When I first pitched the idea of this column to my editor, Kevin Hellions, I was filled with joy, being able to write this piece. But the more I thought of it, the more apprehensive I became. This project concerns my favorite movie of all time and a superb novella written by someone you may know, Stephen King.  With this piece, and future pieces of the “Great Adaptations” brand, I will look at how the original pieces, whether it’s a novel, novella (such as this piece), graphic novel, or short story holds up to the adaptation made of it, which could be a movie, tv show, musical or any other form of media out there.

With a name like Stephen King, many words may come to mind, such as ‘horror writer,’ ‘sell out,’ ‘millionaire,’ and many other additional phrases. While some of it’s true, the one thing you can’t take away from Mr. King is that he is a fantastic writer and story teller. King practically specialized in character development, which is one of the reasons why his novels end up to be so long (case in point The Stand, It, Under the Dome). I’ve also never been one to judge a book by its author, only by the the words on the page.

Stephen King got his big break in 1974 with a novel entitled Carrie, about a high school student with telepathic powers. King followed up with such greats as Salem’s Lot, The Shining, The Stand, Night Shift, The Dead Zone and various other stories.

After the novel Cujo was published, King was talking to his publisher, Alan Williams, when he pitched him the idea for a collection of a novellas called Different Seasons. From the conversation, you could tell that Williams was not thrilled by the project. Early on in his writing career, Stephen King pegged himself as a horror writer. In fact, the first non horror story that King had published was a short story named “The Woman in the Room,” which was largely about a man’s struggle with his mother’s cancer and struggling with the idea of “putting her out of her misery” so she didn’t have to suffer anymore. Back to the conversation, what Alan Williams was looking for was more of things like Salem’s Lot or The Shining.

For Stephen King fans, I’m sure you’re aware of the pseudonym King came up with back in the late 70’s known as Richard Bachman. For those that don’t know, Richard Bachman was an outlet for King to release novels that didn’t have a “horror” premise to them. Another fun fact for you, the novel Blaze, which came out in 2007, was technically the first “Richard Backman” novel he wrote, and yet it was the last one published.

Alas, Williams gave in, but under one condition…one of the novels had to have a horror premise to it. King agreed and was promptly armed with one, and thus, in 1982, we were given Different Seasons. On a side note, the biggest selling point for this collection was, in a great piece dialogue found in the afterword to the collection, was between Williams and King about the next novel King would publish. In what could be compared to the famous Stephen King appearance on Family Guy (search YouTube for a video called “How Stephenie Meyer got Breaking Dawn Published”) he says “it’s about a haunted car.” For Stephen King fans, you will know which novel that this refers to; in a video Q & A session related to his newest release at the time Full Dark No Stars, which coincidentally is a collection of novellas, King referred to this book as the one that was most fun to write.

The first story contained within pages of this collection is called “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”. A rather unusual title, but the essential selling point was Rita Hayworth, and boy was she a looker back in the day. The story is told as a memoir, penned by a man named Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding. Red is a white Irish man who had become a “lifer” in prison by murdering his wife and unborn child, as well as his neighbor and infant child. Though King never paints a physical description of Red; mentions of his famed red hair gives you the clear idea. His memoir largely concerns a fellow inmate and a man who would become is greatest friend named Andy Dufresne. Andy came to Shawshank in 1948, ten years after Red, accused of murdering his cheating wife and her wealthy “golf pro” lover.

King does something remarkable here with the character of Red, and paints him as a secondary character in the book. I do not mean to say that you can dismiss him completely ( I mean the story is told through his narration), but he’s not the protagonist of this story either. The character of Red himself even notes that many of the people that he showed his memoir to say that he is a secondary character, which shows how great a writer Stephen King really is.

Andy was the vice president of a large Portland, Maine bank, and despite being accused of his crime, he never claims guilt for it. From the beginning of the story, Andy is painted as an emotionless and unsympathetic character. During his trial, which is more extensive in the book than the movie, the evidence is presented in a very convincing way. Without going too far into it; Andy found out his wife was cheating on him, he went through a two week period or so of depression, bought a gun, drank a lot, and admitted to driving up to the location of the incident on the same night the murder took place. His defense is full of more holes than the Star Wars prequels: it includes him throwing the gun in a river the night before the murders took place, testimony from a bartender and patrons that didn’t help his case, and many other pieces of circumstantial evidence. The one piece of evidence that really damaged Andy’s case concerned the gun shot wounds of the victims. They were each shot four times, and the prosecutor made it plainly clear that he would have to stop to reload the gun in order to get the final two shots. In fact, the media in the book dubbed him the “even-steven killer” because of it. All in all, our narrator convinces us heavily of our protagonists  “guilt.”

