Picky film buffs find ‘The King’s Speech’ ‘littered with errors’
By ANIMonday, January 31, 2011
LONDON - ‘The King’s Speech’ may be destined for glory with 12 Academy Award nominations, but fastidious viewers have spotted that it is full of errors.
The film, which stars Colin Firth as King George VI during the build up to the Second World War, uses a type font that was not designed until 20 years later, reports the Telegraph.
In the movie, a BBC control room with the names of broadcast stations around the world is seen but the signs are in Helvetica, which was not available until the late 1950s.
Other faults picked by the public include women wearing hosiery without seams when seamless stockings did not arrive until later; a frustrated king throwing down his speech only for it to reappear in his hand the next second; and the use of a plastic model biplane when the ones of the time were wooden.
The film also features a Tiger Moth plane with a registration which did not exist until 1941 and refers to the now Queen’s younger sister as ‘Princess Margaret’ when she was known throughout her childhood as ‘Princess Margaret Rose’.
Mark Simonson, a Minnesota-based type designer and expert, who noted the mistakes, said, “I don’t really expect filmmakers to get the type perfectly every time. Except for a few type geeks like me, no one will notice. It is nice when they get it right but, for all I know, they got the shoes wrong.” (ANI)
