The Silence of the Lambs

Nearly all the vehicles used in the film have inspection stickers in their windshield indicating registration in Pittsburgh, PA, where none of the action in the film takes place.

Jack Crawford's collar pops in and out of his vest during a conversation with Clarice Starling.

The killer looks right into the headlights of Catherine Martin's car with his night-vision goggles on when she drives into the parking area and is not blinded.

In fact, goggles at the timeframe of this movie might have been permanently damaged.

Newer goggles do have automatic protection mechanisms.

Customs has a record of Buffalo Bill bringing the moths, found only in Asia, from Suriname, in South America.

But he may have used a re-shipper to disguise the origins of the shipment.

Gumb's basement, while larger than the "red herring" house in Illinois, is proportional to his house in Ohio.

As Hannibal escapes, he kicks the cell door onto the guard, causing the door to be in between Hannibal and the guard.

Yet in the very next shot, the guard is right in front of Hannibal so he can bite him.

When the cop holding the flowers is at the front door of the house in Illinois, shadows change direction on the doorframe between shots.

The red herring house is supposed to be in Calumet City, Illinois, and in the background, mountains can be seen.

There are no mountains near Calumet City.

At the end of the film when Hannibal is telling Clarice about having "an old friend for dinner" a camera crew can is reflected in Hannibal's sunglasses.

When Clarice is talking to Buffalo Bill in his back room, a moth is filmed landing on a cotton reel.

After the moth has settled, a thread is visible attached to it.

Presumably the shot was filmed in reverse, and the moth 'yanked' off the reel.

When Clarice is researching Lecter in Quantico by reading old newspaper articles on microfilm, the same text regarding developments at some vague governmental conference appears over and over again surrounding the Lecter articles in all four separate newspapers she views.

The plane carrying agents to Calumet City banks over mountainous terrain, resembling nothing in the vicinity of northern Indiana When the FBI team is preparing to deliver the flowers, the ribbon is on both the upper and lower sections of the box.

In the next shot, the ribbon appears only on the upper section of the box.

When Clarice is interviewing Lecter, one of the padlocks on his cell door goes from locked to unlocked between scenes.

At the end of the movie, when Clarice Starling is searching Buffalo Bill's basement, she approaches a door with the doorknob on her right, indicating it would open to her left.

When we see the door open from the opposite side, it opens to her right.

While standing in the first victim's sewing room, Clarice recalls the diamond shaped pieces of skin removed from the girl found in the river, which she realizes resemble darts that are commonly used to reduce fabric bulk in the waistline, making a garment more fitted.

The problem is, the dart shapes cut from the skin resemble the part of the fabric that is wasted, the unwanted pieces.

It is a 'negative' of what this killer would have wanted to keep, if he were making himself a garment.

The killer would never have wanted those skin items.

Later it shows him sewing on one end, single thickness.

He's not sewing anything to anything else, and he's using a piece that is typically cut off and discarded in the process of real garment construction.

Although a human skin garment is implied, most of the examples of sewing are factually erroneous as viewed by anyone experienced in tailoring.

The ring of sweat on Clarice's sweatshirt as she is running on the Quantico course in the beginning of the movie covers her body almost from shoulder to shoulder.

When she gets called into Crawford's office, it is significantly smaller.

As the forensics come to take photos of the victim's body, the "corpse" visibly blinks as the hands touch its face.

In the final phone call, as Lecter says "I have no plans to call on you, Clarice.

The world's more interesting with you in it", his facial movements don't match the spoken words.

When Sgt.

Pembry is preparing to handcuff Dr.

Lecter to the bars of his cell while bringing in his requested second supper, he has him sit with his back to the bars and his arms thrust behind him in order secure the shackles.

In this scene it is apparent that Dr Lecter has been waiting for a fair amount of time between his first meal and his second serving because we see his drawings and magazines spread over the entire desktop surface.

A closeup of the Drs arms, however, reveal that the cuffing procedure must have been repeated several time during the filming process in order to get a good take as there are already red, discolored areas on actor 'Anthony Hopkins (I)' (qv)' wrists from the multiple donning and shedding of the handcuffs before they are even applied in film.

West Virginia State Police uniforms are not brown as shown in the movie.

The uniforms are Forest Green and have been that way since the early 1900's.

Also the WV State Police vehicles are not Grey as shown in the movie, they are Blue with Old Gold and the State Seal is the emblem on the door.

