Useless Movie Trivia
Serenity
Memorable Quotes
Brooks: [to Andy] Son, six wardens have been through here in my tenure, and I've learned one immutable, universal truth: Not one of them born whose asshole wouldn't pucker up tighter than a snare drum when you ask them for funds.
Warden Samuel Norton: I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.
Red: [narrating] I must admit I didn't think much of Andy first time I laid eyes on him; looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over. That was my first impression of the man.
Brooks: Easy peasy japanesey.
Captain Hadley: If I hear so much as a mouse fart in here the rest of the night I swear by God and sonny Jesus you will all visit the infirmary. Every last motherfucker in here.
Captain Hadley: What is your malfunction, you fat barrel of monkey spunk?
Red: Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.
Red: [narrating] His first night in the joint, Andy Dufresne cost me two packs of cigarettes. He never made a sound.
Andy Dufresne: Get busy living, or get busy dying.
Andy Dufresne: She was beautiful. God I loved her. I just didn't know how to show it, that's all. I killed her, Red. I didn't pull the trigger, but I drove her away. And that's why she died, because of me.
Red: I'd like to think that the last thing that went through his head, other than that bullet, was to wonder how the hell Andy Dufresne ever got the best of him.
Heywood: [sizing up the new inmates] I ain't seen such a sorry lookin' heap o' maggot shit in all my life.
Trivia
The role of Tommy Williams was intended for Brad Pitt.
The exteriors were filmed at the defunct Mansfield State Reformatory in Ohio. The prison was in such poor condition, renovations had to be made prior to filming. However, most of the interiors were shot on a sound stage, because they determined it would be cheaper to build duplicates of the interiors rather than renovating the interiors of Mansfield.
The American Humane Association monitored the filming of scenes involving Brooks' crow. During the scene where he fed it a maggot, the AHA objected on the grounds that it was cruel to the maggot, and required that they use a maggot that had died from natural causes. One was found, and the scene was filmed.
In Stephen King's original story, Red was written as a white Irishman. In the movie, they left the line, "Maybe it's 'cause I'm Irish", in as a joke, even after they had cast Morgan Freeman as Red.
The Rita Hayworth movie the prisoners are watching is Gilda (1946).
The mugshots of a young-looking Morgan Freeman that are attached to his parole papers are actually pictures of Morgan's younger son, Alfonso Freeman. Alfonso also had a cameo in the movie as a con shouting "Fresh fish! Fresh fish today! We're reeling 'em in!"
On the wall in Andy Dufresne's cell is a picture of Albert Einstein. Tim Robbins, who portrayed Andy Dufresne also played in the fictional movie about Einstein, I.Q. (1994).
Andy Dufresne's Prison ID Number is 37927.
Although a very modest hit in theaters, it became one of the highest grossing video rentals of all time.
Stephen King sold the rights to the movie very cheaply out of his friendship with Frank Darabont. They had originally become friends when Darabont adapted a short story of King's called "The Woman in the Room" (King has a policy stating that any aspiring filmmaker can adapt his short stories for a buck) and King was thoroughly impressed. They maintained a pen pal relationship and didn't actually meet until Darabont optioned Shawshank.
The prisoners are drinking Stroh's beer on the roof.
Stephen King has said that his original novella, which the film very faithfully adapts, was a culmination of all the memories he had from watching prison movies when he was a child.
The town of Mansfield held all day open auditions for extras. So much interest was shown that they accepted no more people after 3pm.
The close up of Andy's hands loading the revolver in the opening scenes are actually the hands of Frank Darabont. Later in the film while Andy carves his name into his cell wall (seen twice in the film), Darabont's hands are used as well in the insert shot. These close ups were inserts that were filmed during post production, notably because Darabont felt that only he could do exactly what he wanted in the close ups.
Director Frank Darabont watched Goodfellas (1990) every Sunday while shooting Shawshank and drew inspiration from it on using voice-over narration and showing the passage of time.
The Shawshank prison, in the book and in the movie, was loosely based on Thomaston prison, an aging prison located in Thomaston, Maine. That real life prison closed in 2004 due to its small size and dilapidated structure.
The role of Andy Dufresne was originally offered to Tom Hanks, who couldn't accept due to scheduling conflicts with Forrest Gump (1994). Hanks did, however, work on Frank Darabont's next film, The Green Mile (1999).
Kevin Costner turned down the role of Andy Dufresne, a decision he strongly regretted later on.
Frank Darabont wrote the script in eight weeks.
The opera song that Andy Dufresne plays over the loud speakers is "Canzonetta sull'aria" from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro".
