In the gunfight between Stoddard and Valance, Valance's hat falls off and lands in the dirt. During the flashback scene, the hat lands on the boardwalk.
Dutton Peabody was a little lax in his typesetting. The Shinbone Star newspaper Rance Stoddard complimented Peabody on ("Cattlemen Fight Statehood") was VOL XXX, No. 42. Then many weeks (or months) later at the election of delegates Liberty Valance picks up a newspaper ("Two Homesteaders Killed By Liberty Valance and Gang") which also carries the same VOL. XXX, No 42.
When Tom tells Rance who really shot Valance, the election signs behind the door are totally different when entering the room to when he leaves.
The opening shot of the movie shows the train coming around the last bend on approach to Shinbone Station. In this wide shot, the locomotive is seen pulling a cargo carriage and a passenger carriage. When the train pulls into the station a moment later, the locomotive is instead pulling two passenger carriages.
Between several shots, the "for statehood" and the "open range" groups completely switch sides of the aisle. From outside the door looking towards the stage, all of the "for statehood" signs can be seen to the left of the aisle as you look towards the stage, while the "open range" signs are on the right. As the camera view switches to the front, showing the crowd head-on with the door at the back, the "for statehood" group is now to the right of the aisle as they face the stage and the "open range" group is facing the stage from left side of the aisle.
In the schoolroom scene, after Stoddard incorrectly describes the Declaration of Independence as the supreme law of the land (see earlier Goofs entry), Pompey states that the Declaration begins with the words "We hold these truths to be self-evident..". This is actually the second sentence of the document, which begins with the famous phrase "When in the course of human events.." It is the Constitution that begins with "We" -- the equally famous "We the people".
If the average citizen of Shinbone is illiterate, it would be difficult to support Mr. Peabody's newspaper.
When Ransom Stoddard is found and brought to the Swedish
innkeepers, Nora makes him drink "Swedish aquavit", but in fact she offers him "Rød Aalborg" (translates: Red Aalborg) which is a Danish aquavit.
At the beginning of the movie, young reporter Charlie Hasbrouck cranks an old phone to contact his boss. It rings, but the bells are missing on the phone.
The train conductor at the ending scene remarks to Ransom Stoddard that the train will be able to maintain a speed of 25mph all the way to Washington. Locomotives at the turn of the century (and later) were achieving speeds in excess of 90 mph. Considering that the closing scene is 30 or so yrs later than the main part of the film, the speed quoted is much too slow! Telephone service was already established in this Midwestern town as evidenced in the opening scene. The date could be well after the year 1900.
Ransom Stoddard, at the school scene, makes a reference to "truck farmer." This phrase refers not to the motorized vehicle, but to the much older use of "truck" meaning barter or commerce.
Tom Doniphon was a big man in Shinbone: a strong, upstanding, property owner and having some influence yet some thirty years later his name is unknown to the mayor and newspaper people. As indicated in the story, Donophan burns everything down in the end, apparently withdrawing from all associations and becoming a complete unknown to the next generation of town leaders.
It would have been obvious that Valance had been killed by a bullet fired from a rifle, as this would have caused much more damage than a bullet fired from a revolver. In actuality, the 1873 Winchester rifle is chambered for the .44-40 cartridge and was widely popular during that time due to the fact that the .44-40 was a pistol round in the Colt Frontier Six-shooter. Its popularity was due in large part to the fact that you only needed to carry one caliber of Ammunition for both Rifle and Pistol.
Tom declines being nominated as a delegate because he has other plans, yet he comes to the convention. He didn't have any other plans during the convention, he just had other plans for his future (he most likely wanted no more than to marry Hallie and live a quiet life).
When Mrs. Ericson makes a check mark on a blackboard to record a dinner given to Marshal Link Appleyard on credit, the mark is larger and more distinct than all the other check marks. The other marks are nearly identical, indicating that they were made all at once by someone in the prop department. The bigger mark is intended as a joke, indicating how Mrs. Ericson is at that moment especially frustrated with Link's insistence on barging in expecting free meals.