The WV DPS (State Police) were originally asked by the director to have some of the Troopers in the movie, but he did not like the colors of their uniforms and when he requested they change to the Brown uniforms, the Troopers rightfully refused and left the movie set with their cruisers and proper uniforms.

The moth found "behind the soft palate of a murder victim" is identified by the biologist as Acherontia styx, the deaths-head moth, however the moth used in the poster is actually Acherontia atropos, also known as the deaths-head moth.

(There is a third deaths-head moth called Acherontia lachesis.

) While A.

styx is native to Asia, as identified by the biologist, A.

atropos is native to the Middle East and Mediterranean.

After Hannibal escapes from his temporary cell in Memphis, the police have who they believe to be Dr Lecter, cornered, injured and unconscious, on the top of an elevator.

When the officer is told to shoot him, non-lethally, in order to determine whether he is alive or not, he wounds him with his police issued 9MM handgun in the back of the knee.

Since the body showed no reaction to the shot, this person was ultimately determined to be dead.

However, this shot was also revealing in that it showed that the movie makers used a dummy or a very low-yield explosive "squib" when filming this scene.

If a person was hit with a bullet of such caliber, even if he is deceased, there would be some movement of the limb away from the direction of the shot.

During the autopsy scene, they remove the bug cocoon from the victim and insert it into a small jar with the bug antenna pointing to the bottom of the jar.

The next next shot shows Clarice pouring fluid into the jar with the antenna pointing up.

As Clarice is looking through the microfilm, the pen in her mouth switches places several times.

During Clarice's first visit to see Hannibal, she wore a skirt with belt on waist when she was in Dr.

Chilton's office and before entering the final corridor leading to Hannibal's cell.

The belt was gone when she was entering the corridor, however, entering a prison (especially the maximum security part), she would have probably had to remove her belt before entering particularly if it had a metal buckle.

Lecter correctly refers to the moth pupa as a "chrysalis".

Many moths, including the one in the film, pupate inside a chrysalis.

"Cocoon" simply refers to a type of silky case spun my many types of insects, not just moths.

An Acherontia styx pupa is found behind the soft palate of Bill's 6th victim, however, the actual species depicted is Acherontia atropos.

Clarice claims to have double-majored in criminology and psychology at the University of Virginia.

Criminology has never been a major offered at UVa.

A forensics expert's opinion of the autopsy sceneover 8 errors were made.

Among themthe body was fingerprinted without collecting evidence under the victims fingernails, and the ink would have destroyed the evidence.

You cannot get fingerprints off a body if it is in that condition.

Sgt Tate tells an officer to call in the SWAT team.

Memphis has no SWAT team, it has a related unit called the TACT team.

Jack Crawford says that Clarice graduated "magna" (magna cum laude) from UVA, but this is impossible because UVA does not award such a distinction to psychology majors When Hannibal is imprisoned in Memphis, the sign outside of the Shelby county courthouse is shown in dim light to be a museum.

When Clarice opens the music box, it plays and winds down.

As it winds down, the musical pitch lowers.

Actually, the pitch should stay the same - the music should just slow down.

In the cut to the scene outside the supposed Memphis Police headquarters, after Lecter has escaped by "stealing" the face of a police officer, an ambulance roars across the screen and stops.

The ambulance has Hamilton County tags.

Memphis is in Shelby County; Hamilton County is Chattanooga - 400 miles east.

The military aircraft heading toward Calument City has California Air Guard on the side.

Not very likely considering they were coming from Virginia.

As 'Jodie Foster' (qv) indicates on the commentary track of the Criterion DVD version of the film, there is a mistake in the most dramatic moment of the entire filmwhen Buffalo Bill cocks his gun and Clarice turns around and shoots him.

You can clearly see the shadow of Bill's hand holding the gun on Clarice's back as he raises it to shoot her.

However, the basement is supposed to be pitch black, so there shouldn't have been any shadows whatsoever.

Regarding the sweat stains on Clarice's sweatshirt from the course to Crawford's office.

The course she was running is located on a Marine Corps Base in Quantico, which is also home to the FBI Academy.

The course (Endurance Course) is about 5 miles long throughout the Quantico highlands, on the Marine part, not the FBI part.

At the Cargo net obstacle, she was nearly at the end of the course, about 2-3 miles from the FBI academy.

There is a road to the left on the screen, and nothing but miles of woods on her right, which is where the FBI agent came out and told her that Crawford wanted to speak to her.

Geographically, it would have been faster and more logical for her to finish the course, than run back toward where she just came from, which is about a 3-4 mile run back through the woods, to the FBI academy.