Clancy Brown, who plays Captain Hadley in this film, played another character named Captain Hadley in The Guardian (2006/I).
Rob Reiner loved Frank Darabont's script so much that he offered $2.5 million for the rights to the script so he could direct it. Darabont seriously considered Reiner's offer but ultimately decided that it was his "chance to do something really great" by directing the movie himself. Reiner wanted Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise to play Red and Andy respectively.
The final scene was filmed on the U.S. Virgin islands in the Caribbean, but in the film it is supposed to be the Pacific Ocean.
James Whitmore was cast in the part of Brooks because he was one of Frank Darabont's favorite character actors.
Stephen King sold the film rights for his novella for a dollar.
Despite its box office failure, Warner Brothers shipped 320,000 rental copies to US video stores, a figure a spokesman freely admitted was "out of whack" with the film's performance in the theaters.
Andy and Red's opening chat in the prison yard - in which Red is pitching a baseball - took 9 hours to shoot. Morgan Freeman pitched that baseball for the entire 9 hours without a word of complaint. He showed up for work the next day with his arm in a sling.
The ambulance that took Boggs away had to be pushed as its engine had died.
The original story appears in Different Seasons, a collection of short books by Stephen King that also includes "The Body" (Stand by Me (1986)) and Apt Pupil (1998).
Shawshank prison is a staple of Stephen King's writing, most of which is set in Maine. While it only appears in this story, several other books and short stories mention characters who were sentenced to serve time at Shawshank.
The character Andy Dufresne had a cameo appearance in Apt Pupil, another Stephen King novelette. Andy handled the investments for Dussander, the Nazi in hiding.
Says that Andy broke out in 1966. This was the same year as the landmark Miranda v. Arizona case before the Supreme Court, where it was decided a defendant must be informed of their rights (i.e. right to remain silent, right to an attorney, etc.), when put under police custody. That's why at the end of the film, when they arrest Captain Hadley (Clancy Brown), the officer is reading the Miranda rights from a piece of paper. He's reading them because he doesn't know them by heart yet.
Goofs
On the newspaper front page announcing the "corruption" story, the word "indictment" is misspelled as "indictement".
Andy Dufresne is obviously a very intelligent man and fond of playing chess. However if you take a good look at the shot of the (nearly) completed chess board in his cell, you see that he put up the chess board the wrong way. The board should be turned 90 degrees in order to have the pieces stand right. The square on the lower left should be black, the one on the upper right too, which they are not, they are white. Anyone fond of playing chess would never make that mistake.
Andy crawls through 500 yards of an 18" sewage pipe to escape the prison. The ancient sewer pipe would have been filled with methane gas, carbon dioxide and ammonia fumes and too little oxygen to support the exertions of the escapee in the time required to crawl the distance. He should have passed out and suffocated shortly after beginning his escape. Additionally, when he first breaks the pipe it shoots up like water pipe under pressure. Once inside, the water is not moving. And when he gets to the stream that this supposed sewer pipe drains into, the water is pristine.
When Andy comes out of the cell in his first morning in prison, Red is shown wearing a shirt with a number that begins with 311, not beginning with a 302 which is the number on his shirt in the rest of the movie.
After Andy escapes, we see him driving alone in a red convertible on a coastal highway. While he escaped in 1966, the car is clearly a 1969 GTO.
The warden is clearly almost a foot shorter than Andy, and yet Andy presumably fits perfectly into his suit.
Andy is shown breaking into the sewage pipe by simply slamming a large rock against it a few times. Even if the pipe was old and rusty, it would have taken much more effort from Andy than depicted to create a hole large enough to fit his body through.
Box Office Info for the USA
Budget: $25,000,000
Opening Weekend: $727,327
Gross: $28,341,469
Filming Dates: 16 June 1993 - 10 September 1993
Filming Location
Ashland, Ohio, USA (Bank and bus station)
Butler, Ohio, USA (exterior) (rural town of "Buxton" where "Red" journeys to; shot of bus leaving with "Red" near end of film)
Malabar Farm State Park - 4050 Bromfield Road, Lucas, Ohio, USA (cabin at beginning, tree and rock wall)
Mansfield Reformatory - 100 Reformatory Road, Mansfield, Ohio, USA (The prison that is used in the large panning scene, and used for the wardens office.)
Mansfield, Ohio, USA
U.S. Virgin Islands (final scene)
Upper Sandusky, Ohio, USA (Mill and Courtroom)
Wyandot County Courthouse, Upper Sandusky, Ohio, USA
Yuma, Arizona, USA