Week 7 Film Goofs: Shawshank Redemption

A new weekly series I am starting, I will be addressing many of them mistakes that were included in the final product of many of today's popular movies. It is also obvious that it is necessary to have seen each film of this series, otherwise the context and importance will not be understood. This background information might give you a better feel when watching a reviewed movie, and also keep you better informed, my ultimate goal. I felt it would be appropriate to start with the highest-rated movie of all-time, Shawshank Redemption, because the popularity of the film should mean that the validity of the film should be pretty high.

Anachronisms: 

When Tommy goes out into the yard to talk to Warden Norton, Warden Norton offers him a cigarette. The pack of Marlboros that he offers him has Marlboro Miles on them, which weren't around until the '90s.

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.

Continuity:

When they're tossing the cells, Hadley knocks over the small stone-works Andy has made. The bishop is alternately standing up/knocked over between shots.

When Red is talking to Andy for the first time, he is throwing a baseball between himself and Haywood. Just as Andy stoops down, Red catches the ball and seconds later, catches the ball again without throwing it back.

Factual errors:

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.

Revealing mistakes:

When the warden reads the headline in the Daily Bugle after Andy's escape, he rushes to the safe and opens the bible. Inside, he sees a perfectly cut out hole of the pick hammer within the pages. Presumably Andy was using this to store the hammer as he dug through the cell wall and tunnel, yet the outline of the hammer in the bible is perfect with no wear marks, and the pages have no dirt
whatsoever on them.

The warden is clearly almost a foot shorter than Andy, and yet Andy presumably fits perfectly into his suit.

There are many other semi-relevant and interesting mistakes included within in this popular film, all of which are listed on the film's IMDB page. I hope that if anything, these petty but intriguing facts at least go to sparking interest in the film, to view it for the first or tenth time so that you can appreciate its high quality.

-Jarid Holliday