The Green Mile

The Green Mile (1999)

35 corrected entries

(26 votes)

Corrected entry: In the scene where Percy was placed in a straightjacket and locked into solitary confinement, the other guards tape his mouth shut with clear plastic tape. Such tape didn't exist in the 30's.

Correction: Scotch tape was invented in 1930 by Richard Drew, an employee of 3M, and transparent cellulose tape invented in 1935.

Corrected entry: When they are drugging Wild Bill, Wild Bill gets up off of his mattress on the floor to go to the bars of his cell. When the drugs kick in, he goes and lays down in his cell on a bed with a mattress on it.

Correction: Since he is sitting on the bed with the mattress after drinking the drugged soda, its logical to assume that he moved the mattress back onto the bed.

AdmRose

Corrected entry: When Detterick is shouting for his daughters, he calls them Karla and Cora. In the written report that Edgecomb is reading, however, the girls' names are Kathy and Cora.

Correction: Detterick's daughters names are Katie and Cora which is what he shouts when he is looking for them.

julie sheridan

Corrected entry: Shortly after the execution run by Percy Edgecomb and his wife drink RC Cola and eat fried chicken out of a plastic food container. Containers like these did not exist in the 30's.

Correction: The chicken is in a glass baking dish, it is not plastic.

Corrected entry: During the scene when the guards are about to spray Wild Bill with the hose, Bill takes off his belt and wraps it around his hand, ready for a fight. The problem with this is that death row prisoners aren't even allowed to have shoelaces, let alone belts. They could hurt someone else or try to kill themselves with it. (01:15:00)

Correction: The "no-belt" rule wasn't implemented until 20 years after this movie takes place. Death row inmates in those days did most certainly have belts and shoelaces.

Corrected entry: When they squirt Wild Bill with the hose, he is wearing blue jeans. But in the next shot when they are dragging him out of his cell all wet, he is wearing black and white prison trousers.

Correction: He is actually wearing the black and white prison trousers all the way through. I thought he was wearing jeans when I first watched it also.

Corrected entry: It is strange that Edgecomb's team is on duty every time something happens in E block, day or night, as if they worked 24-hour shifts 7 days a week.

NancyFelix

Correction: The story is told through Tom Hanks' character. he tells of HIS experiances and the strange goings on when HE is working on the E block. he would be working more often as he seemed to be in charge of the block. Anything happening another time we just never see.

Corrected entry: Tom Hanks is walking down the corridor after the night of the execution,and he steps on a broken glass bulb. In the next scene all the bulbs are intact and working.

Correction: If you look closely, one bulb is broken.

Corrected entry: In the scene where the big black man has healed the woman with cancer and she has got up to give him a necklace the woman who is thin has to unclip the necklace from around her neck, but then she just slides it over the big black mans head, which is much bigger than the woman's.

Correction: Getting it caught in your hair would really hurt - she's just taking precautions.

Corrected entry: When Paul is talking to his lady friend about he and Mr Jingles being lonely and watching his friends die he forgets to mention, and she doesn't pick up on the fact, that there must be one more friend still alive: Hal's wife Melinda.

Correction: If you listen to what Paul says when he mentions the friends he's watched pass over the years, he mentions Melinda just after Hal - which would indicate that she died some time after. I believe in the book Melinda outlived Hal by a few years.

Correction: Melinda would probably not be alive, as she only received "regular" healing from John. This in itself would not prolong the life of those who received it, it would just take away the sickness/injuries they had. Paul explains somewhat in the movie that since he and Mr Jingles both were exposed to John's powers without the need for healing (Jingles when John held him during Del's execution, and Paul when John needed to show him what Wild Bill had done), they had received an unnaturally long life.

Twotall

Corrected entry: When Tom Hanks and the other guards are drinking in the prison by the desk the Budweiser beer is from this day and age not 65 years ago.

Correction: They are actually drinking Royal Crown Cola not Budweiser. You can see the label in a slightly later scene.

Corrected entry: As Percy Wetmore is tying up Eduard Delacroix for his execution, Harry Terwilliger assists with putting the top part on Delacroix. You would think Terwilliger would realise straight away that Wetmore didn't wet the sponge as soon as he put the top part on. (01:39:00)

oobs

Correction: You would think that, but he didn't. Common human mistake to make. They knew Percy was cruel but not so much that he intentionally wouldn't wet the sponge, Harry just failed to notice.

lionhead

Corrected entry: When Percy and Wild Bill are both being placed into the strait-jacket, the jacket has buckles. Strait-jackets back in the 1930's had to be laced up through eyelets. Buckled strait-jackets didn't appear until the 1980's.

Correction: That's incorrect. Look online and you can find plenty of antique straight jackets with straps and buckles.

Greg Dwyer

Corrected entry: During the scene of Eduard Delacroix's execution, there is a quartz clock shown. Although invented in the late 1920's, quartz clocks were not on the market until many, many years later.

Correction: The prison service, then and now, purchases many, many products which are "not on the market", through Government tendering processes.

Corrected entry: Right before the guards drug Bill with the drink, Bill wakes up with his mattress on the floor and the rest of his bed leaning up against the wall because he trashed his room during Del's execution. After he drinks the drink and passes out, his bed is back together again. (01:57:55)

Correction: There's plenty of time for them to fix his room up again, it just isn't shown.

Jez

Factual error: This movie is set in 1935. Back then, executions were done by hanging. The Louisiana Legislature changed the method from hanging to electrocution in 1940.

More mistakes in The Green Mile

Old Paul Edgecomb: I'm a hundred and eight years old, Elaine. I was forty-four the year that John Coffey walked the Green Mile. You mustn't blame John. He couldn't help what happened to him...he was just a force of nature. Oh I've lived to see some amazing things Elly. Another century come to past, but I've...I've had to see my friends and loved ones die off through the years... Hal and Melinda...Brutus Howell...my wife... my boy. And you Elaine...you'll die too, and my curse is knowing that I'll be there to see it. It's my atonement you see; it's my punishment, for letting John Coffey ride the lightning; for killing a miracle of God. You'll be gone like all the others. I'll have to stay. Oh, I'll die eventually, that I'm sure. I have no illusions of immortality, but I will wished for death...long before death finds me. In truth, I wish for it already.

More quotes from The Green Mile

Trivia: In the movie John Coffey has sort of a "messiah"-like role. His initials J.C might be a reference to Jesus Christ, as this is very fitting for his role. [This is a not-so-subtle attempt which places Paul Edgecomb in the role of Pontius Pilate]

More trivia for The Green Mile

Question: What does old Tom Hanks drop out of his pocket when he walked out of the door of the old folks home?

Answer: Paul seemed to take the windbreaker in a random fashion. I'm not sure if it even belonged to him. I've no idea what it was but I agree. Not a piece of toast.

Answer: A piece of toast.

I've tried and tried to see what it actually was. It couldn't have been toast. This object hit the floor hard and rolled out of camera range, quickly. I thought maybe door knob or thread spool. Possibly a thread spool because of Mr. Jingles. Door latch was intact.

More questions & answers from The Green Mile

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