(at around 2h 35 mins) At the end of the movie the tower seems to be well lit despite the power outage caused by the fire.
(at around 1h 50 mins) The woman that was the first to go across on the breeches buoy is also in the group of women that was sent to the roof for the air lift attempt. Therefore she should have been in the scenic elevator and not in the breeches buoy scenario at all.
The spread of the fire never matches the exterior shots.
(at around 41 mins) When the fire trucks are en route to the Glass Tower, they pass the same AMC dealership three times. Twice they pass it with the dealership on their left, once with it on their right, which couldn't happen unless the trucks were driving in circles.
Steve McQueen's hair appears to change for certain scenes. For the scenes shot on location in San Francisco's Bank of America lobby, which substituted for the Glass Tower lobby, his hair is cut short and tight while the scenes shot in the studio back in Los Angeles, his hair appears a little longer and thicker. There must have been a gap in shooting locations. One example is when McQueen's character arrives at the fire, he walks with Roberts and others to the elevator to set up Forward Command. As he walks in the elevator (in San Francisco), the camera cuts to inside the elevator (LA Studio) a split second later and his hair is obviously longer.
(at around 2h 5 mins) A helicopter lowers O'Hallorhan onto the damaged scenic elevator. In order to set him directly and vertically onto the elevator car (he did not swing to it), the helicopter blades would have to be no more than a foot wide to get that close to the building - or the cable would have to reach to the top of the building to accommodate the width of the helicopter blades, which would be impossible.
(at around 1h 40 mins) "Breeches buoy" is the incorrect name of the actual chair. It is really called a "boatswains chair". An actual breeches buoy is a leather sack that you put your legs through, hanging suspended from the waist down.
The one basic tenet of extinguishing a fire is inexcusably ignored by the fire department, and that is to aim the water or suppressant at the BASE of the fire, not above it.
One million gallons of water is approximately the equivalent of 50 swimming pools. Even if 50% of the water evaporated as it cascaded down the 135 story building, that volume of water would still be enough to flood the entire area adjacent to the skyscraper when it reached the ground. Not only is this issue not addressed, but the water reaching street level is neither mentioned nor depicted.
(at around 2h 15 mins) A gallon of water weighs approximately 8 pounds. A tank holding a million gallons of water would've collapsed all or part of the building under its weight.
(at around 1h 50 mins) After the helicopter has crashed on the top of the tower during an aborted rescue, the second of the two ladies who caused the crash by running into the path of the helicopter gets up from the ground, revealing a knee pad she was wearing to protect her knees under her dress.
(at around 1h 6 mins) As Harry Jernigan kicks open the apartment door, a fraction of a second beforehand you can see him turn the knob and open it slightly.
(at around 38 mins) When Will Giddings is on fire you can see gloves and obvious mask his body double is wearing.
(at around 1h 14 mins) Doug Roberts wears cowboy boots throughout the film. But in the sequence when the stairwell collapses and he, Lisolette and the kids have to climb down, Paul Newman's stunt double is clearly wearing sneakers.
(at around 1h 55 mins) When Fireman Scott played by Felton Perry steps on the ledge to set up the breeches buoy, on the background matte painting of the horizon you can see a seam in the painting.
(at around 2h 30 mins) Doug ties himself properly with a square knot. O'Hallorhan ties a granny knot. As a trained fireman, he should have known better.
In a building the size of The Glass Tower, it seems inconceivable that it would only contain two regular elevators and one scenic, considering the number of people and businesses expected to exist in it. Then again, this could also be another design flaw where someone again cut corners to stay under budget.
(at around 2h 40 mins) At the conclusion of the movie, the Fire Chief offers advice on how to build buildings so that sort of disaster never happens again, and the Architect humbly accepts the offer. But there is no reason to believe that the Architect and his team did anything wrong. The fire was a result of the greed and corruption of the builder and his associates cutting corners, etc. There is no reason to suspect that the building, had it been constructed to the Architect's specifications, would have burned.
(at around 1h 26 mins) The cement "spill" blocking the door is clearly much larger than the wheelbarrow from which it is supposed to have been dumped.
