The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

I remember seeing The Shawshank Redemption in the theater when it came out.  To look at the initial returns I was one of the few.  I was part of the built-in audience, being a huge Stephen King fan and, by this point, wanting to see more of his stuff that wasn't horror.  The Body had already been adapted by Rob Reiner as Stand by Me, but all the other Stephen King films up to The Shawshank Redemption remained within his most well-known genre despite the success of that film.  

To say this was a flop is an understatement.  Its first weekend in the theater netted less than a million dollars.  Keep in mind that the 1990s are considered one of the best decades for movies, on par with the 1970s for the mix of independent and studio films, so many art films were pulling in bigger audiences than Shawshank did.  Whether it was the weird name or the fact that, unlike most of the films from his stories before it, King's name wasn't plastered all over the poster, it is really hard to say.  It was released at the same time as Pulp Fiction, late in the summer blockbuster season, and saw a brief re-release in 1995 after getting a number of Oscar nominations.  Worldwide it just barely made back its budget.

Then, something strange happened.  Despite not being a popular movie, a ton of video cassettes were distributed to rental stores, and it was there that the movie found its legs.  The Oscar nominations helped, but finally the word of mouth it should have received upon release did it some good.  No one remembers the initial failure of the film.  I certainly did not, and always thought it did quite well.  What everyone recalls is that, from the novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and the loyalty to the story by director and writer Frank Darabont, we got one of the finest movies in cinematic history. 

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is the vice president of a major bank.  He is accused of murdering his wife (Renee Blaine) and her lover (Scott Mann) in a drunken rage and is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in Shawshank Prison, a rural penitentiary in Maine run by corrupt religious warden Norton (Bob Gunton) whose right-hand enforcer is a sadistic guard named Captain Hadley (Clancy Brown).  Andy soon befriends Red (Morgan Freeman), a man who has connections to get things brought into the prison, asking for a rock hammer so he can do rock hunting in the yard.

Andy and Red soon strike up a friendship, although that doesn't save him from being beaten and raped repeatedly by Bogs Diamond (Mark Rolston) and a couple of others known as the Sisters.  This continues until Dufresne informs Hadley of a way he can keep an inheritance he received from being taxed and do it legally.  Soon Andy becomes the go-to CPA for the prison and for others, gaining protection from the Sisters and a new job in the prison library, which he manages to rejuvenate over a number of years.  When new evidence of his innocence arises, the warden refuses to pursue it, as Andy is integral in helping him funnel illicit funds through the prison's budget.  Seeing that he'll never get out of Shawshank otherwise, Andy plans an elaborate escape. 

It's hard to tell, but this was Frank Darabont's feature directing debut.  He had made a short film of King's "The Woman in the Room" and worked in television, but it was a surprise that Warner Bros. put their faith in a first-time director like this.  Despite the initial box office disaster it was lucky they did as Darabont proved to be one of the best directors when it comes to adapting King's stories, with all but one of his movies being such.  He seems to have a feel of King's work like few others do.

In the story Red is actually of Irish descent, thus the line that remains intact in the movie, although it comes out a bit differently with Morgan Freeman saying it.  Despite that it would be hard to think of anyone except Freeman playing the role at this point, as this was one of a string of movies, starting with Lean on Me, that helped cement him as one of our country's greatest actors.  This is also where his talent for voiceover narration became evident, something he would lean into more and more later in life.  This is also one of Tim Robbins's best performances, having already gained critical acclaim two years earlier in Robert Altman's The Player.  

Captain Hadley is memorably evil in the novella and Clancy Brown was a perfect fit for him, as is Bob Gunton as the warden.  Both are typical King characters, being both violently abusive and hypocritically religious.  Due to the fact that it would have earned an NC-17 Darabont toned down the scenes of Dufresne being attacked by the sisters, but Mark Rolston is still quite effective as Bogs. 

As for the story itself I read it as a teenager where I typically wanted to read more horror stuff from King but was captured by the non-horror material in Different Seasons.  Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption was one of the first stories that got me interested in reading outside of genre fiction and I was happy to see that the adaptation stood up well.  While it is nothing new that one hasn't seen in a number of prison break films, with a heavy influence from Escape from Alcatraz, King created well-rounded characters in both Red and Andy, and Darabont got the performances from Robbins and Freeman to bring them to life.  The Shawshank Redemption earns its reputation honestly, and it is a credit that it got a second life in video stores and cable rather than just becoming another forgotten prison drama.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Time: 142 minutes

Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, Clancy Brown

Director: Frank Darabont