During the circus number, each dog moves forward into a box painted on the floor of the stage. The second dog from the right moves forward out of the box, then is seen back in the box in the next shot.
One of the newspapers announcing the upcoming bout between Sandow and the lion is dated April 20. The newspaper shown after the match, decrying it as a fraud, is dated April 17.
Towards the end of the film, when newspaper headlines are used to reveal Ziegfeld's show failures, the newspaper "Variety" is shown multiple times with multiple headlines, indicating different editions of the paper. However, even though the headlines change, the paper shows "Vol. 17, No. 13" each time.
Ziegfeld is depicted as dying in New York City. He actually died of lung disease in Hollywood, California, a few days after moving there from a specialty hospital in New Mexico.
Ziegfeld was never married to Anna Held.
In the movie's trailer, Luise Rainer's first name is misspelled as Louise.
At the Chicago World's Fair, as the Great Sandow (Nat Pendleton) lowers the barbell with the ladies inside, it lowers at a controlled rate, rather than as if a man was actually handling it.
In the musical number 'You' one of the hopping chorus members (second from the front) does not land both her feet squarely on the bed. The right foot falls short of it altogether and strikes the floor. Fortunately for her, the downstage dancer all but obscures the misstep. Nonetheless, to this hoofer's credit, she may have missed the bed, but like a trouper, she doesn't miss a beat.
The "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" number incorporates snippets of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", which was premiered circa 1924, but after its performance Anna Held, who died in 1918, is still portrayed as alive and married to Ziegfeld.
In the early part of the "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" number, there are girls pretending to play a Japanese Shamisen with mirrored fronts. Just before the middle one goes out of frame, you can see a sign being held by a crewman, likely to give instructions as the shot progressed.
At around 1:22:28 (during the "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" number), you can see a stage hand with a cue card in the reflection of the second showgirls mirror guitar.
In the "Rhapsody in Blue" portion of the mammoth "Pretty Girl" number, one of the silver-fringe-and-antlers quartet of dancers gets visibly disoriented when her group does its final moves. She's the second one from the left, and her movements are completely out of sync with the other three until, with a thump, she sits down on the stairs. Since the incredibly complex number was shot in very long takes, the error was allowed to remain in the film.
The character of Audrey is listed in the credits as having the last name "Dane." However, when Ziegfeld speaks to the audience after her drunken performance, he refers to her as "Miss Lane".
Although Ray Bolger is sometimes credited as playing Ray Bolger, in the film his character is addressed as "Eddie."
During the dog dance in the circus show, there are two dancer errors. First, when all the dancers are doing four quick turns, the dancer in front on the far right side falls out of her second turn and doesn't complete the rest. Just a few seconds later, as some of the dancers move toward center stage, a different dancer on the far right slips before quickly regaining her footing.