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Tommy Williams: So I'm backing out the door, right, and I got the TV, like this; it was a big old thing, I couldn't see shit; suddenly I hear this voice, "Police, kid, hands in the air." You know, I was standing there, holdin' on to that TV, so finally the voice says, "You hear what I said, boy?" And I say, "Yes sir, I sure did, but if I drop this fucking thing you got me on destruction of property too."

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In the library, Heywood is listening to Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues." He is playing the double LP "Hank Williams 24 Greatest Hits," which was originally released by MGM in 1970. "Lovesick Blues" was recorded long before this, but it is not possible for him to have acquired that particular 1970 double LP. See more...

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The photo of the young Red on his "Approval" document is a photo of Morgan Freeman's son. It was a police photo of him after he was convicted for joyriding. See more...

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The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - 50 corrections

Directed by Frank Darabont, starring Bob Gunton, Clancy Brown, Gil Bellows, Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, William Sadler (add more)

Genres: Crime, Drama

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Andy gets a poster of Rita Hayworth when he comes into his cell after his stay in the hospital, and when Red is explaining how Andy broke out, it shows him digging behind her. However, when it is found that Andy escaped, the warden throws a rock through a picture of a cavewoman (Raquel Welch) and it goes into the hole Andy dug. This poster is not the same as the Rita Hayworth one, and it appears to be on the opposite side of the cell as before. [The poster is always on the same cell wall, where Andy dug his hole. And as Red explains in a voice-over, Andy does replace his pin-up posters from time to time, with new women who have piqued his interest.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
When the police read Byron Hadley his Miranda rights, they are reading a very specific edited version. This version did not surface until 1968, Hadley was arrested in 1966, the year the Miranda case was taken to court. It is implausible that any such Miranda reading would have been widely circulated at the time of the arrest. [So basically what you are saying is no-one in the history of the world would have thought of those words before the Miranda case? This case was made famous because Ernesto Arturo Miranda wasn't read his rights before his arrest. So surely some form of those words existed before if his 'rights were not read to him'. And as you have pointed out, they read a different (edited) form of the Miranda rights we know today.]
Edit Corrected by XIII
Andy Dufresne was the vice-president of a large Portland bank before his high profile murder conviction. After escape, he visited nearly a dozen banks in the Portland area. Banking is a close-knit industry know for honest people working long careers. It is unbelievable that even after 20 years, Andy could avoid being recognized as Andy in local Portland area banks. He removed an average of almost 30 thousand per bank (in 1966 dollars)- a fortune. To receive cashiers checks in that amount, he would have to deal with senior bank officials. Even though the Portland area is a fairly loose term, the banks must have been close, as he visited them before word of the escape became public knowledge. In the 1960's, Portland had a population of about 75 thousand, indicating that Warden Norton had money in almost every available bank in the area. It is inconceivable that Andy could have avoided detection of his true identity under these circumstances, even with false identification. He would have been recognized by an employee in one of the dozen banks. [Entirely speculative. It's been twenty years, Andy has aged significantly and is believed to be serving a life sentence behind bars - as you yourself observe, his visits all occur before word of his escape gets out. Even with, as you say, banking typically being a long career, most senior officials at the time of Andy's original offence will likely have retired, with their places filled by people who would be less familiar with him. And finally, he possesses impeccable paperwork identifying him as Randall Stevens, who is a rich and therefore likely a powerful individual. It's entirely possible that some employees that he encountered that day might find him familiar, even vaguely connect that familiarity to Dufresne, but there's a long way between "familiarity" and "suspicion", and nobody would be so stupid to risk offending a powerful individual by suggesting that he might be a convicted murderer. Once word of his escape got out, of course, likely a number of people were kicking themselves, but, at the time, there's no reason for any of them to suspect that he wasn't exactly who his paperwork said he was.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When Andy finally leaves Shawshank and leaves through the tunnel emerging after crawling through near half a mile of horrible slimy stuff he does not have the case with him containing the exchanged documents he switched when the warden opened the safe and when he switched bibles in the office. But we see him later after the escape in a town handing over documents which confirm his new identity. [Andy's dragging a plastic bag filled with his stuff behind him, using a rope tied to his leg, so that it doesn't get in his way. It can be seen throughout his escape, as he climbs down from the tunnel leading from his cell, coming out of the sewer pipe immediately behind him, and is visible floating behind him as he runs through the river.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
