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Quotes

Phil Connors: What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today!

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Mistakes

When Phil comes around the corner, just before meeting Ned, there are two women walking together in the background. The one in blue is holding a yellow sign upside down that says Phil (the groundhog, not the character). The first 3 days in a row they are together as they should be. On the forth day and every day thereafter the women in blue is by herself which does not follow the exact day sequences. See more...

Trivia

The screenwriters for the film have said that the total amount of time that Bill Murray is stuck repeating the same day is about 10 years. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

Groundhog Day (1993) - 20 corrections

Directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray (add more)

Genres: Comedy, Crime, Fantasy, Romance

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

Mistakes

Trivia

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Entry It is clear that Phil arrives at Gobbler's Nob at a slightly different time each day, some days earlier, some days later. Why then does that song that keeps on playing there start the moment he arrives - it's never part of the way through, it starts when he comes into shot. [He doesn't always arrive at the beginning of the song - In the first two Groundhog Days, the same time passes between the time he wakes up and the time where he's at Gobbler's Nob. At the third Groundhog Day, he rushes towards Gobbler's Nob, therefore the song starts to play when he's in the MIDDLE of Gobbler's Nob, not when he enters it. Every time the song begins when he's in different parts of the knob, therefore creating an illusion that it's the same day, over and over again.]
Entry No matter how long Phil spends in his hotel, he always seems to meet Ned Ryerson at exactly the same spot on the road, whereas Ned ought to be long gone in some scenes and yet to appear in others. [We actually see Phil meet Ned only 5 times. Phil relives the day thousands of times. Since we have no way of knowing how long he spends in the hotel before leaving on those 5 specific mornings, this can't be an error.]
Entry In the first scene at the bed and breakfast before Phil says "chance of departure." he is talking to the lady. At the end of this scene he picks up his cup of coffee. Yet when he says his lines seconds later, the coffee cup is gone and he is putting on his coat. [He sets the coffee down to put on his coat, just like any other normal person would do, so as not to spill it.]
Corrected by Jazetopher Time
Entry The scene where the three older women have a flat tire, Phil keeps jacking up the car, but in the shot where you look at the ladies the car is not getting any higher. [Anyone who has ever used an older style "jack" like the one that is shown can tell you it takes a good amount of time to raise the car with one. The shot from inside the car with the ladies only last about 10 seconds, hardly enough time for Phil to pump the jack a few times, let alone raise the car enough so that you notice it rising against the surrounding background.]
Corrected by Jazetopher
Entry There are three shots where Phil talks to Rita at the bar. In the first two shots, the straw in the glass is pointing to Rita, while in the third it is straight up. [There are no rules suggesting that everything should be identical each day. Many things change due to Phil's presence.]
Entry In one shot Phil encounters Nancy Taylor at the pavilion at Gobblers Knob. The same view of the pavilion can be seen in the shot when Phil arrived at Gobblers Knob the first time, and again in a later shot of the same view, both times Nancy was not standing there. [Many of the characters do not do identical things each day because Phil interacts with them. We don't know if Nancy is there or even if Phil arrives at exactly the same moment that Nancy would be standing there.]
Entry When Phil Connors is giving the now deceased street bum mouth to mouth in an effort to save him, he raises his head to take another breath and you can see the breath from the old man rising, even though he is supposed to be dead. And it can't be Phil's as it is rising. [He just gave the old man a lungful. Of course the old man will be breathing out. He's not able to hold it in. The weight of the chest is simply puching the air out.]
Corrected by Garlonuss
Entry It only takes around 2 seconds for the piano student to stop playing, get her coat and books and be kicked out of the house. [First off, it's not exactly two seconds but is very quick. It's not likely her stuff would have been spread all around but in one place so getting out quickly was only a matter of the teacher getting her and throwing her out. Secondly that's the joke, Murray's character has just offered her a huge amount of money for lessons and she suddenly has no problem in throwing the student out as quick as can be.]
Corrected by Lummie
Entry After the mayor says that there will be six more weeks of winter, Phil (the actor, not the "large squirrel) says "3,2,1." When he gets to about 2, it goes to a shot of him through the camera. The camera says "record" even though technically, they haven't even started recording. [This is normal. The reason an anchor counts down like that even though they are recording is so that when the recording is broadcast, the producers will know when to start the feed. Also, this ensures there is no time lag between the anchor counting down to "one" and the cameraman starting the camera recording.]
