Goofs

In the very first scene, when the woman is shot, her shirt is covered in blood. When she is shot again, even more blood stains her shirt, but when she falls back, her shirt is completely free of blood.

When Deborah removes her theatrical makeup, her hands get covered a mix of greasepaint and makeup remover. When Noodles says, "I thought you might know why." and Deborah responds, "Me? Why me?", her hands are clean. (Also, a a thick smear of black makeup running from her right eye across the bridge of her nose has disappeared.)

When Fat Moe gives Noodles the locker key, he opens the door of the clock. The key for winding up the clock is in place. After a quick cut to Noodles, the key is gone.

When Noodles stabs Bugsy they are on the left side of the Manhattan bridge. But when the police are coming, the whole scene is moved to the right side of the bridge.

When Noodles is visiting Deborah, during the various cuts when she is telling him to take the back door out, the makeup is almost gone. When she is standing by the door, the makeup is back in places. Also, through the conversation, the makeup disappears and shows up in places.

Chief Aiello wears Captains insignia, not police chief's rank.

When the cargo floats to the surface in the harbor, the crates are floating with the balloons out and on top of the water, offering no extra buoyancy and, therefore, not needed. This was because the crates did not contain glass bottles, which would have kept the crates submerged.

In the credits, the song Yesterday is "Used by permission Norther Songs Ltd." where it should say "Northern Songs Ltd." (including the second 'n' in Northern).

The Chinese Theater actually is playing "Wayang Kulit", a shadow puppet show originated from Java Island, Indonesia. Also, the background is a some form of "Gamelan" music, originated from Indonesia too. Nothing is related with Chinese culture or art form.

Darlanne Fluegel's last name is misspelled in the opening credits.

When celebrating the end of the Prohibition Era, four bottles are opened with machetes. However, the waiter in the back to the right fails to open his bottle cleanly and accidentally smashes it in half before quickly walking off-screen with the broken bottle.

Actually, that result is more likely than not, considering the the lack of experience waiters have in opening champagne bottles with machetes. Also, leaving the room with a broken bottle spewing champagne is a prudent action to take and also will allow him to retrieve another bottle to help with serving the guests.

When Deborah is a child, her eyes are green; when she is an adult, they are blue.

This is not a Goof per IMDb Guidelines, which use this specific "Unacceptable example": " A boy has blue eyes, but when he is an adult he has brown eyes (eyes can change color)."

The boys first put money in a locker at the Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, NJ. When they come out into the street, they are at the base of the Manhattan Bridge in Dumbo, Brooklyn, some distance away.

Per IMDb Guidelines for "Errors in Geography": 'We do not list "you can't get there from here" goofs. If a character steps out of a building in one part of town and walks a block down the street to another building that you know is three miles away, this is not a goof, it's "creative geography" and is a widely used cinematic device.'

In November, 1968, when Noodles visits the locker in the station and pulls out a wad of US currency, the top bill is signed by W. Michael Blumenthal, President Carter's Secretary of the Treasury from January 23, 1977, to August 4, 1979.

A 1950s New York housing project is visible when Bugsy shoots Dominic in the early 1920s.

In the iconic shot of the Manhattan Bridge between the two buildings, a modern streetlight is visible by the base of the bridge.

When Max and Noodles are on the beach, Noodles' girlfriend lays a newspaper across his face. When the wind blows, duplicate pages can be seen, revealing that it's a fake newspaper.

After the young boys set the newspaper stand on fire, they run around the corner and peek through a window in the concrete which has visible spray-painted graffiti on the wall. Spray paint was not invented until 1949, this scene takes place in the 1920s.

In 1968, Noodles returns to the train station and opens a briefcase full of money. As he gets set to close the briefcase, the chug-chug of a steam locomotive starting up can be heard in the background, then a steam whistle sounds. The New York state assembly banned steam locomotives from New York City in 1923 with the Kaufman Act. In the US, most steam engines were replaced with diesel locomotives by 1958.

Just before the boys demonstrate the salt trick to the Italians, fluorescent lighting is visible inside the large buildings in the background. Fluorescent lights weren't commercially available until the 1940's.

While Dominic looks at himself in the mirror, just after the boys talk about the deadbeat newsstand vendor, a lady can be seen behind him picking up a 50-star U.S. flag; the U.S. flag had 48 stars in 1920.

In the scene at Miami Beach which takes place in 1933, beach goers are seen playing with beach balls. The beach ball was not invented until 1938.

During the famous scene where the young boys are crossing the street with the Manhattan bridge in the background, the building on the right has a visible window air conditioner, something that was not available until 1932.

When Young Noodles holds Young Peggy in the toilet and she says "You better stop squeezing me, or I'm gonna poop in my pants", the beginning of her line sounds twice, as if two different takes have been overlapped with a cross-fade.

The scenes at the Miami hotel show the sun setting over the water. Miami is on the Atlantic coast, so the sun should set over land. The scene was shot at St. Petersburg beach, on the Gulf coast.

When Deborah's train leaves for Hollywood, a French railroad car (SNCF) is on a track in the background. Above the French car, a sign can be seen saying "Voie 13", which is French for Track 13, indicating this scene was shot at a French railway station.

When Noodles and Max confront for the first time, while unloading the chandelier and Noodles takes the watch back, the police officer asks where he got the watch, who gave it to him. They respond that it was from Noodle's little brother, Max's uncle, who was from Chisinau Poland. In 1920, Chisinau was a city in Romania, later being capital city of the Republic of Moldova, it was never part of Poland.

In 1921 after the boys conceive and complete the job of smuggling liquor through the harbor, they now have a huge amount of money in payment from rum runners that they keep in a brown leather case. They put the case in a safety box at the train station and later give the key to Fat Moe, who may or may not know what's in the case. The key can only be retrieved from Moe when all the gang is together. As the film moves through the years to 1933 then to 1968, several of the gang have been killed. After Max, Cockeye, and Patsy are supposedly killed in the 1933 ambush, Noodles goes to the safety box to look for the money -- it's not there. He spends 35 years in Buffalo trying to figure out what happened to it. In 1968 he is tracked down by Max, (who has the key and money and who was supposed to be dead), and goes to the safety box and finds the money in the same leather case.

The issue with the key is that Fat Moe had it, and after the deception of the 1933 murders Max, could only have gotten it from Fat Moe. Noodles goes and checks for the money meaning he had to have gotten the key from Fat Moe, but the money was already gone. Noodles later did suspect Moe of taking the money but found Moe living in poverty in 1968 in the same shop. All in all, it's implausible that Noodles would wait 35 years to get the notion to ask Fat Moe if he had given the key to anyone. Moe would have HAD to have known that Max hadn't died in order to give the key to him. Moe shouldn't have had any motive to take the case because he was supposed to not know what was in it.

In 1968 when Noodles finds the money and contract in the locker, he walks away nervously, but he had previously rented a car.

It is not explained how "Mr. Bailey." located Noodles, since Noodles had been living "in the middle of nowhere" under an alias for thirty-five years.

Secretary Bailey's case was apparently major news, yet Noodles had never seen newspaper or TV pictures of him.