depicted is very romantic but makes no resemblance to the real one.

Real collectors and dealers wouldn't handle books worth $1,000,000 without gloves, and they surely wouldn't smoke or drink wine directly over them.

Also, a book that old (not to mention the XVIII century Don Quixote volumes he takes at the beginning) would not resist the way Corso keeps chucking it in his bag or the fact everybody seems to be handling around.

Furthermore, no dealer in his right mind would try to photocopy a four centuries old book by placing it in a commercial machine face down and pressing it as depicted in the moviesuch actions would inflict severe damage to the printing and binding, drastically affecting its worth.

Regardless those characters who see the book as a tool rather than a priceless collectible, Corso and the brothers Ceniza are experts in the matter, and would never treat such rare and priceless books that way.

When Corso returns to the Book Sellers, and finds the missing page from the book as it falls from atop the old bookcase, in the first shot, it is entirely gray with years of dust, as it floats to the floor.

When he picks it up seconds later, it is completely clean on both sides.

Even though Liana viciously bites Corso's upper chest during their post-sex fight scene, Corso's chest does not show any bite marks when he is seen shirtless in the hotel scene which takes place less than one week after the bite occurred.

In the taxi scene where the driver pulls up alongside a payphone for Corso, the driver's lips are visible in the rear-view mirror and don't move in sync with the driver's line.

When Liana's bodyguard trips while assaulting Corso by the river, the "rocks" underneath him all shift and slide together.

It's clearly a mat.

When Corso describes Liana to Gruber, he says "Fortyish.

", however, later on when Corso and The Girl lose track of the Liana's Rolls Royce, staring at the "St.

Martin" sign, The Girl says to Corso "Thirtyish.

" Upon Corso's first visit to the Ceniza brothers, one of the brothers says "I would never have believed she would part with it.

Never.

" When saying 'never' the second time, his mouth is not moving.

This is an enjoyable movie. Roman P.

Polanski's engaging devil-worship chiller is lush with a rich Gothic atmosphere and style to spare. The storyline is deceptively simple: bookseller Johnny Depp is tasked with tracking down copies of an ancient text believed to have been written by Satan himself.

Have you ever laughed out loud in a public scene where you are supposed to be serious? Watch this movie and enjoy the feeling!

The story about the search for a genuine copy of a rare book on the subject of raising the devil. But it's the unscrupulous people involved in the search that make it so interesting.

This is the type of movie where you get to discover things along with the main character. You don't have to wait for the character to catch up with what the audience already knew, I hate those type of movies and I'm happy that this isn't one of them.

I consider this film a bit of a hidden treasure. Despite some rather negative professional reviews it has always been a personal favorite of mine.

Regrettably, I never saw this film at the theatre. I wish I had, though, as it is just my type of movie.

Whilst being somewhat old fashioned, even in 1999 when it was made , this movie is very watchable and Polanski proves he still has a little of the old magic left in him. It aches of the substance we miss so much in modern cinema:- Story along with intrigue and characters we love to hate.

.. u n d e r r a t e d.