The "Archie and Friends" comic the guard is reading on the toilet when Andy starts playing opera over the intercom is an issue from 1993, nearly 50 years after the movie takes place. Archie Comics are thanked in the end credits for providing the comic, and the copyright also verifies that it is from 1993. [The issue of "Archie's Pal Jughead" that the guard is reading is issue 9. The original run of that title began in 1949, so issue 9 would have been published in either late 1949 or early 1950. This title was retired in 1965 and replaced with "Jughead". In 1993 (the date of the copyright in the credits), the title "Archie's Pal Jughead" was resurrected (as vol.2), and began publication at issue 46. The reason for the date being listed as 1993 in the movie credits is that would be when Archie Comics had to re-copyright the title, however the issue in question was printed in 1949/1950. A summary of the title history can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jughead_Magazine Further, if you freeze-frame and zoom, it is visible that the price of the comic is 10 cents. This would have been a steal in 1993! In addition, the cover layout, font, etc. is identical to the following issue from 1950 (issue 14): http://www.littlestuffedbull.com/images/comics/archiespaljughead14.jpg As well as this issue (66, from 1960): http://home.earthlink.net/~copaceticgallery/Jughead66.html The cover of the first issue of volume 2 (46, June 1993) can be seen here: http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/9365/256532-20115-120035-1-archie-s-pal-jughead_super.jpg The differences are obvious.]
Edit
Surely the poster hiding the tunnel would not have stayed flat on the wall of Andy's cell due to air flowing through the tunnel. Would it not bubble and be noticeable? [Do you mean before, or after he escaped. If you mean before, he could have covered the other end with something, to prevent this. If it was after, do we know if air was always blowing through there, maybe it would have eventually, but not during the brief time everyone was in the cell.]
Edit Corrected by pross79
Spoiler: After Andy escapes the prison and the aftermath of the escape is shown, William Sadler seems to tell his inmates the story of how Andy bought the guards' trust on the roof. He's telling it as if it is told to someone who wasn't there - yet he's telling it to his friends, who were at the scene. It doesn't sound like he's reminding them of the event, but like he's telling the story to someone who wasn't there, like a story. This makes no sense at all, since his friends would know for sure what has happened, and only need to be reminded. [The film takes place over a period of around twenty years. The story occurred pretty early on in Andy's term and certainly its not entirely clear how long after Andy escaped that the story was retold. It would make perfect sense that retelling the story to even the people there would fit as many details might have been forgotten over such a period of time. Even as he is telling the story he is trying to recall exactly what the guard was saying to him when he grabbed Andy by the shirt.]
Edit Corrected by Lummie
When they are doing income tax returns, Red makes reference to the April 15 deadline, which back then was March 15th. [I can't tell exactly what year that Red makes this reference from the movie. Which is important because the tax code changed the deadline from March 15 to April 15 in 1954. Andy entered the prison in 1947 and escaped in 1966. Not knowing exactly when it occurred, it is entirely plausible, since Andy was doing income taxes until he escaped, that Red's statement would be true.]
Edit Corrected by Zwn Annwn
In the scene where Warden Norton is talking to Tommy, he offers a cigarette to Tommy but is not smoking one himself. At the end of the conversation, he drops a partially-smoked cigarette and crushes it out, then walks away. It isn't Tommy's cigarette, because when Tommy is lying on the ground, you can see his cigarette beside his right hand. [The warden is smoking a cigarette. He has the cigarette in his mouth when he approaches Tommy and takes it out after taking a drag and exhaling.]
Edit
I believe this has already been alluded to, but I'd like to clarify a point. Red says that Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards - 'just shy of half a mile'. 500 yards is far less than half a mile; in fact, it's less than a third of a mile. But what it *is*, is just shy of half a *kilometer*. Which may be what King was thinking of when he wrote the book. [This is a mechanism for submitting mistakes, not making clarifications regarding existing errors.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When Andy escapes from Shawshank, and we see the shot when he first comes out of the sewer pipe, watch his bag that he tied to his ankle. It appears to float. Considering that Andy packed up his Stone Chess set in this bag, it's very unlikely that the bag would float even in the slightest. [Depends on how much air was trapped within the bag and how dense the sewer pipe's contents were. That wasn't just water, you know.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
