Before Pete's car goes off the bridge, the front end is hanging off the edge of the bridge angled downwards towards the water. But a brief reverse angle shot shows the car's rear end hanging off the edge of the bridge, with the headlights angled up towards the sky.
When Harry and Peter are in the auditorium of Majestic together for the first time and Harry is explaining the Majestic to Peter, Harry's shirt collar changes from being inside of his sweater to outside of it between shots.
When Luke picks up Adele for the "Welcome Home" dance, she is wearing a beautiful red lace dress, with a small necklace that has red stone pendant. After they arrive and begin the first dance, a closeup reveals that Adele is wearing a metal locket instead.
The film takes place in 1951. It is also mentions that Luke died 9 years before, meaning he would have had to have died in 1942. However his grave marker indicates he died in July 1944, shortly after D-Day.
However, as Luke didn't didn't die and his body was not interred in the grave, it's obvious that the date on the gave is just an estimate.
Luke was said (by his at the cemetery) to have taken a part in D-Day, on June 6,1944. He was said to have been gone for nine years in 1951, only seven years later.
When Pete wakes up from the car crash on the beach, it is early morning and the sun is shining, but as he walks on the beach, his shadow falls on the east, away from the sea, indicating the sun is in the western sky. In California, that only happens in late evening.
The giant bronze war memorial statue in the cellar of City Hall never could have been placed under the building in the manner it was shown. Also, it is out of scale with the typical height of a basement ceiling.
At one point the word "anyways" is used. Along with its being a nonsensical conundrum term, this particular devolution of the language did not exist in the 1950s. It did not come into use until some thirty years later.
The Majestic reopens by showing the Gene Kelly musical An American in Paris (1951). While this film clearly sets the date of the story, it is a very unusual movie to show in a small town as the reviews in the major papers would have noted its extremes in abstraction. A great many sets are suggestive at best and it features dance that is so arty that many of the average filmgoers were repulsed by it. It would appear obvious that the writers and producers assumed that t was a typical Gene Kelley picture and they did not take the time to view the film before selecting it for the story. Hollywood would never again go to such extremes in its musical films.
The diesel locomotive pulling the train that Pete is riding back to Lawson near the end is a later model Electro Motive Division GP (general purpose) engine that was not available until the mid-1960s. Diesel engines were certainly available in the early-1950s, but not that model.
The 'first dance' that Pete (Luke) and Adele share is to the tune 'Stranger on the Shore' written by Acker Bilk, which was released in 1961, a decade after the period in which the film is set.
The siren speaker on the police car is a Federal Signals electronic speaker that was not introduced on police cars until the mid-1960s. Sirens of the era of this movie would have been electro-mechanical wind sirens.
In Mabel's Diner, the catsup bottles have the rounded metal, quick twist tops. In the early fifties, the tops were a cylindrical design with vertical ridges to aid with grip.
When Leo Kubelsky tells Appleton that the "studio has suspended negotiations this morning", the shot shows Allen Garfield with a modern "in-ear" hearing aide.
Adele says that Luke Trimble's name is on the statue in the basement of City Hall; however, the list of names displayed does not show his name.
At the welcome home celebration, a character says that Luke and Adele should lead the first dance, but when Luke and Adele first arrived, people were already dancing.