When Tom arrives drunk at the dream house and staggers in, his shirt is light gray. Once he's inside and lights the lantern, his shirt is black. Then in the scene where Pompey rescues Tom from the burning house, when he first lays Tom on the buckboard, Tom's shirt is light gray again. When Tom tells Pompey to get the horses, it's clearly light gray. Then after Pompey frees the horses and the camera cuts back to Tom in the back of the buckboard, his shirt is clean and black once again. Also, when Tom enters the kitchen as Hallie is tending to Rance's wound and when he starts getting drunk his shirt is dark (probably Wayne's favorite blue, if the movie were in color). When he arrives at his ranch, the shirt is now much lighter (possibly red if in color). These changes in shirt color may be due to filters used. Red and yellow filters are used with B&W film to make blue sky darker, enhancing contrast with clouds. Filters would only have been used when sky and clouds were in frame, also resulting in darkening of Wayne's preferred blue shirt.
During the train ride back with Stoddard and his wife, the scenery is going by so fast that it is hardly recognizable, however the conductor states that they'll be there in no time because they'll be going 25mph. At 25 mph you could easily view the countryside. Additionally, as the conductor was talking with Stoddard he was perfectly still, no swaying back and forth, as anyone would've done on a train in the 1800s.
Doniphon moves his head back just as Stoddard punches him.
In the last scene on the train, as Stewart is returning to Washington with his wife, the scenery outside the train repeats two and a half times... including a painted crosswalk which is unlikely to have existed at that time in a rural area.
In the final scene, the conductor brags that the train can go 25 mph. But as the scenery flies by the windows outside the moving passenger car, they are clearly going around 60 mph.
Wayne's shirt keeps changing shade, although this might be due to the lighting.
Toward the end when Tom Doniphon takes Ransom Stoddard into a back room to tell him who really shot Valance they pass three signs next to the door. When they walk is the first sign say "Farmer for Statehood" when they walk out the first sign says " Shinbone for Statehood with the farmer sign under it.
Near the end of the movie, after Stoddard re-enters the convention hall to accept his nomination, the swinging double doors begin to close, but twice wildly swing back wide open again, indicating there are crew members behind the doors thrusting them open from the inside.
Hallie calls a stuttering patron "King Tuck," which is obviously a play on the name of the pharaoh King Tutankhamun. His name would not be known to the public until the discovery of his tomb in November, 1922.
One of the songs being played in the saloon was "Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight," but the song was written in 1896 by Theodore Metz, several years after the time the story is set in.
Another song played at the Convention is "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here" from the song "Alabama Jubilee," written in 1915 and based on the chorus of "With Cat-Like Tread," ("Come Friends Who Plough The Sea") from Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Pirates of Penzance', written in 1879. Since the "Pirates" chorus would not have been played in a convention, this references a "Hail! Hail!" usage when the piece was written later than the action of the film.
On the train ride home one can see a modern diesel freight train riding on the tracks in the background. Then the same exact footage is run again.
When Stoddard is setting the paint cans on the fence posts, they make a tinny sound that clearly indicates they're empty. Yet when shot by Doniphon, they discharge a great amount of paint.
The shot of Peabody assuring Tom that Liberty's killing a couple of sodbusters is news and that he's going to printed it, shows Tom telling him that Liberty will kill him for it, but his jaw remains motionless. The line was dubbed in later during post-production.
At minute 52:37, when the children are singing the alphabet song, the letter Q is sung, but left out of the closed captioning.
Just over an hour into the film, a landscape is shown with saguaro cacti obviously erected at random as props, all uniform in size. Saguaro cactus is found only in the southern half of Arizona in the US and would not occur as far north as Colorado, where Shinbone is supposed to be located.
At the train station in the beginning Stoddard tells the young reporter he will give him an interview but only because Dutton Peabody the founder of The Shinbone Star once fired him. This never happens during the telling of the story.
When teaching his students, Ransom asks what the supreme law of the land is. When a pupil (Pompey) gives the correct answer of the Constitution, he incorrectly tells him the right answer is the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration is a statement of principles and a justification for the colonies' rebellion, but certainly not law in any way.
When the senator views the dead body and asks where his boots are the undertaker says (in an attempt to explain why he didn't put them on), "They were a nice pair of boots - almost new" so the senator tells him to put them on. However, the boots that he brings back later are hardly new.
Senator Stoddard said he had followed Horace Greeley's advice to "Go west, young man, and seek fame and fortune." However, what Greeley actually said was,
"Go west young man, and grow up with the country."
The convention chairman refers to Peabody as "Mr. Dutton Peabody, Esquire". This is incorrect. When using the courtesy title "Esquire", honorifics are not used, so he should have referred to him as either "Mr. Dutton Peabody" or "Dutton Peabody, Esquire".