Goofs

Commonly thought of as an error: In that era, the dates on license plates for some states indicated the year of expiration. Therefore, the florist's van could have a license plate with "1952" on it even though it was being driven in 1951.

When preparing for his meeting with Mr. Big, John Payne's character Pete Harris checks his watch. In the far shots, it clearly has a light-colored metallic watchband, but in the close-up, it is a black leather watchband.

The portion of the card that Rolfe gets from Pete Harris is torn evenly across, but the portion he drops at the card game is torn at an angle on the right side.

Tim Foster sent telegrams dated May 22 containing the message "BORADOS, NINETEENTH," presumably meaning meet in Borados on the 19th, so it would have to mean June 19th which is the next 19th. When Joe Rolfe checks in at the Hotel Hacienda, the register sheet shows May. When Timothy Foster receives the telegraph from the Police Chief of Tijuana, it's dated "de Monday de fourth de 1952" and states "... MAN SHOT TO DEATH HERE NIGHT OF 14 OCTOBER ..." So Pete Harris would have had to be shot on October 14, 1951, but the license plate on the Western Florist van had a 1952 date and the closest Monday to the 4th after May 1952 is August 4th.

When Joe is leaving his room after the card game, the camera is pulling back following him when it audibly and visibly brushes against a palm frond on the right.

When Rolfe sees Romano's and Kane's reflections on the front glass of Foster's car, he sees their exact position in the backseat, not the mirrored.

Although Pete Harris is shot 3 times in the abdomen at the airport, there's no blood whatsoever on his shirt after he falls.

Commonly thought of as an error: playing cards have horizontal line symmetry (i.e., when rotated 180 degrees, they still look the same). Therefore, it's likely that Foster did mail the "bottom" half of the cards - he simply had them rotated to appear with the faces on top.

Near the beginning, a man hangs up on the person he was talking to and that person immediately calls him back. It is impossible for someone to call another back so quickly using either the rotary dial telephones or the telephone switchboard operators of the time.

When Foster mails the letter to meet on the boat, he includes the top half of the King cards. However, each crook had the top of the card and Foster should have been mailing the bottom half of the card.

As Joe (John Payne) is walking away from the confrontation with Harris (Jack Elam) in the alley outside the Tijuana dice parlor, the shadow of the camera can be clearly seen on Joe.

At the beginning of the heist, just after the fake florist delivery van appears, a reflection on the van shows a few crew members and a folding chair set up in the middle of the road.

When Joe Rolfe exits his vehicle at the very beginning of the movie, the camera operator's face and white shirt can clearly be seen in a reflection on the side of the car.

In the beginning of the film, as the bank guards exit through the bank front door, a clear reflection of some scaffolding and a male film crew member in a light shirt is reflected in the glass to the right of the front door.

When approaching the bank for the heist, a mountain is clearly seen in the background. Kansas City is in the plains and has no mountains.

How Mr. Big obtained the floral truck and the other truck for the heist is a complete mystery. If they had been stolen, the robbers couldn't have traveled 300 miles safely in them. If they had been rented, the police could have found a connection to track the robbers.