Why?
CMC +fnord!
Although he knew he was innocent, he anticipated the possibility he’d be found guilty of his wife’s (and her lover’s) murder. So he wanted a way to access some money if he ever did escape/get paroled.
See, that was the one part of the movie that I hated … I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief for that. Hundreds of hardened cons stopping whatever they were doing to listen to Italian opera? Not buying that. For me, it was the one clunker scene in an otherwise wonderful movie.
I could buy it. It wasn’t that they were all opera fans, it was the sheer shock of hearing something feminine, soaring and free while they were trapped inside a place that was the utter opposite. It took them out of prison for a few precious minutes.
I thought it was OK - it’s not that we’re supposed to believe they were all deprived opera fans - I think it’s that playing the music over the PA was an act of rebellion, and that it was just such an unusual and unprecedented event in itself.
Had no idea of the ending going in. Wish I could zap my brain and forget the movie every time it comes on, just so I could enjoy it with a clean slate again.
I remember thinking “he better fucking well not be about to kill himself, and if he does, they really need to take the word ‘Redemption’ out of the title”.
I don’t think when I saw the movie for the first time that I was even thinking about escape. I think that I figured that he’d work to free his name or something.
It wasn’t like “trying to escape” was the focus of the dramatic tension. If you were watching the movie thinking, “he’s going to escape”, then you weren’t watching the same movie I was watching.
The warden gets one of the greatest commeuppances in movie history.
I thought he set up the fake identity in the movie because he knew (although we didn’t know) that he was planning to escape. I don’t think the warden ever knew about his fake identity. Andy was skimming the money from him and doctoring the books.
As far as knowing he was going to escape, I had no idea whatsoever upon seeing the movie. The scene where he’s in the rain looking up, with his arms in the air–from the previews I just thought he was out in the prison yard. I thought the movie would end with his proving his innocence somehow.
Since we’re now just riffing on comparisons between the movie and the book:
It’s been years since I read the novella, Red’s parole board hearings are not there and I don’t think the Brooks sub-plot is there either. Also I can’t recall if Andy tutoring the other inmates was in the book or not.
Best sly nod toward the story is when Andy asks Red how he got his name.
In the King’s story Red is a big Irishman with red hair, hence the name.
After Andy asks him why do they call him Red, Freeman’s character who obviously is not from Ireland and obviously isn’t a redhead, has to stop for a second and says with a smirk, “Maybe it’s because I’m Irish.”
Also I brazenly declare that the Shawshank Redemption is one of the rare instances when […drum role…]
the movie is better than the book (novella, whatever).
Andy tutoring the inmates (including the kid who got shot) is in there, along with Brooks … although in Brooks’ case, he had a pet bird that died after he was paroled.
I didn’t know the story before watching the film. At the end when he didn’t step out of the cell, I thought he had committed suicide. Love the film, it may be my all time favourite…
I was under the impression they were the Warden’s fake identities, which he co-opted. He wasn’t in a position to make the deposits himself, so I don’t think he could have gotten away with depositing money by proxy in identities that the warden wasn’t fully cognisant of.
Yeah, the warden needed the fake identities to hide the money he was getting shaking down builders & contractors, when he threatened to undercut their business using convicts. If he was just pocketing the money himself, he wouldn’t have needed Andy at all.
I also hadn’t read the book and had no idea how the movie would end the first time I saw it. I was vacillating between “He must have killed himself” and “There’s no way the movie would end with him killing himself” during that whole scene. I was shocked by the escape.
I just want to add that it amazes me how many people tout this as their favorite movie but have no idea that it’s a SK story. It’s quite funny when you tell them because they don’t believe it because they’re not into SK and that horror stuff.
The first time I saw it I didn’t realize that it was the novella I read as a youth because I only remembered the Rita Hayworth part of the title. As I watched ( and liked) the movie I kept thinking “Man, I’ve seen this before. I swear I have…” and then when he gets the Rita Hayworth poster it all came tumbling back.
Great movie. I always wondered if they intentionally kept SK name out of all of the press/ads etc… for that movie so people wouldn’t go in with preconcieved ideas of what it was about. It’s got to be his most successful book to movie adaptation.
There’s a scene from the book that I wish they’d kept in the movie, but I believe they cut it for time.
It’s when the guard is crawling through the hole to try to see where Andy ended up. As you know, he crawls through the sewer pipe, and the guard’s reaction to the smell sets Red off, until he starts laughing hysterically, realizing his friend escaped. He can’t stop laughing, and says he did the two weeks in solitary (that he got as punishment) standing on his head.
I bet Morgan Freeman could have pulled that scene off with no problem.
I read the book and knew exactly what was going to happen.
Just wanted to point out that two guys in New Jersey escaped using the same method not that long ago. A few differences, it took them a couple of weeks not 20 years, they were both locked up again and neither of them are innocent.
He had no family, and his wife was dead. He anticipated that he would be sent to prison.
He established a fictitious person to protect his assets while in prison.
Aside: It’s not a bad idea, actually. I’ve heard that people sent to prison, if they have significant assets, can actually be billed for the cost of their incarceration. Someone sent away for 20+ years could find that all of their assets have been seized by the state, if they were still in their name. I’m not sure how common this is, or if it was ever done in Maine at the time of the story.
How was he whiney, or a bastard? He seemed to accept the injustice that was dealt out to him with extraordinary equanimity. He never reported his rape or anything else illegal that happened to him. He dealt out revenge to those who deserved it and no others. Not seeing what you’re seeing at all.
My impression was that Andy was pretty much declared innocent of the murder by the press, what with all the incriminating info that must have been in the packet he turned in…but he was still guilty of breaking out of prison, and/or didn’t feel like rejoining the public world. Maybe the general consensus is different, I don’t know.
To answer the OP: Didn’t know anything about it (watched like 5-1 years after the fact), was surprised and pleased as well. 
I think it’s a great movie. It would have spoiled it somewhat for me to know he was escaping, so I’m sorry that happened with you.
It’s always seemed to me that the point of the title was that it was Red that was redeemed, not Andy. Andy just escaped. Red got his soul back.
That and Green Mile.
I to have told people that it was a SK story and they outright call me a liar.