Robert Redford was unhappy with cuts made to the film following a preview. He said, "I think we'd both have preferred a more political Dalton Trumbo -type script, but finally Sydney came down on the side of the love story. He said, 'This is first and foremost a love affair,' and we conceded that. We trusted his instincts, and he was right."

When Barbra Streisand heard the titular song for the first time, she loved it. However, she made two important suggestions that ended up transforming the song into something even better. She suggested a slight shift in the melody to send it soaring at a crucial point in the song, and she also suggested changing the first line of the song from "Daydreams light the corners of my mind" to "Memories light the corners of my mind."

Despite their differences, Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford had a deep respect for each other and worked well together. They were both opposite in many ways, just like their characters, and they used those differences to the benefit of the film.

Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford had very different approaches to acting. Streisand liked to analyze the part at length and rehearse a great deal, while Redford was more of an intuitive actor, preferring to be more spontaneous. According to Sydney Pollack, "Barbra would call me up every night at nine, ten o'clock and talk about the next day's work for an hour, two hours on the phone. Then she'd get in there and start to talk and Bob would want to do it. And Bob felt the more the talk went, the staler he got. She would feel like he was rushing her. The more rehearsing we did, she would begin to go uphill and he would peak and go downhill. So I was like a jockey trying to figure out when to roll the camera and get them to coincide."

The segment dealing with the McCarthy witch hunts had much more screen time. However the segment was cut to the bone. The chief victims of the cuts were Viveca Lindfors and Murray Hamilton whose roles were turned into brief bit parts.

Continuity

At the very end of the movie when the camera is behind Katie as she reaches up to touch the front of Hubbell's hair, he grasps her wrist with his right hand. When the shot immediately switches to behind Hubbell, his hand is not on her wrist.

At the end of the movie, Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford embrace. He's wearing a trench coat with the collar up. In the course of the embrace, shot from behind Redford, Streisand's gloved hand moves down the back of his head, ultimately flattening the collar of the trench coat. In the next shot, face-on to Redford, the collar of the trench coat is back up.

At the end of the movie, the thick collar on Katie's coat is alternately up/down between shots.

Near the beginning of the movie, as Hubbell is dancing with Katie, you can see her pearl ring on her finger go from the pearl centered on her ring finger to the ring turned and the pearl is down next to her little finger. The pearl is then centered again on her finger. It also looks like the ring changes size from fitting her snugly to being loose then fitting snugly again.

(at around 1h 10 mins) When Hubbel is at Katie's apartment, he thumps the frame located close to the window and places both hands on his hips. In the next shot, Hubbell's left hand is placed on the frame.



Factual errors

When the radio announcer refers to the time of Franklin Roosevelt's death, he says it occurred at 5:45 in the morning. President Roosevelt died in the early afternoon.

At the beginning of the film when there is a montage that depicts how athletic Hubbell Gardner is, there a shot showing a birds eye view of him throwing the discus. He throws the discus out of the throwing circle traveling from one side of the circle (9 o'clock) and sees him release the discus at the other side (3 o'clock). The correct position for releasing the discus is clearly marked on the circle at the 12 o'clock position.

In the extended cut, toward the end of the film, Katie drives her convertible through what is supposedly the UCLA campus, where she sees a young activist giving an inspired speech, reminding her of her younger self. This was actually shot at USC, in front of Doheny Library.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

When the reporters meet Hubbell, Katie, and the others at the train station as the group returns from the Washington HUAC protest, one of the reporters has huge, 1970s-era "mutton chop" sideburns, totally out of place in the scene's 1950s time period. However, mutton chop sideburns date as far back as the mid-nineteenth century so this style of facial hair is not anachronistic.



Revealing mistakes

In California, Katie is holding a "hot" pot and offers it to Hubbell. He takes a spoonful and notes that it is, indeed, hot. However, moments later, Katie is holding the bottom of the pot with her bare hands.

In Katie's apartment the first time Hubbel visits, Katie prepares hot water for coffee. As she leaves the kitchen, it is clear that the top of the kettle is on crooked. As she enters the bedroom where Hubbell is sleeping in the bed, the kettle starts to whistle which startles Hubbell. The kettle would not have whistled with the top lop-sided.



Anachronisms

In the final scene where Katie and Hubbell meet in front of the Plaza Hotel, modern NYC street lamps (of a type not introduced until the 1960s) are visible in the background.

In the opening scene, where the movie marquee is shown displaying Counter-Attack (1945) starring Paul Muni and Larry Parks - that film wasn't released until April 1945. However, The Way We Were starts in the spring of 1944.

In the opening scene, the movie marquee is also shown displaying the Marx Brothers film "Go West", which opened in December 1940, a year before the U.S. entered WWII.



Audio/visual unsynchronized

When Katie and Hubbell are meeting the group shortly after President Roosevelt dies, she makes her "meeting up every 5 years" comment, after that she says to Hubbell "What are we doing here?" When she says that, her lip movements don't match what she's saying.



Character error

At the beginning of the movie, Katie walks into a bar with Bill. They agree that Katie will have her usual, Dubonnet on ice. Bill disappears for a moment, then returns with Katie's drink, which has absolutely no ice.

At the dance, Frankie offers Katie some gin from a bottle, Katie then asks if the drink is bourbon.