Hi, I recently watched a screening of Foxcatcher. In it, Steve Carell plays John du Pont. Behind his desk, he has this American flag framed and mounted. It appears to have 45 stars, but I can't find any other flag patterns look like this one.
Is this pattern historically accurate? It appears to be the 44-star pattern with an extra star tacked on to it.
Thanks!
The 45 star flag was the official flag of the US from 1896 (the addition of the great state of Utah) until 1908 (The addition of Oklahoma).
Edit: In regards to how the flag has an extra star tacked onto it, it appears that the flag started out as a 44 star flag, but the owner decided to add a new star after the fact in order to keep the flag consistent once Utah became a state.
One important thing to know is that there was no official star pattern before 1912. As long as they were all in the canton the stars could be any size, orientation or position. You could even have some stars larger than others. In other words there is no single "44-star pattern" or "45-star pattern".
As another commenter noted, this is a 44-star flag with a 45th star added. The original 44-star pattern appears to be fairly common, and it wasn't at all unusual to add stars to flags after they were made. Many flags were deliberately manufactured with blank spaces for just this reason. So if we only had the arrangement of stars to go on, there'd be no reason for us to think that it was unhistorical.
But we actually have a lot more to go on than just that. The flag is not only historically accurate but a genuine historical artifact. This page goes into great detail about it and notes that it was lent to the Foxcatcher production in 2012. In other words, it's legit.
