The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, image courtesy Columbia Pictures

Writer-director Frank Darabont and Columbia Pictures delivered The Shawshank Redemption to movie theaters in 1994. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman play convicts, with Bob Gunton as the stern, unforgiving warden.

Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is based on the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. Along with Apt Pupil, The Breathing Method and The Body, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption appeared in King’s 527-page book Different Seasons, published by Viking in August 1982. Different Seasons became a huge hit, placing #7 on the list of the best-selling fiction of 1982 as compiled by Publishers Weekly.

Purchasing the movie rights from friend Stephen King for $1, Frank Darabont wrote and directed The Shawshank Redemption for Castle Rock Entertainment. Thomas Newman created the original music score and Roger Deakins served as cinematographer.

Tim Robbins (Andy Dufresne) and Morgan Freeman (Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding) head the stellar cast. Other players include Bob Gunton (Warden Samuel Norton), William Sadler (Heywood), Clancy Brown (Captain Hadley), Gil Bellows (Tommy Williams), Mark Rolston (Bogs Diamond), James Whitmore (Brooks Hatlen), Jeffrey DeMunn (1946 District Attorney), Larry Brandenburg (Skeet), Neil Giuntoli (Jigger), Brian Libby (Floyd), David Proval (Snooze), Joseph Ragno (Ernie), Jude Ciccolella (Mert), Paul McCrane (Trout), Alfonso Freeman (Fresh Fish Yelling Con) and Frank Medrano (Fat Ass Whimpering Con).

The Shawshank Redemption Filmed in Ohio

Budgeted at $25 million, The Shawshank Redemption was filmed in 67 days during the summer of 1993. Mansfield Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, was primarily employed as the movie’s fictional Shawshank State Prison in Maine. Other Buckeye State locations included the cities of Ashland, Lucas, Butler and Upper Sandusky. Also used were locations in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Yuma, Arizona.

Real-life convicts from an Ohio halfway house were employed in the picture as inmates. Also used as props were bottles of Stroh’s beer, which unfortunately had modern screw tops, making them anachronisms for 1949 when bottles still had caps that needed to be pried off with an opener. Oops!

Bob Gunton as Warden Samuel Norton, image courtesy Columbia Pictures

The Shawshank Redemption: The Judgment Cometh and That Right Soon

Banker Andy Dufresne, wrongly convicted of murdering his unfaithful wife and her lover, arrives at notorious Shawshank Prison in early 1947. Andy has been sentenced to two life terms – one for each victim – to be served consecutively.

Shawshank is a penal hellhole, run by corrupt warden Samuel Norton whose office is adorned with the crocheted bible verse, “The Judgment Cometh and that Right Soon.” Add to that a ruthless captain of the guards named Hadley, a violent band of inhuman convicts called “The Sisters” and a crazy old lifer in Brooks Hatlen, and young Andy is just itching to escape.

Andy makes do as best he can inside Shawshank’s mean walls, helping the guards prepare their income taxes, giving financial advice, improving the library and running the warden’s secret accounting books. All the time, though, Andy is slowly digging a tunnel from his cell with a $10 rock hammer, hoping to connect with the prison’s main sewage pipe that will spirit him to freedom 500 yards away.  

The Shawshank Redemption Release and Reviews

The Shawshank Redemption was released on September 23, 1994.

“Without a single riot scene or horrific effect, it tells a slow, gentle story of camaraderie and growth, with an ending that abruptly finds poetic justice in what has come before. The writer and director, Frank Darabont, tells this story with a surprising degree of loving care,” reported Janet Maslin of The New York Times (9/23/94).

Film Analysis: Shawshank and Movie Greatness

“Prison time is slow time,” observes Morgan Freeman as Red. And time is what it took for The Shawshank Redemption to finally ascend to its rightful place. From initial box-office underachiever to cult movie icon, Shawshank stands today as one of Hollywood’s greatest films.

The Shawshank Redemption spans 21 years, from Andy Dufresne’s 1946 murder trial to Red Redding’s release from prison in 1967. Packed in those two decades is one whale of a story as deftly narrated by Red, Andy’s friend and Shawshank confidant.  

Memorable scenes abound in Shawshank, beginning with the opening, which features a despondent Andy Dufresne sitting in his car, unwrapping a .38 revolver and knocking back a slug of whiskey for courage. “I’ll see you in hell before I see you in Reno,” witnesses later testify, placing the damning words into Andy’s mouth when he goes on trial for the murder of his wife and her golf pro lover.

Shawshank’s prison scenes are of course brutal, with Andy fending off Bogs Diamond and “The Sisters” and trying to survive his stints in solitary confinement down in “The Hole.” Andy’s psychological battles with the sociopathic Warden Norton also make for outstanding drama, with Andy eventually getting the upper hand and discovering that indeed “salvation lay within.” 

“We couldn’t beg people to go see this movie when it first came out,” writer-director Frank Darabont said in 2004. But when Shawshank was later released on home video, movie fans discovered what they were missing and made this Stephen King tale the film classic that it is today.

The Shawshank Redemption Box Office, Oscar Nominations, Notes, DVD

• The Shawshank Redemption grossed $28.341 million at the American box office.
• Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Freeman), Best Writing, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Music Score, Best Sound.
• Songs heard in the film: “If I Didn’t Care” by the Ink Spots, “Willie and the Hand Jive” by Johnny Otis.
• Andy locks himself in the library and places Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro on the turntable.
• The cons delight in watching the 1946 movie Gilda, especially where Rita Hayworth sensually tosses back her long, flowing hair in one scene.  
• Andy uses the following glamour girl posters to hide his tunnel’s entrance: Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch.
• Warden Norton explodes over Andy’s use of the word “obtuse.”
• Andy employs the alias “Randall Stevens” to collect more than $370,000 from the warden’s secret bank accounts.
• Portland Daily Bugle headline: “Corruption, Murder at Shawshank,” which portends Warden Norton’s demise.
• Andy’s personal bible, which was hollowed out to hold his rock hammer, bears the message: “Dear Warden, You were right. Salvation lay within. Andy Dufresne.”
• On DVD: The Shawshank Redemption Two-Disc Special Edition (Warner, 2004).

“Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies,” Andy writes in a letter to Red.

“God’s honest truth,” as Red might say, don’t miss The Shawshank Redemption…