Walter Matthau was not fond of this film. Don Siegel would later say Matthau hurt this film's box office by publicly stating that he did not like the film nor even understand it.

Walter Matthau's character makes love repeatedly to Felicia Farr's character. She was the wife of his longtime comedic partner, Jack Lemmon.

Character Maynard Boyle's line, "They're gonna strip you naked and go to work on you with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch," is paraphrased in Pulp Fiction (1994) by character Marsellus Wallace.

The crop duster that Varrick (Walter Matthau) attempts to escape in at the end of the movie was destroyed in Oakdale, California on 31 December 1976 during a crop dusting operation. Upon starting a swath run the 33-year-old pilot of the BOEING A75N1 failed to see and avoid wires which caused the aircraft to crash at which he was killed.

The hood wasn't supposed to go up on the getaway car, but director Don Siegel decided to leave it in the movie because it worked within the context of the bungled bank robbery sequence.

Continuity

When Joe Don Baker begins his chase of the plane in the auto junkyard, he immediately hits a junked car with the right front fender, pushing the car ahead of him, until he hits ANOTHER car. Subsequent shots during the chase show no damage to the fender.

After Charley first lands the biplane, damage is visible on the lower tail. However, this is before the chase sequence with Molly when the damage is inflicted.

When Molly goes to seize the repossession car, the black man, who possesses the car, opens his front door and there is a light shining behind him in the hallway. The screen cuts to a wide shot of Molly walking across the grass towards the car. He waves at the man in the doorway, but the door is shut and there's no man there. It then cuts back to a close up and the man reappears and the door is now open again.

When Varrick steals Nadine's dentist file, he has very long sideburns. In the rest of the film his sideburns are quite short.

When casing the exterior of Boyle's office building, Varrick pulls his car to the curb before buying flowers for Fort; in the long shot, there are no cars behind him, but in the cut to a closeup, several cars are lined up behind.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

The biplane Charley flies from Reno to a field close to Albuquerque is a Boeing-Stearman Model 75. It has a cruise speed of 96 mph. The distance from Reno to Albuquerque is 790 miles. The flight takes more than 8 hours, meaning it is not possible that he can meet Boyle in the morning as they agree upon. If he puts the hammer down, his top speed is 136 mph, meaning he can make it in ~6 hours, fewer if he gets lucky with a tail wind.



Revealing mistakes

Charlie Varrick's business card is found by the police in one of the robber's abandoned cars, which leads to a dawn raid on his trailer, yet, no police are dispatched to Charlie's hangar and airstrip, to locate him or wait for his arrival.

When the first deputy is shot in the forehead beside the car during the robbery, his hat is cocked back on his head, the head band along his hairline. When the sheriff examines the body later, he puts the hat over the deputy's face - where a bullet hole is in plain view several inches above the brim of the hat. Simply no way for this to happen.

After Nadine dies of her gunshot wound in the getaway car, she is seen breathing heavily as Charley removes her jewelry and scatters explosive powder around her body.



Miscellaneous

Halan is killed in trailer by supposed "professional" hit man "Molly," but would a professional hit man be careless enough to leave his fingerprints on the outside door handle as he exits the trailer? Used his bare hands, but never wiped off his prints.

When Molly is having a discussion in Honest John's office in the cellar of the restaurant, Honest John scribbles an address of a place in New Mexico, where Molly will be looked after and where he can take and receive messages. He tears off the note from the pad and hands it to Molly along with the envelope of cash. He then tells Molly where he can get a car and hands him two keys. Molly lets the note, which Honest John has just handed him, fall on the desk. Honest John switches off the light and both of them leave the office, but Molly doesn't lift the note again. It remains on the desk. If Molly had mistrusted the address, he would not have made it so obvious to Honest John by leaving it behind.



Audio/visual unsynchronized

During the chase scene between Baker's sedan and Matthau's bi-plane, the tires of the sedan 'screech' repeatedly as though they were running on pavement, while the terrain is sandy desert scrub.

In the getaway chase after the bank robbery, you can hear the tires screeching even though it is on a dirt road.



Crew or equipment visible

In the close up of the Cadillac Continental explosion, you can see the security firetrucks waiting on the right.



Plot holes

At 1:13:38 -Hollywood clich? #019: a lock can be picked with anything.



Character error

When Charley preflights his bi-plane to fly to Reno, he removes the front wheel chocks but the rear wheel chock is still visible as he mounts the cockpit, after which he revs up and taxis to the runway.