In the beginning of the book, our narrator and protagonist meet about a month after Andy was incarcerated. Red is known as “the guy who can get it for you,” but he also has morals which include no heavy drugs and no weapons. As he says “he’s got enough killing on his mind.” In their first encounter, Andy is looking for an unusual item; a rock hammer. Red is apprehensive at first, he’s not aware of what a rock hammer is exactly and it could also be used as a weapon. Through great bits of dialogue, Andy convinces Red to get him the rock hammer and their budding friendship also begins. They do business on many things during Andy’s stay in the pen, including the infamous Rita Hayworth. No, not the actual Rita Hayworth, but a pin-up poster.

While in prison, Andy becomes a legend of sorts. In the 50’s, a group of inmates, including Red and Andy, are picked to tar the roof of the plate shop. The guards overseeing the project are there based on seniority; one of the guards is a man named Byron Hadley, the captain of the guards. During this time, he begins to tell the story of his brother, how he basically left his family and recently died. Well, turns out he died a rich man and left every member of his family $35,000. As good as this sounds, it doesn’t sound that good to Hadley, the epitome of the glass half empty, complains to his fellow guards about what the IRS is going to do to him. Andy overhearing this, decides to help, which almost costs him his life. He tells Hadley that if he gives the money to his wife, the IRS allows a one time gift to your spouse for up to $60,000. Andy Offers to help Hadley with the paper work in exchange for three beers a piece for his coworkers. All this occurring, mind you, while Hadley has Andy near the edge of the roof, threatening to throw him over. Hadley relents, and on the second to last day of the job, at 10 in the morning, the men sat and drank beer. This may not be much, but it felt like freedom to these men.

Andy started his career at Shawshank in the laundry. Fans of Stephen King’s short stories will recognize a reference to the laundry machines as the Mangler, which was also adapted into its own movie starring Robert Englund of Freddy Kreuger fame. Through a series of events and payoffs and with a man paroled, Dufresne becomes the new librarian. The job is mainly a front to do taxes for guards throughout the prison, launder money through the prison, but it also allows him to eventually expand the prison library into three rooms and an expansive collection of literature. He is also able to use the library to help many inmates get their GED’s in order to make something of themselves when they get out of the slammer.

Of course, it wasn’t all roses and sunshine for Andy, the memoir also details his struggles with a group of cons known as the sisters. These men are effectively described as “bull queers,” men who take sex by force. the depiction of rape behind bars is in brutal prose. If there is horror in this story, this is it. His troubles eventually stop when, it is surmised, that guards are payed off to hurt the main source of the problem, an inmate named Bogs Diamond. a great parallel can be made with the way the guards are paid off. If it really was Andy, well there is an interesting story about how he got the money into the prison to pay the guards off. It turns out, Andy smuggled about $500 into the prison in that place where the sun don’t shine. The first time I really thought about it I laughed for a couple of minutes.

Later on in the story, an inmate named Tommy Williams makes a stop in la casa de Shawshank. Andy helps him in getting his GED, but Tommy also helps him. After hearing Andy’s story from a fellow inmate, Tommy is shocked to learn that Andy’s story has been told to him before by an inmate at another prison named Elwood Blatch. Blatch confessed to doing the murders and armed with this knowledge, tells the story to Andy. Andy in turn, relays this to the Warden, who was Samuel Norton at the time. Throughout the story we have a revolving door of wardens, and Norton is the main antagonist Red’s memoirs. Norton doesn’t buy it, mainly because Andy is a valuable resource to him, and Norton just flat out refuses him. Here in the story, is when Andy hashes out his plan to escape, but from here I will refrain from more “spoilers” as it were, the magic of how it happens is incredible and a true treat.

There is the moving moment, between Red and Andy, after the warden refuses to do anything with the information Tommy has relayed. The scene is painted with the two of them sitting against the wall in the exercise yard talking about a whole slew of things. With these guys talking, you really get the sense of how smart Andy really is. Before coming to Shawshank, Andy created a new identity for himself complete with a SSN, drivers license and whole slew of money, in the form of a man named Peter Stevens. It is here, that we also learn of a place called Zihuantanejo, in Mexico right near the pacific. A place that as he describes it, has no memory. As the novel ends, Red is paroled and on his way to visit his friend Andy.