Corrected by Guy Brigman
Entry When Bill Murray exits the bed and breakfast on the first day, you'll notice that his later piano teacher is walking towards Gobbler's Nob. The second day, a different amount of time goes by between the time Bill Murray leaves the bed and breakfast and sure enough, the same people are walking towards Gobbler's Nob, including the piano teacher. Did they all adjust their own personal schedule for Phil Connors? [As Mr Connors states, he has no idea how or why he is repeating the same day over and over. Whether he is a god, or it is God or Father Time or some other force making it happen. Whatever force is making him repeat his day over and over should have no problems rearranging other people's schedules so they run across Phil's path.]
Corrected by Rlvlk
Entry When the pickup truck smashes through the gate, you can see that its grill is already busted. [Viewing the frames, one at a time, shows prior to the gate crash, the grill is intact, and can be seen dropping when it impacts.]
Entry In one of the scenes when the German dressed waitress is carrying beers, her clothes are different from one scene to the next. [No, they aren't. In the first scene we see her in a grey dress and white blouse, and in the next scene we see her with the same outfit with a white fringe on the hem of her skirt. But - in the first scene the shot is tighter and we never see the hem of her skirt, we don't see where the fringe is and so it only looks like a mistake when we see it.]
Entry At the end, in the bar, we see Larry trying to impress Nancy, who makes an obvious effort to get away from him by declining an invitation to see the inside of his van, saying she's going in to the party. He starts to follow when Rita comes up and he stops to talk to her. Instead of using this opportunity to escape, Nancy comes back to stand beside Larry. This makes no sense at all, except as a way to tell Rita that Phil was already inside at the party. [Larry says that he will go with her before she has left, then as she is walking you even see her look back to see if he is coming. And as soon as Rita comes up and he stops, she stops and turns around. She might not like him but being nice is not necessarily a mistake.]
Entry When Phil steals the car with the Groundhog in it, he jumps into the car on the driver's side with the mayor standing by the passenger side, having just put the Groundhog into the pickup. When the camera cuts to Phil driving off, the mayor is now standing on the driver's side. [When the man sees Phil get into the truck, he runs around the truck to stop Phil. This can be noticed in the level of his voice in the mic and he is running up to the door of the truck as Phil takes off.]
Entry Bill Murray is supposed to be stuck in Punxsatawny due to a snow storm. In all the night scenes through out the movie there is no shortage of snow, except the night he is out at the bowling alley. When he decides to give his two new friends a ride home, there is no snow anywhere in town. [He can't go into Pittsburgh because of the snow on the road leading OUT of town-only the part of the town near this road is affected by the blizzard.]
Entry In the middle of the film, where Bill Murray is trying to convince Andie Macdowell that he's a god, he introduces them to "Debbie Klaiser and her fiancé, Fred."   At the end of the film, after they've gotten married, he introduces them as Debbie and Fred Klaiser.  So did he take her name in marriage, or is this one of those places where siblings marry? [While interesting I don't see why this is a mistake instead of an unanswered question. Maybe the doubts they were having were over the name changing and that's how they worked it out? It doesn't seem that far out to me that they took her name as their married name.]
Entry There is a part in the story where Phil destroys his radio every morning. It then shows, next morning, the clock changing from 5:59 to 6:00. If, as Phil says later on in the film, the time loop starts at EXACTLY 6:00, then how would the radio be mended for 5:59? [Because the time loop doesn't start at EXACTLY 6:00, it starts at EXACTLY 5:59. Phil can be pardoned for rounding to the minute he wakes up, since he's not conscious when the time loop begins.]
Entry The movie was shot in Woodstock Illinois, not Punxsutawney Pennsylvania. In the scene where Phil meets Ned on the street, you can clearly see in the background a sign on a jewellery store that says "Woodstock Jewellers". [While this is a very interesting note, it is not necessarily a mistake. A jewelry store in Punxutawney could still be named Woodstock Jewellers. The founder's name could be Woodstock, for example.]
Entry The first time Bill Murray leaves the hotel he opens the door which has the shades pulled down. In the next shot we see him standing outside with the door behind him and the shades are up. [The Hotel's entrance has two doors, the inner one with shades and the other one without shades.]
Entry Near the end of the film, Bill Murray's character's piano teacher refers to him as one of her pupils - which is true, but as far as she is concerned she would only have remembered the very last lesson - which would have started with him as a very accomplished performer. [She's just boasting]

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