When Basil is climbing up the ladder to view the inside of Mr Johnson's room, he accidently peers inside Dr Abbott's room. When he starts doing his "checking" routine on the window before he falls backwards, the pane flexes, indicating that it's made of clear perspex. See more...
Sybil's friend, Audrey, who Sybil is frequently seen talking to on the telephone, has only one on-screen appearence in 'The Anniversary'. She is seen at the very end, when Sybil has just walked out on Basil. See more...
Directed by John Howard Davies, starring Andrew Sachs, Connie Booth, John Cleese, Prunella Scales (add more)
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.
The Grandfather-Clock in the lobby is often showing the incorrect time for the time of day. I think in the "Wedding Party" episode it says 6.15 at breakfast time and in "The Hotel Inspector" it says 4.05 at lunchtime. Possibly deliberate, given the shambolic nature of the hotel, but worth looking out for. ["Possibly deliberate". Not a film mistake, then.]
After Basil takes the guests' orders, he goes into the kitchen from the bar to sort out their starters. Then he and Manuel take the starters into the dining room, where the guests are sitting. However, to get from the bar to the dining room, they would have to have gone past the door to the kitchen, which was open throughout the kitchen scene, yet at no point did we see the guests walking past. [There is another way from the lounge to the lobby, off camera the other side of the reception area. It is also used by "Lord Melbury" in A Touch of Class when he is running from the police.]
Throughout this episode it keeps switching between day and night. When Basil's second dinner guests arrive, you can see darkness through the hotel entrance, yet when he leads them into the bar it is daylight through the bar windows. This episode is supposed to take place during the evening, yet when Basil collects the duck from Andre, it is broad daylight. [There is only one quick shot where it appears to be dark outside the front door, but is actually just a dark coloured bush. All other scenes correctly show daylight outside. In Torquay it is daylight in summer evenings at least until 9 pm.]
At the start of the episode, when Basil reaches into the car bonnet and the horn starts blaring, it's almost a full second before he jumps in fright. [Not true, I've just watched this and his reaction time is perfectly natural. It's certainly not one second.]
When Basil hands the guests the new 'duck-or-nothing' menu, one of the guests says "how extraordinary", then Basil says "Lobster, tournedos, you name it, it's in the bin". Later on, Basil frantically starts preparing salmon mousses and mullet with mustard sauce, dishes that were never specified on the new menu. So how were the guests able to order these if everything from the first menu was scrapped and not listed on the second menu? [The duck was the main course, the other dishes could quite reasonably be starters or similar. It's extremely common to see menus with a number of fixed dishes and the option to choose the main course.]
When Mr Hutchinson is complaining that they keep getting his order for a cheese salad wrong, he says "I've had the omelette, then prawn cocktail with a silly name, then the plate of stew then the omelette again." However earlier on he was given a plate of paté NOT prawn cocktail. [Mr. Hutchinson is not happy about the service at the hotel, and people who are complaining vocally often get themselves onto a soapbox and slightly distort the truth while ranting. This is at best a character mistake.]
When the hotel inspectors arrive at the end of the show, one of them describes the hotel as having 26 rooms. However in 'A Touch of Class,' Sybil says the hotel only has 22 rooms. [Sybil doesn't say the hotel has only 22 rooms; she says "22 rooms is the limit". She is talking about rooms available if any upper class people such as Basil is hoping for, ring up asking for rooms, ie she doesn't count rooms occupied by permanent residents. The Hotel Inspectors' "26 rooms" means all the hotel's guest rooms, so to the 22 we add on 3 for the Major, Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby, and one more room now available because Polly is no longer living in. (Note – in "Gourmet Night" Basil tells the ladies "You're supposed to be in your rooms", thus confirming they have separate rooms at this time, and in "The Germans" Polly states "I'm only here at mealtimes", confirming she has moved out.).]
When Basil and Sybil are in bed, the doorbell rings and Basil says "Someone must have forgotten their pass-key". Yet when Basil goes downstairs to open the front door, he slides back two bolts. So even if the person trying to enter the hotel did have his key, he still couldn't get in. [Its perfectly normal for hotels to provide pass keys to a side door, not the main entrance. But there is unlikely to be a doorbell on the side door, so if a guest forgets their pass key, they have to go round to the main entrance and ring the doorbell there to be let in.]
When Basil is examining the bricks, Polly is visibly laughing in the background. [No she isn't, it could well be a wry smile of "I told you so", considering the facts of the situation and that it adds authenticity to her claims against Lord Melbury.]
When Basil, Polly and the Spanish waiter are talking in the kitchen, watch as Polly almost slips over on her high heels on rat poison. [Well there was rat poison wasn't there? People slip on and trip over things all the time.]
When Mr. Carnegie is running through the list of things he has found wrong in the kitchen, one of them is the lack of a wash-hand basin. However in the episode "Waldorf Salad" Terry is seen washing his hands in the kitchen sink (wash-hand basin) and in this episode when Polly closes the fridge door the sink is visible. So why is Mr. Carnegie complaining about the lack of a wash-hand basin when there is one already present? [Perhaps he considered just one not enough for the size of the kitchen, thus a "lack" of hand wash basins would be correct.]
In the scene where Basil and Manuel are trying to hide the corpse, just after the corpse's work partner come to 'collect' him, Basil and Manuel try to hide the body in the kitchen (where the Doctor is cooking sausages). If you look in the background, towards the room behind the reception, you can see the actors standing there, watching John Cleese finish his scene. [Already established they wanted to talk to him, and as it's not polite to go barging in we was simply waiting for the appropriate moment.]
In the scene where Basil, Polly and Manuel take the corpse back into it's previous room and find the new guest blowing a doll, just after they go back out of the room with the corpse watch the right side of the screen and you will see the Major briefly appear, mistakenly, and disappear again when he sees that the scene is still in progress. [This could well be the Major just wandering around in the hotel going about his business.]
After the Hamiltons have ordered their drinks (screwdrivera), Basil asks 'Nothing to drink?' Mr Hamilton then says 'What?', and then if you listen carefully Basil replies 'Well, you can't drink a screwdrivers (sic) can you?' [He says "You can't drink your screwdrivers", reflecting the fact that both Mr and Mrs Hamilton asked for one.]
Corrected by Moose
In the opening scene, Mrs Richards is demanding change for the waiting taxi driver. However we never ever see her go outside to hand the taxi driver his change. Mrs Richards remains inside the hotel at all times throughout this scene. [In this scene, the taxi driver carries Mrs Richards' cases in for her, and then waits for his money. When Mrs Richards interrupts Polly for the second time, you see the taxi driver leave the hotel.]
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