This short novel is well researched and the analogies and pop culture references are relevant to the time. There are great pieces of symbolism I feel add to the impact of the story. The first is through posters, and thus where the Rita Hayworth part of the story comes into play. Men in the joint often purchase posters of pin-up girls. The posters Andy purchases throughout the story include Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, and Linda Ronstadt. These images are used to represent freedom; as if you could just walk through the poster and be with the woman. There is this beautiful imagery used in the story; Andy, staring up at the poster of Rita Hayworth, and at lights out, with the moon light shining through the bars of his cell, the shadows of said bars appear across the poster, and thus a reminder of where he truly is.

A year after this story was published, a man named Frank Darabont wrote Stephen King, to see if he could use his short story, “The Woman in the Room” coincidentally, for filming. Fun fact about Stephen King: despite being filthy rich, King loves to give back. One way in which he chooses to do this is by allowing young, aspiring film makers to use his short stories for filming. The catch is that he gets to keep the rights to the story and he receives a copy of the finished work. He sells this to the aspiring film maker for just one dollar. King was reluctant at first to allow Darabont to film the story, due to the personal nature of this particular piece, but ultimately granted him the rights and he received his dollar in the mail. Three years went by when he received a copy of the film in which he has claimed that it’s one of his favorite adaptations of a King story.

Two years after receiving the tape of “Woman in the Room,” Frank mailed him again asking for the rights to adapt the story of “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.” Impressed with his previous work, Steve was more than willing to give him the rights to do it. Another five years passed, and then King received a large screenplay in the mail.

Production for The Shawshank Redemption began in 1993 at the Ohio State Reformatory (Ghost Hunters Fans will know the place) and debuted in theaters in 1994.

The movie features an unforgettable cast of characters, many never mentioned in the original story, and some only slightly mentioned now with larger roles. The movie cast includes Tim Robbins as Andy, Morgan Freeman as Red, James Whitmore as Brooks, a character only slightly mentioned in the book, who’s role is vastly expanded in the film. They cast Bob Gunton as Warden Samuel Norton, a religious fanatical hypocrite and Clancy Brown as Byron Hadley, captain of the guards and “hardest screw to ever take a turn at Shawshank state prison.”

The movie focuses on the budding friendship that develops between Andy and Red throughout their terms in the Shank. Along the way, Andy ultimately achieves his legendary status in a similar fashion to the book. Scenes from the book, introduced into the film, the roof scene, for instance, is brought to life with brilliant magic. Tim Robbins plays arguably his best role here, and the unlikely casting of Morgan Freeman as Red, the white Irish inmate catches you off guard. The image below is from one of the best scenes in the movie; the scene from the book mentioned before of these two men just talking against this great big wall. The symbolism is rich here that it gets you every time.

Another nod needs to be given to James Whitmore’s character Brooks Hatlen, who is technically a mix of two different characters from the novella. Brooks is mentioned in one paragraph in the book as the librarian of the prison. He also comes with an additional feature, mainly a crow named Jake, that was given to a character named Sherwood Bolton in the novella. Key scenes revolve around Brooks being parolled. If there is one thing that this movie is good at, its making you feel sympathetic for cons, and if you actually knew what Brooks did to get into prison, you probably wouldn’t feel as bad as you do for him. But essentially, these scenes revolve around Brooks not being able to make it on the outside, and thinking about doing anything possible to get back into prison. Instead Brooks takes his own life and the scene is focused around a letter he sent to his fellow inmates about the outside.

One startling piece of trivia about this film is that it was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. when it was initially released, the movie was not very popular and only gained notoriety after the 1995 Academy Awards. The Shawshank Redemption didn’t win any awards, which I believe adds to the humble nature of the film. Funny side note, the film went on to be the most rented film of 1995 (a nearly dead phrase, if I’ve ever heard one) and has become one of the most loved and endearing films of all time. It’s quite rare these days that a film compliments a piece of literary prose, but this film goes above and beyond that.

I have to admit that the geekiest part of this piece is my obsession with the film. I saw this movie for the first time approximately two years ago at the urging of a good friend and haven’t looked back. This is the only film for which I own so much memorabilia related to it. This includes the actual novella in hardcover, paperback, and kindle format, a copy of the screenplay, the soundtrack by the great composer Thomas Newman (which i listened to many times in writing this piece), as well as the audiobook (read by Frank Muller).

I intentionally spoke as little as I could about the film. Movies speak for themselves all I can see is see this movie!