When Red finds the metal box in the field, there has been enough time pass for seasons to change. In Maine this means rain, snow and melting snow. How that metal box with one loosely wrapped plastic bag kept all the papers perfectly dry is not easy to believe. Even one year of seasons would cause it to look much less pristine than it looks when Red opens it. [The package was wrapped in thick plastic. It was protected from the elements quite well and as such would still appear pristine, even after a number of months.]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
My instructor brought this up in my psychology class. Brooks' suicide scene is completely unrealistic. The fall that resulted when he kicked the chair out from under him was nowhere near long enough to break his neck, therefore, he strangled to death. However, when one strangles to death by hanging, the limbs are flailing wildly and convulsions usually occur. Brooks' feet barely twitch. [Brooks was a very old man. His bones were very weak and brittle, as most geriatrics' bones are. This naturally occurring problem would have been augmented by the very poor nutrition he would have received while in prison. It is entirely plausible for a short fall such as this one to have resulted in a broken neck with this particular individual.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
When Andy is escaping and breaks a hole in the sewer pipe, the sewage and water erupt out of the pipe. After that, the top inside part of the pipe should have been wet. But when he uses his flashlight to look inside, that section of the pipe is dry. [It is wet.]
Edit Corrected by AdmRose
When Andy crawls through the pipe he has the warden's clothes in a bag attached to his feet. When he emerges from the other end of the pipe, wades through the stream and pulls his clothes off there is no sign of the bag. [The bag is there when he comes out of the pipe and it is being dragged behind him the entire time in this scene.]
Edit Corrected by Lummie
Andy's escape is made by tunneling, yet his cell is on the second story of the prison and there are others cells to the right of his. Therefore, by tunneling into the wall, the only thing that would happen is that he would end up in the next guy's cell. [Andy's cell is the last on the row. There are only cells to one side (left as you're facing it from outside). Andy tunnels through the solid wall opposite the row of cells (right as you're facing it from outside).]
Edit Corrected by Damian Torres
At the end of the film, when he is off to find Andy, Red expresses the belief that the authorities won't care all that much about him breaking the conditions of his parole. He could not be more wrong. In the US in the Forties he would be considered an escaped prisoner if he broke his parole, and considering he was inside for murder he would be regarded as dangerous. Crossing a State line would be a federal offence, bringing the FBI into play. In short, every law enforcement agency in the country is going to be on the lookout for him, and when he tries to cross the border into Mexico he'll be arrested on multiple charges. [What Red means, is not that they won't be looking for him, but that they will put in less of an effort in tracking him down than, say, a twenty-five year old serial killer. He is after all an old man who has done his time for one single offense, and had expressed sincere regret for it. The FBI would know of him, sure, but he would not rank high on their priority list. As for crossing the Mexican border, well, hundreds of people cross it undetected every day (in the opposite direction). It is not exactly air-tight. Besides, the escape takes place in the '60s, not the Forties.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
When Andy is escaping, he uses a large rock to bust through the sewage pipe. He strikes the pipe three times with the rock, and seemingly breaks through. It seems near impossible that any form of rock, especially only swung three times, can bust through what appeared to be a solid metal drainage pipe. Even if that were possible, it seems even more unlikely Andy could then try to shape a hole big enough for him to slip through into the pipe, without wasting too much more time, or being heard. [You can tell by then sound the rock makes when it hits the pipe that the pipe is not metal but ceramic. That is why it was relatively easy for Andy to break through them to escape.]
Edit Corrected by Guy
The poster that Andy has of Raquel Welsh, at the time of his escape in 1966, is from the movie "One Million Years B.C." which was not released until 1967. [The Hammer film "One Million Years B.C." was released in 1966, not 1967. As a publicity stunt the poster was released well in advance of the film's premiere. See http://lavender.fortunecity.com/judidench/584/onemilli3.html, amongst others.]
Edit
It's hard to believe that Andy wouldn't have been caught in the act while tunneling through the wall. Even if he was able to time the prison guards' nightly head count inspections to avoid detection, any convict in one of the cells on the opposite tier would have been able to see directly into Andy's cell. It stretches the imagination to think that Andy wouldn't have been seen by an "enemy" convict on the opposite tier. [Throughout the scenes at night, the cells are very dark. As it took him over 20 years to make the tunnel, I dont think its hard to assume that another convict would see him as they never reported him in that space of time. In some of the night scenes when some of the shots are taken from the cells its pitch black in the other cells so most would never see him anyway. With the guards, he didn't have the head check that night. Andy was working late and was buzzed in later on.]
Edit Corrected by Lummie

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