The fire started in the storage closet at 12:45, and the closet door wasn't opened until 38:39, resulting in the death of Giddings. Since the closet was a closed room (except for a very small opening under the door) the fire was using up oxygen and filling the closet with smoke for about 26 minutes. The fire should have exhausted itself of fuel long before that and gone out by itself.
(at around 2h) As the breeches buoy is being set up, the fireman in the Promenade Room of the tower signals to the helicopter with his flashlight. We hear clicks, as if the flashlight is being turned on and off, but it is on the whole time.
(at around 5 mins) Near the beginning of the movie, when the helicopter is taking off, the cameraman and other crew walk into left-hand side of shot.
(at around 2h 35 mins) A crew member shadow is visible in the stairwell as the water cascades down.
The exterior elevator shown is from the San Francisco Hyatt Regency Hotel of the time (1974).
(at around 41 mins) When Roberts calls Duncan at the party to tell him that Will Giddings has been burned and, eventually, that there's a fire, Duncan tells him to get to the party saying "I'm not going to concern myself with a fire in a storage room on 81..." The dialogue is clearly continuous throughout, but at that point Doug has not mentioned either the floor number nor that the fire was in a storage room.
When the evacuation of the Promenade Room begins, all the guest line up at the interior express elevators, to get down to the street. Only after the express elevators become dangerous to use is it decided to move everybody over to the scenic elevator to use it. However, the scenic elevator should have been used right from the beginning in conjunction with the express elevators to help quicken the evacuation.
(at around 1h 27 mins) Since the fire wasn't up that high yet, instead of Doug climbing thru the pipe shaft to get thru to the Promenade Room, why didn't they just find the stair exit door on 134, find the other stairwell, and go up that way?
(at around 1h 40 mins) The film claims a rescue by helicopter was impossible. But later they show a helicopter easily dropping chief O'Hallorhan on the roof. If the weather conditions were bad enough to land, but good enough to drop a man, then a helicopter would have been able to drop ladders, nets or cradles to lift people up; making the ludicrous blowing of the water tanks completely unnecessary.
The water tanks are blown at the end to try and put out the fire. All of the water is shown going down the side of the building from the Promenade room, going down elevator shafts, or down staircases. Yet, it somehow magically gets everywhere else the fire is raging on multiple floors throughout the burning tower and puts it out.
(at around 45 mins) When O'Hallorhan is first setting up the forward command on 79 he asks Jernigan for a list of business tenants on 81 or above. Yet, according to the man showing an apartment to a couple near the beginning of the movie (at around 12 mins), the commercial tenants only go up as far as 80. From 81 up it's all residential.
(at around 1h) Dan and Lorrie are having an illicit affair. They are both eager to keep this from being discovered as evidenced by some of their dialog during their tryst. When the couple discover the fire and Dan makes his fake phone call, Lorrie has no reason to doubt him. Yet though her clothes are draped on a chair in the same room, she makes no attempt to get dressed. Instead, she remains wearing only Dan's dress shirt and a pair of control top pantyhose. She apparently means to greet the supposed rescuing fireman dressed this way-- and be escorted down to the lobby barefoot in pantyhose with her boss at her side. Given the situation and circumstances, Lorrie's first action after Dan reassured her that "help was on the way" should have been to put her clothes back on.
(at around 49 mins) Chief Mike O'Hallorhan would have to be the most incompetent Fire Chief ever when he tells Duncan there is a fire in the building and instead of ordering complete evacuation of the building which is right and proper, he tells Duncan that he can continue having the party in the building below the fire. That's something a Fire Chief would never do.
(at around 1h 30 mins) When rappelling down the elevator shaft after the power goes out (because O'Hallorhan wanted to check the fire status on 65) the firefighters don't notice or didn't care about the fires poking thru the elevator doors on 73, 74 and 76.
(at around 15 mins) Doug, a professional architect of renown, asks someone if the power is "OFF" before working inside an electrical panel. Then, against both the National Electrical Code and common sense, he uses a screwdriver inside that same panel. A professional architect would never trust someone's word for whether or not the electricity to a circuit was turned on as his/her life would depend upon it.