When Clarice visits the entomologists to identify the moth pupa, while examining the chrysalis they indicate that it must have been specially raised from imported eggs and fed "honey and nightshade".

Deaths head moth larva, like most caterpillars, eat only vegetation.

It is the adult moths that eat honey.

The moth landing on the red roll of string at Buffalo Bills house has a black string attached to its back.

This was probably not an issue during the low resolution days, but it's clearly visible in high definition.

When Clarice is shown in Belvedere, Ohio she on a bridge.

This would have been Steubenville, Ohio as Belvedere does not have a river.

When Clarice visits the self-storage shed (where she has to crawl under the door), the camera pans and we get a good (dark) look at the large unlighted interior.

Although there are no windows in self storage units (as a matter of security), we can clearly see windows with sunlight pouring through on the far wall of the storage space.

Jodie Foster has blue eyes.

When she is in the funeral home she goes back in her life and sees her father in the casket.

There is a little girl that is supposed to be her going to see her father in the casket.

The little girl has hazel eyes, not blue.

Jack Crawford gets Dr.

Chilton's name wrong when he describes who will be escorting Starling at the asylum.

He refers to him as "Dr.

Chilnet.

" Starling's gloves magically disappear from her lap as she tries to get into the self storage facility.

The body Clarice discovers in the basement, presumably Mrs.

Lippman, is lit almost entirely by sunlight.

Moments later, Buffalo Bill kills the power and whole room turns pitch black.

The film refers to "iron sulfide, also known as 'fool's gold'.

" In reality, iron sulfide (or more specifically, iron (II) sulfide or FeS) is an unstable chemical compound that's often brown or black in appearance.

The fool's gold they refer to is commonly known as 'pyrite.

' While it is a type of iron sulfide, it's proper name is iron (II) disulfide (FeS2).

Even if Agent Starling and Dr.

Lector knew enough about chemistry to know of the chemical composition of "fool's gold," she would have known it as either pyrite or iron disulfide.

At the Memphis Airport, Lt.

Boyle introduces Sgt.

Pembry to Dr.

Lecter as "Sgt.

Petry".

When Starling heads for the meeting with Senator Martin, the airport is described as "Memphis International Airport".

Upon entering the hangar, military A-7 aircraft are clearly visible, which indicates the scenes were filmed at a military airport.

When Clarice is in the pitch black basement, searching for Buffalo Bill, he points a gun at her head through his night vision goggles.

However, the gun makes a shadow on her back, which it wouldn't with no light.

During Lector's escape, the "swat" team arrives and jumps out of the police car at the courthouse with their Ithica 37 shotguns, they are shown chambering the rounds except the the officer on the right pulls back again on the fore stock and asks "ready?" this action should have ejected a shell and left the gun unloaded.

Crawford tells Clarice that Miggs died by swallowing his tongue.

Literally swallowing one's tongue is impossible, but an unconscious person's tongue may sag backwards and block his airway, suffocating him.

When this happens, it may be said that he swallowed his tongue.

- PLOTWe are told early on by Dr.

Chilton that Lecter is so dangerous that he can be given only soft paper items, no staples, paper clips or any metal items.

Yet, in Memphis he's allowed to have a tape player (playing one of Bach's Goldberg Variations), which contains numerous metal parts that Lecter could use as a weapon.

Anthony Hopkins gives the performance of his career in this suspenseful thriller as the cannibalistic Hannibal Lecter. It is, in a manner of speaking, Hopkins' film, a character study on his behalf.

(Note: this movie is not a 10. I rated the trilogy as a whole, whereas this individual movie is a 9 out of 10)!

What hasn't been said about this .. this surprise of a hit?

In this movie Anthony perfectly portrays the cold, calm demeanor of a serial killer/ psychopath. His first encounter with Judy the way he stands there in anticipation completely still with a chilling stare really adds to the story.

The greatest thing about lambs is that something new is discovered each time you view it. As with all psychological films, it takes multiple views to absorb the full plot and ingest the actual meaning behind the film.

I have heard raving reviews all my life about silence of the lambs. So I finally got around to watching it, and I loved it!

"The Silence of the Lambs" is a film that needs no introduction. After all, who isn't familiar with Hannibal Lecter, chosen by the AFI as the top movie villain of all time?

The whole movie is about an innocent female character that steps into the world of men and into the world of terror.This movie has the perfect amount of everything every movie needs but some don't have.

I've always heard of this movie growing up but i never got the chance to actually see it until today. i had absolutely no idea what it was about.